It wasn’t until Tristan came to Elfhome, and had been told their true history, that he realized why his father was so focused on long hair. His father had been born a sickly albino with extremely weak eyesight. If he had not been the firstborn child of a powerful female, he would have been cast aside, perhaps even drowned as an infant. Instead he’d been painstakingly spell-worked to be perfect in every way that magic could make him. It was said that a hundred thousand slaves had been blinded so that spells could be developed to allow him to see and, more importantly, he would not pass the weakness on to the royal bloodline. His father’s eyes were no longer the light pink color that they had been at birth but a striking amber color flecked with vivid red. It was like looking into the heart of a bonfire.
Tens of thousands of years, though, had not erased his father’s shame of being flawed at birth.
His father stepped off the elevator as if he already ruled the world. He swept his fiery gaze over Lucien and Tristan to focus on Adele. “Where is my son?”
He said it as if he had only one.
“Forgiveness.” Adele bowed low. “Yves is dead. He was killed in a landslide while still on Earth.”
His father took the blow with only a slight tightening of the muscles of his face. He lifted his right hand slightly.
Felicie ghosted forward from behind their father. She styled herself after Pure Radiance, dressed in a flowing gown of white fairy silk with a red ribbon tied over her eyes. She had even painted her fingernails a frosted white. Her white hair spilled down her back almost to her knees. She walked as if gliding on air. She looked decades younger than Adele instead of just being a few hours’ difference in age. “This explains why Yves was absent from my visions. His death is not unexpected. It does not require us to change our plans.”
“The Harbingers took the bait.” Lucien spoke without removing his mask. “They are moving into position to attack the eastern camps. The Fire Clan accompanies them. As expected, none of the wood sprites are part of the rebel forces. Danni is orchestrating the collection of them.”
Felicie waved lazily as if dismissing what Lucien said. “Something has stirred the changeling. Neither she nor her cousin is in place. Danni has tracked the cousin but the changeling will evade her — as she is wont to do. Our strike on Midas is also uncertain — someone is meddling in our efforts.”
Tristan wished he knew who or what Midas was. It reminded him again of how little he’d been involved in the overall battle plan. Most of what he knew, he’d gleaned from careful observation.
“Mice,” Adele whispered. “Most likely.”
If anyone else heard her complaint, they ignored it.
“I can deploy my little brother to investigate,” Lucien said. “He can go into the city without a second glance from anyone.”
It made a good cover story to explain Tristan’s absence as he searched for Boo.
Heaven’s Blessing flicked his hand, allowing the venture.
Lucien nodded his acknowledgment, only a slight loosing of his hands to indicate his excitement.
Tristan was glad he had on the oni mask so that he didn’t need to control his face. He wasn’t sure what emotion he should have displayed. Excitement for Lucien? Eagerness for their father? Cool disinterest for the Eyes?
Lucien was updating their father. “Turtle Creek was no longer viable. The levels of magic here are suitable. The platform was not damaged by Malice or the rebels. We have made the needed preparations.”
By saying “we” instead of “I,” Lucien shared the credit with him despite the fact that Tristan hadn’t done anything. It was a safe gift considering Lucien’s spellcasting prowess.
“Let us proceed,” Heaven’s Blessing said.
Tristan had been working out a cover identity longer than he realized. While he’d been searching city records for a child that the Kryskills wouldn’t know but could verify existed, Lucien and his most trusted people had taken the wooden covers off the massive white marble casting circle, and cleaned the stone until it gleamed. There was no need to check the power levels of the fiutana; the flow of magic was so strong that it was visible to the naked eye.
Lucien had traced out the complex transformation spell, most likely similar to the one he’d used to transform his beloved Boo from human to tengu. At its center were connection points that would interlock with the spell tracings on the nactka’s shell.
Heaven’s Blessing took off his duster and handed it to Felicie. He walked out onto the casting circle, his bootsteps loud on the stone. He said nothing but nodded at what he saw. “Put the nactka into place.”
Lucien took the large egg-like nactka out of its bag and carried it to the center of the spell. He turned it slightly, eyeing the spell tracings, until he was sure it was perfectly aligned, and then set it into place. With the nactka in place, he added the blood taken from Jewel Tear while she had been drugged.
“Thousands of years I’ve worked and planned and waited for this day,” their father said. “I had a palace grander than anything Earth has ever seen. An empire that stretched from the shores of the Great Western Ocean to the islands off the coast of the Far East Sea. The idiots burned it all to the ground and then squabbled over the cinders. We will take it back and rebuild to the grandeur that it once was. We start now.”
Heaven’s Blessing spoke the initiation word, activating the spell. The outer shell of the spell took form and rose up to rotate clockwise. A second and third shell shimmered into being as Heaven’s Blessing triggered the limiters. They canted up to spin counterclockwise at 45- and 135-degree angles. The magic grew dense, a visible shimmer. The power spread inward, activating segment after segment, spiraling inward toward the nactka.
The last shell encircled the nactka, waiting for the final parameters.
Heaven’s Blessing raised his hand and spoke: “Nota. Kirat. Naerat. Dashavat.”
With each parameter command, the interlock activated at a cardinal point on the nactka. After the last, it sat there pulsing with potential.
With a quiet, pleased smile, Heaven’s Blessing spoke the last command.
The spell activated in a blinding flash and a blast of warm wind that sent the dead leaves swirling away. Tristan felt the power wash over him, backed by the full strength of the fiutana. The fine hairs on his arms rose.
“It is done,” their father said. “The domana will fall and we will take the Westernlands. Once we have this bastion secure, we will take Winter Court.”
27: THE TINKER DOMI COMPUTING AND RESEARCH CENTER
So much had happened since the start of summer, Tinker often lost track of all the little details. She couldn’t remember what day exactly she rescued Windwolf except it had been during the June Shutdown. After accidently agreeing to be magically transformed into an elf, she’d been dragged off to Aum Renau by the Wyverns to meet with the queen. Said meeting lasted for days and days to become the most boring three weeks that Tinker had ever endured in her life. Windwolf’s coastal palace was like living in the middle of the forest as some of the “rooms” were just groves of trees with a network of glass roofs suspended between their trunks. There had been no electricity. No computers. No internet. Paper was a rare commodity, treated like it was edged with real gold. Windwolf had a library but it contained mostly books that were over two hundred years old. The most scientifically minded of them was a copy of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton but it was written in Latin or something.