Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

stricken dumb by what I’d just done.

“Saeris, no! Do not touch the sword. Do not… turn the key!” he panted. “Do not open the gate! You—you’ve no idea the hell you will unleash on this place!”

My vision was going at last. Blackness crept in, rolling before my eyes like a midnight fog. Only it wasn’t a fog. It was something else. It was… Death. The bastard had come to claim me in person. Emerging from the silver, the huge figure rose up from the pool as if ascending from the very depths of hell itself. Broad shoulders. Wet, shoulder-length black hair. Tall. Taller than any other man I’d ever seen. His eyes shone an iridescent, shimmering green, the pupil of the right eye rimmed by the same shining metallic silver that ran in ribbons from the black leather armor that covered his chest and arms. He towered over me, his lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing gleaming white teeth and sharp canines. In his hand, he held a monstrous sword forged out of a black metal that vibrated with a tempestuous energy that sang in the marrow of my bones. He raised the sword, about to bring it down and cleave me in two, but then his quick eyes landed on the ancient sword I was still holding and he froze, arm raised above his head.

“Oh. I was in the palace. Madra’s captain was trying to kill me. I… stopped his dagger somehow and grabbed hold of a sword. Then the floor turned to molten silver. A big pool of it. And… something came out of it.” “Something? Or someone?” “A man,” I whispered. But Everlayne shook her head. “A male. He came because the sword called to him…” She trailed off, throwing her hands in the air. “Gods, I still don’t know your name. Unless you don’t have a name.”

“Ahh. Saeris. A pretty name. A Fae name. How are you feeling? You’re sore, I bet, but you must be feeling a lot better than when you first arrived.”

“I take it… we’re not in the Silver City, then,” I said slowly. She smiled. “We’re not.” My stomach rolled. “Then where are we?” “Yvelia.” She beamed, as though her one-word answer explained my entire situation. “And… where is that?” “Yvelia! More specifically, the Winter Palace. Didn’t your mother’s bedtime stories tell you anyth—”

When you speak to my father, you can ask him about returning to your Silver City.” “And who the hell is your father to tell me if I get to go home?” My anger echoed loudly up and down the hallway. Both guards, who stood in stern silence, flinched, looking deeply uncomfortable. “He is Belikon De Barra,” Everlayne said evenly. “King of the Yvelian Fae.”

stared down at the book I’d been… Huh. Wait. I held up the book, tilting my head, eyes narrowed at Rusarius. “How come I can read this?” “What do you mean?” he asked. “Well, I’m from another place. An entirely different realm. What are the chances that you and I even speak the same language? That we share a written language? It’s just… it’s impossible.” It was wild that this hadn’t occurred to me before. “Hmm, no. Not impossible. Not even improbable, actually,” said Rusarius. “You explain this one, sweet,” he said to Everlayne. “There’s one more book I want to find before you leave.” Everlayne seemed happy to be given the task. “Well,” she said, leaning across the table to take the book out of my hand. “Right now, you’re speaking Common Fae. This book was written in Common Fae, too. There are other languages in Yvelia. Other dialects. But Common Fae is spoken by all of the courts as a shared, well, common tongue. When the first Fae traveled to your realm, the humans there spoke a different language altogether. Over the years, our language and our written word became adopted by the humans. Even though we were cut off from the other realms, it seems as though our language has thrived. In Zilvaren, at least. Zilvaren had Madra, and your queen has always spoken Common Fae. She served as an anchor to our language. Perhaps in other realms, languages and alphabets have changed.”

We don’t know how she discovered that the quicksilver could be stilled with an Alchimeran sword, either. That information was closely guarded by our kind for generations. But you don’t need to be Fae or possess any special gift in order to close the doors between our realms. The sword will do it for you. As far as we know, when one pool of quicksilver is activated, all quicksilver everywhere is activated. It’s joined by some kind of…” She frowned, searching for a way to explain. “A ribbon of energy, I suppose. If you take a sword like Solace and plunge it into the quicksilver, it severs that energy in a way that paralyzes it. Until Solace was removed, every entrance to the pathway became frozen. There were members of this court on scouting parties, exploring new pathways that had only recently opened up when Madra cut the cord. Friends. Family members. They became trapped wherever they were. They haven’t been seen since.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. He looks like he’s about thirty. So, maybe I’d say he was…” Gods, convincing the words to come out of my mouth was impossible. This was madness. “Go on,” Everlayne prompted. “I don’t know, eighteen hundred years old?” “Not bad. He’s one thousand seven hundred and thirty years old.” “One thousand seven hundred and thirty-three,” came a deep voice.

“Next time you’re curious about me, feel free to ask me,” Kingfisher said as he laid his hand on the forge’s brand-new door.

“Elroy swears that a man will lie about the size of his cock every time a woman asks him.” Kingfisher stilled. “Are you asking me how big my cock is, Osha?” “I don’t care how big it is. I care about the way you answer.” A slow, terrifying smirk spread across his face. “It’s big enough to make you scream and then some.” “See.” I jabbed a finger at him. “You’re not going to be honest.”

He looked around the forge, feigning confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure that I understand your meaning.” “Ask a man how big his dick is, and he’ll show you that he’s full of shit.” “Maybe. But I’m not a man. I’m a Fae male.” He paused. “And maybe I’m just well-endowed.” “Or maybe you’re just wasting my time, and we should get on with whatever you’re going to attempt to teach me here,” I snapped. Kingfisher’s hands moved to the back of his neck. It took him all of four seconds to unfasten his gorget and slide the silver plate free. “Maybe the issue is that you asked me a question about my cock like a hungry little bitch in heat and didn’t ask me something that mattered.”

My jaw was screaming, I was clenching my teeth so hard. “Fuck—you—” “There you go again. Hungry, needy little bitch in heat, begging to be fucked…” he taunted.

“Careful, human. We Fae have an excellent sense of smell. You’d be amazed what we can scent floating on the air.”

Fisher’s normally loose black shirt was plastered to his chest. He drew in a deep breath, his shoulders rising, and— I jerked when he snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You could at least say hello before you start eye-fucking me.”

“It’s always confounded me. Humans aren’t restricted by the same laws as the Oath Bound Fae. You creatures can lie whenever you want. You do it all of the time. And yet you’re all so fucking bad at it.”

He shrugged, turning away. As soon as his back was to me, I sucked in a ragged breath, trying to regain my composure while he wasn’t looking. “It isn’t practical, learning the names of humans,” he said. “You come and go so quickly. I only bother to learn the names of creatures who live longer than a heartbeat.” My hands shook as I looped the apron ties around my waist and then knotted them over my stomach. “It’s Saeris. My name. Call me that or nothing at all.” He cast an amused look over his shoulder, his lips parted a fraction, exposing the briefest glimpse of teeth. “Nothing at all? I like the sound of that. Come here and look at this, Nothing At All.”

“The bone was Fae,” he said after a moment. “For centuries, our kind has tried to understand how the relics that allow us to travel through the quicksilver were made. There have been many theories over the years, but that’s all they’ve ever been. Theories. With the quicksilver sleeping, we haven’t been able to experiment or put any of those theories to the test. But now that you’re here…” “You want me to wake the quicksilver so you can try and bind things to it and see if you can make a relic out of it.” “Exactly.” He grinned.

“If you want it, come here and touch it,” he rumbled.

“What do you know about Fae anatomy, Osha?” he whispered.

“We have similar internal organs, though we do possess a few that humans do not.” Extra internal organs? That was intriguing. “We’re bigger. Taller, of course,” he continued. I arched an eyebrow at that. “Of course.” “Our hearts are bigger by ratio.” I couldn’t help it. I looked up. “Really?” He nodded. “Mm-hmm.” “Wow. Weird.” “Our eyesight is far superior to yours. Our… sense of smell,” he said, his eyes lowering, traveling down my body.

“Our sense of taste is superior to yours. Touch. Our sense of hearing is very sharp. We can hear the smallest sound at a great distance.” The silver in his right eye flared as he exhaled, his breath fanning across my cheek. “We can hear each other’s heartbeats.”

“Our Fae hearts rarely betray us. We’re calm creatures. But you, Osha? You’re a ball of chaos. Your heart betrays you at every turn.”

mouth. I needed to look away. I had to. “I don’t hate your kind. I’m just disappointed by how breakable you are. If I held you down and fucked you the way I’m imagining fucking you right now, I doubt that you’d survive it.”

again. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “You can pull away at any time. Looks to me like you’re choosing to stay. It also looks like you’re having to stop yourself from touching me. You want to touch me the way I’m touching you, don’t you? To feel the weight of me beneath your palms. The heat of me…” He angled his head a fraction, something wicked dancing in his eyes. “Just to see what would happen.”

“That your body is betraying you in other ways. That I can smell you, Little Osha, and I’m thinking about drinking the sweet nectar you’re making for me straight from the fucking cup.”

“Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what I taste like?”

“Go on. Pull back. I won’t stop you,” he said. “Or you could kiss me. You could kiss me. I’ll just sit here. I won’t move a muscle.” “Why would I do that?” “Because you’re intrigued. Because you’re bored. Because you’re super fucking aroused right now, and you want to follow through on whatever little fantasies are playing out in your head.” “Yeah. Right. I’m just… going to kiss you. And you’re just going to sit there. You aren’t going to move a muscle. You’re not even going to kiss me back?” Gods above, saying it out loud made it sound even more ridiculous. Kingfisher just stared at me. “Find out.”

This was the kiss to end all kisses. Demanding, urgent, and carnal.

I hated this male. Hated him with every fiber of my being. But curse me, I wanted him just as bad. Grabbing his hair, I wound it tight around my fingers, clenching my hand into a fist. Kingfisher’s head rocked back, a low, rumbling groan issuing from his throat. I nipped and tugged at his bottom lip, sighing into his mouth, and the huge male went utterly still beneath me.

“Careful,” he panted. “I swore I’d be still while you kissed me. At no point did I promise to exercise restraint if you climbed up into my lap and st...

“You like calling me that, don’t you. Knock yourself out. You did lie. You lied with your body. With your mouth. You crawled up into my lap, and kissed me, and rubbed yourself all over me, and used the opportunity to take something from me.”

“You are going to stay here, and you are going to figure out how to create relics for us. You’re going to figure out how to manipulate the quicksilver if it’s the last thing you do.”

He would go back to Zilvaren for me in order to strike a bargain. He needed me to help him that badly. And if that were true, then it also meant… “I want two.” He tossed his head back and let out a bark of laughter. “What?” “My brother Hayden and Elroy.”

“I can’t choose! How am I supposed to… to pick which one of them lives and which one of them dies?” “You share blood with one of them. The answer’s simple.” It really was that easy for him. He’d make this decision easily and walk away without a scrap of guilt. That’s who Kingfisher was. “I can’t—”

Kingfisher took Nimerelle, gritting his teeth as he closed his hand around the black metal and dragged his palm along the blade. Blood welled and dripped between his fingers, splattering onto the stone. He pointed Nimerelle at me. “Blood, Little Osha. It’s the only way to seal this between us.”

“What am I gonna call you? If you’re gonna be hanging around, you need to have a name.” He peered up at me, his little onyx eyes narrowed to slits, eyelids slowly blinking so that I could make out every single one of his tiny white eyelashes. “What do you think about Onyx?” I asked him. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again for a long time, which I took to be a sign of approval.

“Feeling a little sore, human?” “Sore doesn’t come close,” I grumbled. “I’ll happily kiss all of your aches and pains better for you once we strike camp. I’ve been told my mouth has healing properties. Especially when administered between a pair of thighs.”

“I don’t enjoy hurting people. I don’t like it at all. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary. To avoid far more serious pain, sometimes we have to endure a little sting. Sometimes, some of us have to inflict it. You say it so mockingly, but I do care about your well-being. You’re important. Without you, I can’t end this war or protect my people. I have to keep you safe so I can accomplish my goals. So yes, I’ll hurt you if it means I keep you safe. I’ll force you to follow me to the ends of this realm, because that is the only way I can make sure you stay alive. Now drink your beer.”

“Thankfully, you won’t experience this again. For some reason, the gates only affect us the first time we use them. For most of us, it’s just a little dizziness. Maybe a headache. For a human, it’s a little more than that, it seems. No one’s seen a human in a very long time. There’s a lot we’ve forgotten. I’m sorry.”

Carrion shook his head. “You’re right. Ignore me. So, you have the ability to awaken this quicksilver. The pool that your new boyfriend dragged me into—” “He is not my boyfriend.”

“He wants me to make relics for him. So that more members of the Fae can travel without losing their minds.”

“Just so that you’re fully equipped with all of the facts,” he said in a smooth tone. “I’m only half insane. And yes, your friend is bound to me. Did she tell you that she’s the only reason you’re still alive yet?” Fisher picked

“If Belikon has all of Yvelia’s silver, then surely he’d give it to you? If it’s so vital to win the war?” Kingfisher snorted. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no. Belikon won’t give us silver. He won’t give us aid. He won’t give us food, or clothes, or weapons. He doesn’t give a fuck about this war.”

“There’s every way,” Fisher rumbled, his eyes darkening. “I’d know the smell of you anywhere. On anyone. I’d know it blind and in the dark. Across a fucking sea. I’d be able to scent you—”

“I’ve compelled you three times. All three times, I think you’ll find it was for your own good.” “That’s a horrible excuse! You—” “If I were evil and using your oath for my own purposes, I’d order you onto your knees for me,” he said, cutting me off. “I’d order you to part your legs for me. I’d order you to suck and fuck me until you passed out from exhaustion. Is that what you want, Little Osha?”

“If I compelled you to do it, you’d be innocent. Your actions wouldn’t be your fault. You wouldn’t have to face the fact that you wanted me.” “Just stop, Fisher.” “And I’d prove what a vile monster I was, wouldn’t I? How vindicating for you. To get exactly what your body is calling out for while also being proven right.” “You’re out of your fucking mind,” I whispered. “That’s what they tell me. But I don’t know. Aside from the relentless chatter in my head, personally, I think I’m doing just fine.” “I don’t want you, Fisher.” “You’re thinking about my hands sliding up the insides of your thighs right now,” he said. “About my fingers slipping inside the wet folds of you. Working against your swollen clit, rubbing you until you’re panting and whimpering, begging for me to sink my cock into your—”

“That is Ammontraíeth,” Ren said, emerging from the shadow gate, leading his horse behind him. “The seat of the enemy.” “Ammontraíeth?” Even the name felt like a perversion as I forced it out. “Hell’s teeth.”

“Have you paused to consider that I might want to stay alive? That I’d do whatever it was you wanted me to do if you just explained why it was important to my well-being?”