Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

“You were supposed to have been born Fae, in the same realm as your Kingfisher. So I separated you. Hundreds of years before you were born, I shifted the events around your birth. Moved the pieces on the board and placed you far away, in a realm that should never have come into contact with his. But I watched as the boughs of the universe grew against their nature and aligned in such a way that you would still meet. I foresaw then that no matter how the boughs and branches of this tree were manipulated, you and he would always collide. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

Always meant to be!

“Threads like you and Kingfisher, that are drawn together and cross on an axis create a well of power. The energy the two of you draw together attracts an equal and opposite counterweight. Every possible future where the two of you are together ends with the vast majority of this tree dying. None of us can foresee any other way.”

But the moment where you meet, along with the moment you become mates, is a spark. The flame in the dark that draws the moth.

It was incumbent upon me to try and stop that spark from taking place, but as you’ve already learned, the fates themselves would not be guided down that path.”

I’d spent a great deal of time studying the various outcomes and paths of this universe once you and Kingfisher met, and while I never found a balance that meant good prevailed, there were pathways that led into… uncertainty.” “Uncertainty?” “Pathways that lead down roads, where both the way and the destination are blocked to even my sight. And in all of these veiled futures, where a chance still exists for life, there is one common factor.”

“You and Kingfisher fought at each other’s side, and you were God-Bound.”

“These oaths mark you as my ward. They protect both you and Fisher from the unwanted attentions of my brothers and my sister.”

“They would rather kill Fisher and roll the dice on...

I don’t want that to happen. It would break my daughters’ hearts.”

If you truly accept Fisher as your mate, then you must agree for the thread of your life to be severed from the tapestry of the universe. Once you do, none of us may affect your future. We won’t be able to see you at all, nor will my brothers and my sister be able to interfere with timelines or events that affect you, either. You’ll be on your own.”

“Fuck the fates. They don’t get to decide shit for me. I decide what my future is going to be. Did you not just say that mere days ago?”

“How would you do it exactly?” “By transforming you into something that has never been seen before,” he answered cryptically. “The universe cannot focus on that which it does not recognize.”

Oooh I can’t wait to see it!

“I’m not just the God of Chaos, Alchemist. I’m also the God of Change.

“The general consensus is that you’ll be able to eat normal food again soon, but it might take a day or two. When I transitioned, it took me six months before I didn’t hack up anything I tried to eat like it was a hairball.”

So vampires can eat food

My ears. The tips of my ears were pointed. They poked up through my mussed hair, as if they had always been this way. I opened my mouth to curse, saw the state of my teeth, and my heart set to racing. Canines. I had very long canines. And they looked sharp.

“As far as we can tell, you’re a half-vampire, half-Fae. Something none of us have ever seen before. As of now, we’re not sure which traits you’ve adopted from the Fae and which you’ve adopted from the vampires. All our healers are sure of is that you’re no longer human.”

Ahhhh!

“There are two kinds of forever, Alchemist. One is heaven. The other is hell. It doesn’t matter what I do. Make sure you choose your version of immortality wisely.”

I blinked, trying to force this version of Carrion Swift to make sense in my head. Still the same artfully messy copper-brown hair. Still the same blue eyes and that roguish grin. But also the sloped ears. And the pointed canines. And he was so tall.

He was hiding it this whole time!!

“Because you’re an asshole. I’ve known you since I was fifteen!” He shook his head, hands palm up in the air. “And? I’ve known you since I was a thousand and eighty-six. Do I win a prize?”

This bitch! A thousand and 86?!!

“So, Fisher’s father took you to Zilvaren when you were little to save you from Belikon. He glamored your ears and your canines so you wouldn’t stand out. He brought a bag of books along with you, so you could learn about your heritage and return when the time was right. And… some woman saved you?”

“Her name was Orlena,” Carrion said. “Orlena Parry. She was a slave in Madra’s palace. But that night, the night she pulled me out of the quicksilver, she fled the palace and escaped. She went to the Third, knowing she could get lost in the crowd there. And that’s where she stayed. She found work as a seamstress and secured somewhere for us to live. She raised me like I was her own son.”

Orlena got married when I was nine and took the name Swift. She had a daughter not long after. Petra. Petra grew up and had a daughter, too. The books were passed down the female line, and so was I. They kept me out of trouble as best they could and made sure I kept a lookout for signs that the quicksilver had opened again. They thought it was cruel that I was stuck in the Silver City and that I should go home and rule my people. The females of the Swift line have always been very bossy and overly concerned about my love life.”

Gods, how interlinked this all was. Fisher’s father had been the one to secret the true heir to the throne out of Yvelia. A thousand years later, his son had been the one to bring him back. It meant something. What, I couldn’t say, but I was sure we were all going to find out soon enough.

Everlayne was alive, and Ren was watching over her, though she had fallen into a deep sleep and couldn’t be roused. Te Léna and Iseabail were confident that she would wake any day, though.

Belikon had put up a prodigious fight, but the second Lorreth’s angel breath had torn out of Avisiéth, he, too, had fled like a fucking coward.

he said that your father’s blood was used to create the blood curse that allowed Malcolm to become a vampire, and that a vampire can’t drink from the living members of the bloodline that created them, nor can they enthrall them. He said that drinking from you should have killed Malcolm instantly, but because he had lived for so long, he was too powerful.”

“He also said that’s why Malcolm had Belikon kill your parents. That they were the only thing that posed a threat to him.”

“Human, Fae, or vampire. It doesn’t matter how long you live, Saeris; you will always be most sacred to me.”

There was magic in Fisher’s eyes. But… less quicksilver.

“Te Léna found a way to dampen the quicksilver’s effects. I’ve been seeing her for months, trying to get it under control, but her sessions were growing less and less effective. And then Iseabail said that she could help. Those two make a pretty good team. Te Léna helped to quiet the quicksilver, and Iseabail’s been teasing it out of me. I’ll have to have a million sessions. It’ll take a long time, but it should work.”

The Darn. We were on the wrong side of the Darn. We were inside Ammontraíeth.

As far as the vampire court is concerned, you’re to be coronated. In two days’ time, you officially become the new queen of Sanasroth.”

Holy shit!!!

My head snapped up, eyes boring into Tal’s placid face. We had grown up together, he and I. Apart from Renfis, I had known him the longest in the span of my miserable, piteous life.

I didn’t want to hear any of their names. Renfis. Lorreth. Everlayne. Danya. Te Léna.

“Bullshit. You’re his Keeper of Secrets. You know everything he know—”

possession

“I wonder what Belikon might want from the witches,” he mused. “The Balquhidder Clan hates everybody, it’s true, but they hate Belikon the most.

“Fire.” Another puff of black smoke had come out of his mouth as he’d rasped the word. “It feels like… I’m on fire.”

Tal’s Oath bound curse

Zovena was the reason why Tal found himself amongst the ranks of the Black Palace’s High Blood population in the first place. In a roundabout way, she was the reason things were always so tense between me and Tal, too. There were other reasons, of course. Too many to count, really. But Zovena was prime amongst them.

Zovena

And then Malcolm had lost interest after a while and had become vague in his demands. “Make him bleed” was a common command these days. Taladaius held up the pin. I offered him my finger.

Lol

I might have been escaping my prison cell, but I was leaving Tal to his. In another life, we’d find the words we needed to say to each other and maybe even stumble across a way to forgive each other, too. But for now, the nod he gave me and the nod I returned to him would have to suffice.

I realized with no small amount of horror that I knew her face. I had seen it a hundred times, sketched into the pages of my mother’s notebooks. I knew who she was supposed to be to me—the one my mother had told me would come. My counterweight. The female I would love and scourge the worlds for. And she was beautiful. Breathtakingly so. The way she stubbornly clung onto life, refusing to die even as her body failed her, was remarkable.

My father had been sent to Zilvaren to hide the Daianthus heir amongst the humans. The gates had closed not long after.

So his father could still be on this side?

“You had better pull through this, Oshellith,” I told her. “For better or for worse, I get the feeling that you’re about to turn everything upside down.”