Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

“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?”

“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—”

The Darn began in the east as a spring, up in the Shallow Mountains, where the Gilarian Fae and the Autumn Court presided.

When we were blighted with our blood curse thousands of years ago, you were definitely dinner. But never slaves.” The blood curse. The one he’d spoken of before, back in the halls of the Winter Palace. He’d said the sharp canines the Fae still possessed were a remnant of that curse. Were their children born with them, though? Or had Kingfisher been alive then? Had he suffered under the curse and then been freed from it? Every Fae I’d seen had elongated teeth, so I doubted that was the case.

Share all the bowls of stew you like with Lorreth or Ren. Just don’t share food with that prick. It’s bad enough that you insist on sharing air with him. I’d rather you didn’t eat off the same fucking plate, too.”

Malcolm is the strongest of them. Their king. Of all the Fae who chose to remain vampires, he alone is strong enough to fully turn someone and ensure they remain themselves. What makes them who they are. Their personality and their character traits. When his princes bite and turn someone, their victims die and return without their souls, nothing more than mindless, hungry shells. They obey their masters, and they feed.”

He wasn’t in control. “You’re bound, aren’t you?” I said, dismayed. “You literally can’t tell me—” “Stop,” he commanded.

“I can want to fuck you and still hate you, Little Osha.”

“You asked for this. When you’re sore from coming so hard and you can’t recall your own name, remember that, Little Osha.”

“I can’t wait to hear what kind of sounds you make when I thrust into you for the first time,” he purred. “I’m going to make you pant for me, Little Osha. And when we’re done, I’ll close my eyes and replay the sound of you moaning in my head every time I stroke myself to completion.”

“No arguments, Osha. I’ve driven myself half-crazy wondering what you look like. I need to fucking see. Put me out of my misery.”

“Perfect. You’re absolutely fucking perfect. If Danya does rip my head off tomorrow, at least now I’ll die happy.”

“You smell so, so fucking good,” he said thickly. “Back in the forge at the palace, I caught a hint of this. I knew then I had to taste you. This smell has been haunting my fucking dreams. I haven’t been able to think straight for remembering the scent of your need.”

could probably use a sho—” “Do not fucking dare finish that sentence,” he snarled. “I don’t want a mouthful of soap and perfume. I want to taste you.”

“Gods and fucking martyrs. Holy fucking shit. That’s right. Come. Show me how pretty you are when you fall apart.”

did not ask for a tattoo, Fisher,” I hissed. “I definitely didn’t ask for a bird to be permanently inked right above my fucking boob. You need to take it back.” His gaze remained fixed straight ahead. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“I can’t have children, Fisher. I was cleansed when I was fourteen.” I expected to see relief on his face. But instead, his face drained of color. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” I stopped laughing. “I was cleansed. When I was fourteen. They do it to about seventy percent of the girls in my ward.”

“The Third Ward’s the poorest,” I told him. “Madra’s health advisors decided that we shouldn’t be allowed to procreate, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to support ourselves. The policy’s been in effect for over a hundred years. Seven out of every ten female babies are tagged when they’re registered with the ward officials.” I showed him the small black cross tattooed behind my left ear. The mark that meant I wasn’t allowed to breed.

“Did you know, the Yvelian Fae are the youngest of the Fae houses? By a thousand years. There was a dispute between these two brothers, and they splintered off to make their own court.”

“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”

“It’s not that simple. Danya’s sword was special. It was like Nimerelle once, imbued with old potent magic. It’s…” He winced at the bristling spines of metal protruding from the stone wall. “It was a precious Fae heirloom. Danya’s birthright. A god sword forged by the ancient Alchimeran masters. Such swords are religious icons to the Fae. It represented Danya’s rank and marked her as an original member of the Lupo Proelia.

“So… back in Zilvaren? It was never the iron, or the copper, or the gold that reacted to me? It was…” Kingfisher nodded. “It’s always been quicksilver. It was bound to many different alloys and metals before, back when there were plenty of Alchemists and the pathways were still open between our worlds. It made weapons more powerful. Turned them into conduits that could channel vast quantities of magic.”

“Our historical records show that most Alchemists could only command objects if the item in question was comprised of at least five percent quicksilver. And even then, it was typical that they could only transmute the quicksilver from its solid to its liquid state so that it could be forged. There are no records of objects being fragmented like this.”

“That makes you the most powerful Alchemist ever recorded,” Lorreth supplied. “Capable of changing how we’ve been fighting this war in ways even we can’t imagine.

“When we turn twenty-one, we kneel before the Firinn Stone and make our decision. Every one of us. We have a choice. Bleed on the stone and make our vow. To always be truthful. To always be bound by our word, no matter what it costs us.” “Or?” “Or we choose the Lawless path. A Lawless Fae may lie. They may cheat. They may steal. Useful tools in many situations, I’ll admit. But they come with a price that Kingfisher—and the rest of us, I might add—was not willing to pay.”

“It’s an ancient rite,” Lorreth said. “One very few know how to perform anymore. But Fisher’s father had almost died once, and his friend had used it to save him. So, he’d made sure Fisher knew it, too, in case, one day, he was able to use it to save the life of someone who was important to him.”

“Yes. A stranger. And Fisher did it anyway. He bonded a small part of himself to the scrap of life that was clinging on inside me, and that was that. I was still sick as a dog, but death loosened his grip on me. I knew I was going to live, and so did Kingfisher. He told me he was leaving to find the other wolves and that he’d be back in three months. He said I could go as soon as I was feeling better, if that’s what I wanted to do, but that there was a place here for me as well, if I preferred the idea of that instead.”

“Good question. If I die first, the piece of Fisher’s soul returns to him. He becomes whole again. Everybody has a big party. The end. But if he dies first, he’s condemned to wait here for me to die before he can move on. He’d be trapped here, in a non-corporeal state, unable to touch anything or anyone. Unable to be heard. That’s the sacrifice he made when he decided to give me the gift of life. It’s happened before. The Fae male or female who tore off a piece of their soul dies first, of natural or unnatural causes, and then the recipient lives on in fine health for another two thousand years.

Every warrior in Irrín will smell me on you, Fisher’s voice rumbled in my mind. I’m going to make you hoarse from screaming my fucking name. I’m going to mark you in every way imaginable, so that everyone knows you’re fucking mine.

“I name you Avisiéth. The Unsung Song. Redemption’s Dawn.”

“I was wrong, y’know. You are a good thief.” “What have I stolen?” But he smiled a small, sad smile, slowly shaking his head. “Sleep a little. The water will stay warm. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve spoken to Ren.”

“Don’t you dare die on my watch, Saeris Fane! Fisher will never forgive me if his sole reason for living is torn to pieces on her first fucking battlefield.”

“He wants me,” he whispered. Taladaius’s bark of amusement was as harsh as cracking ice. “Yes, it’s true you’re on his wish list. Always, my friend. But he doesn’t just want you this time. You might have been a valuable player in this game before, but a lot’s changed of late. There are far more interesting pieces on the board.”

“You can kick and scream all you like,” he said. “But he wants the Alchemist, Fisher. If he has to burn down all of Yvelia to claim her, you know perfectly well that he’ll do it.”

“Malcolm was the first to be affected by the blood curse. The very first. When Rurik Daianthus, the last Yvelian king, discovered the cure, Malcolm was one of the few who chose to remain vampires. Over the centuries, the others who had accepted their curse were systematically killed off until only Malcolm remained. There were whispers that Malcolm ingested their power somehow. He is millennia old, undying, never aging. Every year he survives, he grows in strength and capability. His venom is potent beyond imagination. When one of his lords bites a victim, they can drink and sate their thirst without killing. If they bite the same human a number of times, eventually they become enthralled—” “There. That word. What does that mean?” “The victim becomes bound to the vampire who bit them,” Lorreth said, stepping in. “Mindlessly devoted to their needs. They’ll feed and fuck their master without a single thought for themselves. Inevitably, their masters grow bored and drain them, and then their victim dies. Three days later, they rise from wherever they’ve been discarded and become the feeders you’ve seen on the river.”

“So, they don’t just show up on their own? The marks? Like… out of the blue? Overnight? Or… while… y’know… you’re having sex with someone?” Te Léna laughed brightly. “Of course not. Don’t be silly.” The edge of panic rising inside me settled just a little. But then Te Léna spoke again. “Once upon a time, that was the case. Back when true mating bonds existed. Unions between true mates were blessed with marks from the Fates. That’s where the tradition of inking our hands originated from. But there’s no such thing as true mates anymore. When the gods left Yvelia, certain elements of our magic either died or waned over time. The god swords, for example. They were very slowly cut off from the source of the magic they channeled. Our ability to form mating bonds also died out over thousands of years, until it disappeared altogether.”

“Weakness. Vulnerability.” “I am not weak, Fisher! I’m not like those butterflies, pathetic, hatching and dying in the cold—” “Not you! Me!” He thumped himself in his chest, suddenly furious. “My weakness! My vulnerability! I’ve known for centuries that you were coming. That you were just going to show up one day and change everything. You’re the chink in my armor, Saeris. The soft spot where the knife slides in. You are the thing that Malcolm will hurt in order to hurt me, and I couldn’t… couldn’t fucking bear it!”

“The Oshellith hatch once in most Fae lifetimes. Up north, in the wastelands, far beyond Ajun Sky, where the dragons used to live. The air’s so cold there that it’ll freeze in your lungs if you breathe it in without a mask. No life exists there for long. But once in a thousand years, the howling winds drop, signaling the coming of the Oshellith. News of that event travels quickly. That’s when the bravest of our kind set out. They go on foot where no horse can go. When they reach the valley where the Oshellith hatch, they find the butterfly’s cocoons and they shield them with their bodies. They give them whatever heat they can, for as long as they can. It can take up to twelve hours for them to break out of those cocoons. But when they do…” Kingfisher swallowed, shaking his head. “It’s the most beautiful thing a person can experience in this lifetime. They glow blue and pink and silver, with an ethereal light. They have music, though no one knows how. A sweet, soft song that’s capable of healing. The Oshellith mate and lay their eggs, but once that’s done, they fill the air, and they dance. Protecting them while they live is considered a sacred rite that many die in order to perform. That’s what Oshellith means in Old Fae, Saeris. Most Sacred.”

“All names hold power in this place. Every name means something. We have true names that we don’t share with anyone. Not our friends. Not our families. Our mothers are often the only people who actually know it. And even a mother might use her child’s name to her own advantage in the pursuit of power. This place—it’s fucked, okay. And you show up, and you have one fucking name, and everybody knows it. And I couldn’t say it because I was scared. Of what it would do to me when I did. It would be like acknowledging you were here after all this time. So I called you Osha instead. But it meant more, Saeris. To me, it meant more.”

“All of this time…” I whispered. “But… you called me that from the very start.” Kingfisher nodded slowly, eyes shining bright. “Most sacred,” he repeated, whispering the words.

“She wrote about you,” he whispered. “My mother. Pages and pages. She knew that she’d die soon, and so she wrote me a book. ‘A mother is always there for her son,’ she told me. ‘It doesn’t matter that he grows and steps into his power. Even the strongest warrior’s heart can break. His soul can still be crushed. Since I won’t be able to comfort you when the challenges before you feel too great, take this book and keep it as a guide. Above all, know this. There will be times when the world seeks to destroy you, Kingfisher. But you are stronger than you can ever know. You will not falter. And you will not face it all alone.’”

My heart squeezed, my throat burning with emotion. Centuries ago, a mother had looked into her son’s future, seeking comfort, to assure herself that he would live a good life. And she had seen the pain and suffering the fates had in store for her boy, and then she had seen me and known that he would be okay.

She… she drew you.” Fisher’s voice grew tighter as he fought to speak. Balancing on the edge of tears, he forced himself to laugh instead of cry. “And she captured you almost perfectly, too.”

“In all of her drawings of you, your ears were like mine. You were Fae. And when I saw…” He sucked in a deep breath. Sat up a little straighter. “When I felt Solace calling to me and I stepped into that pool, I saw that you were human, and I knew in an instant how easily this place would destroy you. So I made the decision to leave you there. But I couldn’t leave you, could I?” he continued. “Your stomach was torn wide open. You were dying. I had no choice but to bring you back. So I decided to be awful to you, so you’d fucking hate me and want nothing to do with me.” “Stellar plan,” I whispered. “That really panned out.”

“My mother never said anything about a mating bond. They haven’t existed for so long. The thought never even crossed my mind. But when I found you lying in that pool of blood, I felt it, like a band snapping into place. I smelled it on you, too. And I… I was so fucking angry.” He clenched his jaw. “Angry that the fates had sealed us that way, when no one else in living memory had been affected by a bond. Angry that it had happened before either of us had even had a chance to get to know each other. I had no idea the marks would show up like that. Without any fucking warning. Without us being married, or even… even… deciding for ourselves that we wanted to be together.

I ran my free hand gently through his hair, screaming inside, so fucking angry at him, and at myself, and at the gods, and the whole fucking universe for doing this to us. This wasn’t fair. None of it was.

“You really think I’m going to let you sleep out here again?” he asked. “I didn’t know if you’d want me in your bed,” I told him. “If it were up to me, we wouldn’t spend another night without each other again.”

“Nobody will ever fuck you the way I’m about to fuck you, Saeris Fane. I’m about to introduce you to all seven gods. When you meet them, don’t forget to tell them I’m the one you worship on your knees.”

“I’ll be grateful for every second that I can say that I belong to you, Saeris Fane. Eighty years or eighteen hours. It doesn’t matter to me. It’ll still be the highest honor of my life. But don’t—Are you about to have a heart attack? Your pulse is flying.” The bastard laughed, and I nearly burst into tears. “Don’t freak out. Here. Look.”

“I’m in love with you, Saeris Fane,” he whispered quietly into my hair. “And I’m already half-mad, anyway. What’s a little complicated thrown into the mix?”