Chapter 120: Squirt's fall

Pakos fell first, unconscious from his overuse of his magic. Squirt screamed for him, twisting in midair to try and catch his small, limp body before it fell to the inferno bear or the wildfire spreading in the surrounding Wylds.

Her fingers grasped fur, her own wings appearing at her back on instinct, and Squirt cried out in pain as her hands latched onto Pakos. Her wings slowed their descent for all of a moment before faltering with an audible snap, white hot pain blinding her to anything but the desperation to grab him, save him, protect him. Pulling him into her chest, her wings snapped again from the maneuver, disappearing back into the ether. She curled into a ball, bracing for impact and trying to figure out how to survive incineration as the heat of the flames evaporated the very sweat from her brow—

She was suddenly pulled into a chest, the hold gentle and possessive. The heat of the flames dissipated, leaving only cool comfort, and her burning lungs gasped out a singular breath, inhaling the sweetness of air, moss, earth, and, of all things, a touch of rosemary.

A wash of power flooded her, healing the minor burns, eagerly fueling her with energy and awareness. She opened her eyes, unsure of when they had shut, staring directly into the cold fury on the pest’s face.

Time stood still. Massive twisting arms of vines had created a shield between them and a tendril of flame. She could feel the magic running through the earth, an awareness she’d never once had in her life, a sudden understanding of how the powerful saw without eyes.

The trees sang to her.

And him with his wings, his eyes that stark violet, his hair a rich brown, having dropped the illusion of pink.

It was the singular most beautiful sight she had ever seen, the way fury burned in swirls of blue and purple in his eyes, the backdrop of his wings, and the singing of the trees.

He really was a demigod.

His voice echoed with power. “We will protect her with everything we are.”

The trees shifted, echoing his statement between them until it was whispered for miles around.

With another roar, the inferno bear was buried under a sheet of mud at least a hundred feet high slowly lowering itself onto the feybeast.

His voice tense but no longer echoing with power, he asked, “What next?”

She blinked, her heart pounding with a mix of fear, attraction, and sheer awe at the man holding her. His eyes remained fixed on the beast as he buried it.

It took her another full second before she could speak, and when she did, her voice was uncharacteristically breathy in a way that had nothing to do with the battle. “It’s… with the flames put out, weapons can now hit it without incinerating.”

His brows furrowed slightly, the rage abruptly dissipating as his eyes turned on her. “That’s it?”

She nodded, still in a daze. “That’s it.”

Relief and a happy grin bloomed across his features, brightening them. Snapping his fingers, spikes thirty meters high and sharpened to a knife point impaled themselves through the creature. With a final gurgle, it burst into a vacuum of power intense enough she found herself worriedly—albeit briefly—leaning into the pest’s hold before it reformed as a red and pink stone as large as Squirt was tall.

“Are you hurt?”

She blinked repeatedly, pulled out of her thoughts by the question and back into reality. Shifting Pakos in her arms, she checked on him first, both physically and via their bond.

Though magically exhausted, he was unharmed, and relief left her limp. The pest’s arms remained tender, his attention focused, and even though the fires raged beneath them, the only heat she could feel was the heat of him against her.

Softer than before, he repeated, “Are you hurt?”

She had been.

A shiver of terror wracked its way through Squirt’s body. Gods. Her wings. Though incorporeal as they were, she felt no pain, she knew from experience that didn’t make the injury itself go away.

It hurt to acknowledge that she couldn’t even keep herself from falling to her death. Her. A gods damned pixie, who should have been immune to the dangers of gravity as a consolation prize for being small and physically weak, couldn’t even catch herself.

Pakos would have died without the pest there to catch them.

Squirt had known logically that Pakos wasn’t getting enough moonlight, not when she had him watching the greenlings day in and day out. And this had been the consequence.

A deadly one.

To the surprise of them both, Squirt turned back into the pest’s chest, now consciously leaning into his hold on her. His body curled somewhat, his wings shifting as if to hide her from the world at large. Though she did not break down and cry, nor sob, nor anything dramatic, the very act of her leaning into his hold was meaningful in a way they both understood. His hands tenderly rubbed circles on her back as he hummed a ditty, the sound and action more soothing than she expected. Each inhale steadied her once more, slowing her beating heart and bringing her back to the present. Allowing her mind to focus.

He smelled like the Wylds. Not the dangerous Wylds, but the safety of them. Like the late fall blooms when feybeasts ignored her entirely, when she was freer than she would otherwise ever be.

Just beyond the circle of his arms, she could hear the crackle of flames from the raging wildfire. Her voice was hoarse with vulnerability but tempered with determination. “We need to put out the flames.”

The pest nodded.

But he didn’t move.

She pulled back somewhat, just enough to see his expression and better judge his state. Worry wrinkled the corners of his eyes, dampening the usual smile.

He asked once more, “Are you hurt?”

Despite her intent, the answer flashed across her face, deepening the lines in his.

She shook her head, banishing those fears. With her wings away, the pain did not linger, and that fire needed someone to put it out.

“Is Pakos?”

An easier question. “No, he… he hasn’t been getting enough moonlight. Ran out of magic.”

“I see. Should we do something for him?”

“Later. We need to tell his lordship the battle is over so he can put out these flames.” If they didn’t take care of it soon, the flames would reach the crops and negate their entire battle. Pakos was safe in her arms, and that was all that mattered.

He shifted, scooping her legs to hold her more securely against him. Though she frowned, she didn’t protest the hold. Coward as she was, there was still a slight tremor of fear to her limbs.

If she lost her wings—

No. Not now. Focus on now.

“I’ll spell us invisible, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go quickly. Hold on.”

Trusting him, she curled inward around Pakos’ limp form, holding him securely to her chest.

His magic surrounded her, and for the briefest beat, she could hear the singing of the trees once more. Then her gut lurched as he quickstepped repeatedly, one after another, taking her back to the Keep in less than a minute.

The fucker was faster than Pakos was.

Raw magical power always augmented a fey’s physical ability, but this? To outrun the Hunt’s own moonhound?

Then again, he didn’t sleep, and Pakos did, so really, she should have seen it coming.

Landing on the ramparts, Squirt opened her tightly squeezed eyes, hearing the calls of soldiers shouting orders and rushing to their stations, the ringing of the alarm bells still echoing in the town itself.

Naturally, she found herself looking directly at Lord Everwinter.

And Lord Everwinter was staring back at her.

The color started to drain from her face when the pest cleared his throat and suddenly said, “Ah, he can see, the others cannot. I am good at sneaking, non?”

The lord raised one impeccable eyebrow at the pair of pixies standing on the rampart in front of him, invisible to his soldiers. His eyes flickered to Pakos in Squirt’s hold, and a touch of a growl entered his normally calm voice. “Pakos?”

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Squirt shifted, unconsciously turning into the pest’s hold as she held the sleeping Pakos to her chest. “He’s fine.” He would be. “The beast is dead, we just need to put out the fire.”

The lord nodded solemnly, the growl extinguished before it really took hold of him. He closed his eyes. The air chilled, the taste of cold ocean air invading her sense. The sudden drop in temperature had a shiver roll across her body. Frost gathered on the available stone closest to the lord, glittering briefly in the sunlight. Briefly, because in a matter of seconds, everything darkened. Clouds began to gather, thick and heavy with rain. Colors dimmed to shades of gray and whisps of silver and blue—the lord’s magic condensing in the air around them.

Much like the pest, waves of magic thick enough for Squirt to see clearly appeared in the air around him, expanding out across the larger area. With it spread a wave of cold air, the gathering clouds expanding out, farther than the keep, billowing and growing over the gathering smoke.

The pest whispered, “Would you like to see better?”

Curious at the offer and the magic being performed, Squirt nodded, her body once more relaxed in his arms.

The pest pulled out his wings, floating up higher to watch from well above the treeline. The blue and silver threads of magic intertwined, twisting together and expanding into the sky, skittering over the dark surface of the grey clouds as they spread over the burning forest. The interplay of magics was fascinatingly complex even at this beginning stage, where he was doing little more than injecting copious amounts of magic into the sky.

The lord’s voice echoed around the lands, booming with words of power. The incantation he spoke created runes that appeared in front of his face, amplifying effects and thickening the magic into conscious points of physical manifestation.

The mere presence of this much magic should have crushed all of the fey around him, but distributed through the land via his title, it did not weigh on their bodies and souls, surrounding them all in just a touch of his magic. Just as when he had shared his magic with her, the touch of it was as calm as the man himself, and she found herself watching with not a little bit of awe. A different awe than what the pest instilled in her. This wasn’t awe at sheer natural ability, but at the discipline of practice and technical finesse.

Then, he finished. The final word invoked the spell, and all at once the clouds dropped their bounty. A torrent of rain fell upon the flames, holding itself in place and drowning the flames where they burned. As the flames disappeared, the water lost its shape, falling once again as a heavy rain down to the now exposed forest floor beneath.

Beautiful, powerful, and disciplined. Every bit of it reflected the lord himself.

Well. Minus the messy pack relationships, anyway.

“Are you sure you are not hurt?”

Squirt’s expression tightened. “I’ll be fine.” She wouldn’t be. If she injured them again, if she lost her wings—

Gods. Would she be no better than a human?

The pest shifted his hold on her slightly, drawing her eyes back up to his. The two studied each other, listening to the water and magic extinguish the raging wildfire in the wilds.

A tentative smile curled up his lips, a practiced kind used for cajoling others into a more playful mood. It didn’t quite work, looking forced into place when he still had lines of concern wrinkling the corners of his eyes, like he was trying to convince not only her of his smile, but himself.

Which he proved right with the next words out of his mouth. “You thought me pretty.”

“What?” He couldn’t be serious. Was he really trying to distract her with this?

Annoyingly, it was working, the fear-fueled gears of her mind coming to a screeching halt of incredulity at the sheer audacity.

“When I killed it. You thought me pretty.”

He was stupid pretty. He didn’t need her to tell him that.

Why did he look like he needed her to say it?

Nope. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Admit it.”

“Shut up.”

“You like me, don’t you?”

Yes. “No.”

“Hm.”

They fell quiet, Squirt’s eyes shifting back to the fire, her hands idly stroking the sleeping Pakos. Though the silence started comfortable and warm, without the distraction the fears began creeping back in at the edges.

Pakos had never had this happen before. Would there be any ill effects? How long would he take to recover? Would he recover?

She knew he would, but there were always parts of a mind that didn’t listen to reason or fact.

The pest lifted higher, flying back over the forest once more and drawing her attention out of herself again. “I think Zhadin is grabbing the stone.”

“What?” Zhadin? Here?

He nodded, his eyes on the remains of the forest. His tone was suspiciously careful and deliberate when he wondered aloud, “I wonder what kinds of enchantments you could do with something that large.”

A lot of things, really.

Thinking on it, Squirt had never seen a feystone that large. Something like that could be used for a lot of things. Big things.

He waited, letting her mind wander before judging the right moment for him to ask, “What would you use it for?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t use a stone that big.”

“Not even if I helped you?”

“Of course I could if you helped me.”

“Then what would you make?”

That… was a good question, actually. An intriguing one.

What kinds of enchantments could she do with something that large?

Her mind eagerly accepted the challenge of calculating the kind of output it might produce, a small smile twitching up one corner of her lips even as she was held by the pest. Though she began speaking, the words were spoken under her breath, more to herself than as an answer to the pest’s question. “Longer lasting wards for a start, used as defensive barriers around a village, or perhaps as a fire stone, it could be used to make a forge, heat a village through the winter…” she trailed off.

A stone of that size was typically of a winter beast, late fall at the earliest, when far fewer stones were dropped. Feystones of that size were usually used in large city projects or incredibly powerful rituals, like a Realm Door.

She nibbled on her lip. “Those are the usual uses, though…”

His smile drew her eyes up, his eyes twinkling. “How would you use it?”

The question, softly spoken and yet playful, was all the encouragement she needed for her mind to start racing. Her eyes shifted to the ground beneath them. “Compressed fire.”

“Compressed fire?”

She nodded, then pointed at the ground. “Things like wildfires are powerful, but too large and difficult to control.” Shifting back, she held up one hand, palm faced as if the other was up and not holding Pakos as she explained. “By taking all that energy and—” she pretended to push something together, “—compressing it together, you pinpoint all that energy and damage to a singular narrow focus, which would make it possible to aim.”

Whatever concerns had wrinkled the corners of his eyes quickly faded, a genuine gleam of interest for his own sake and not hers lighting up his entire face. “Really?”

She nodded. “Like sand.” She expanded her hand back out again. “If you take the sand, and then—” she pretended to press her hand back in, “—take the same amount and push it into a smaller and smaller form, it hardens, does it not?”

He shifted his eyes forward, summoning a ball of sand before them. His brows furrowed slightly as the ball compressed farther and farther down until it was a bead in size.

Squirt stared at the bead, stunned first off that he managed that so simply on his first try, and second because he’d genuinely never realized this was a thing.

Dumbass.

The bead floated closer, and he summoned a rock, knocking the two items together. “Huh. This is true.”

Her hand shifted to cover her mouth. A snort almost escaped at the depth of his stupidity and naivete as he discovered the phenomenon for the first time. There was an innocent joy of discovery to him that she recognized. The same joy that drove her mind in circles around discoveries and crafting new enchantments.

Lost in his own happy little world, his eager eyes shifted back to her. “You would do this with the fire?”

“Yeah.”

“Like this?” He nodded to the floating bead.

She considered it. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Well I’m short. A bead doesn’t do me much good if it just sits there, and it’d be too hot to touch.”

He frowned back at the bead, his brows now fully pinched as he tried—badly—to work out the problem in his head. “Like what?”

“Maybe make a sword or something that you could shoot, like an arrow.”

The contained joy radiated from him. “That’s so cool! We should do it.”

“What?”

His eyes flashed with dazzling excitement. “Make a compressed fire sword.”

That would be so cool.

Ignoring the coolness of it, she let her expression flatten. “That feystone belongs to the lord.”

“Why?”

“It’s in his Wylds, and I’m a member of his Guard.”

“Yes, but I am not, and I was the one that killed it, non?”

She opened her mouth to argue, but the dumbass had a point. In all technicality, the feystone belonged to him as the one who had killed the beast. He wasn't a citizen so he didn't technically owe a tithe of stones collected.

Laws were stupid.

He grinned. “I can gift it to you.”

“You’d gift it to me even if you weren’t allowed to court me?”

“Naturally. I’d still want you to be happy. Or is that strange? Or bad?” He thought about it, the attempt clearly hurting his brain. “Um. You can reject the gift. It is very not…” He scrunched up his face as he tried to think of the word, the action unfairly adorable. “… not quiet? Non, non, not that word. Um.”

She softened.

He didn’t notice, his attention being drawn below them. “Ah. Zhadin is there. Do you wish to see them?”

She blinked repeatedly. “What?”

“Ah, they are down in the Wylds. They have the feystone. Did you want to try making something now?”

Her breath caught.

She did. She really did.

He gave her another encouraging smile. “Why not take tonight to try? You deserve a break.”

She frowned. “I took a break last night with the wolves.”

“Yes, but that was for them. This is for you.”

“And you, I suppose.”

He brightened. “I am here whenever you want of me.” He paused, then added, “Huntress,” as if reminding himself of the emotional space between them, reaffirming it stalwartly with that one word. “But only when you want, non?”

“Then who would watch the greenlings?”

“We can speak to Bartos. Why do you need to do it all? He is the lord, is he not?”

“There was someone taken last night, may I remind you.”

“Yes, which is why I will still watch them.”

“You can’t watch them from the Wylds.”

“When I touch the ground, I can check on the barrier.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. There was no way.

He thought about it. “Not too far from the castle—ah, keep, not castle. But as far as the hunter’s clearing, yes, maybe farther.”

Slightly more reasonable, but still a power scale she was frankly struggling to comprehend, even after the last twenty minutes of insanity.

His expression brightened again. “And then Qzi can join! He should be released soon, non?” At the scowl on her face, he tried to correct, “But only if you wish it.”

Why did he look so eager for Qzi’s companionship? There wasn’t anything lewd going through his brain, she knew that much. He was too easy to read. She knew why Qzi liked the pest, but she just didn’t think it would be so easily reciprocated.

She chewed on it, her eyes falling back to the sleeping Pakos in her arms. Then her eyes drifted back to the remains of the fire as the last of the lord’s magic withdrew from the air, the flames fully extinguished. “… okay.”

“Really?”

Her expression flattened at his abrupt eagerness for this. “We need to comb through the remains of the flame for feystones and ensure no new fires start.”

He nodded, less eager but no less intrigued. “As work, non?”

“Yeah.” She paused. “Would you… check with his lordship on this? And, if he’s available, grab Qzi?”

“Naturally.”

“Good.” She paused. “And… set me down there while you do?”

He nodded. In a moment, her guts lifted as he dropped them into a simple controlled fall. Just before they touched down, he slowed, landing gently in the dirt, the experience exhilarating without being sickening. He shifted her to her feet with the same gentle control, glancing off further into the trees. “Ah. Zhadin is here, if you wish for them.”

Squirt nodded.

The pest studied something in her, and she had the odd feeling the dumbass was being weirdly perceptive. Then, he smiled. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he playfully lamented. “Ah, but what a long walk it will be, between checking on the lord and picking up Qzi. It may be an hour or more before I return, huntress.”

She raised a brow.

He shrugged with a grin, whistling as he began sauntering off in the direction of the keep. Not flying. Not quickstepping. Sauntering.

Squirt’s eyes followed him all the while, leaning back against a tree with the miniaturized Pakos in her arms, wondering how on earth the pest, of all fey in all the world, knew she had wanted an hour alone.

He had done exactly what he had set out to do. Distracting her from the fears and worries the battle had brought.

As his form disappeared into the trees, she realized she was smiling.