Lorne Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 7 of 6

Titania's light filled the hollow tree. Lorne raised his staff and the blue runes flared, but his arms shook. He was too old for this. The green fire pressed closer to Damien. Then red wings cut through it. A fairy dropped between them. He was tall for his kind, black hair loose to his waist, wings the color of coals. He caught Titania's fire on his open palm and held it there. Titania went still. "Father," she said, and the word came out cold. "Stop," Oberon said. He did not look at her. He looked at Lorne. "The boy lives. The world needs what he carries." Titania's jaw tightened. "You left. Now you come back to protect a human." "I did leave. That's true." Oberon closed his hand, and her fire went out. "I'm here now." Lorne lowered his staff. His breath rattled. He watched the two fairies and understood he had bought a moment, no more. Damien stood behind him, silent, the second key still fresh in his mind. That was the trap Lorne had made. The boy held two keys. He did not know how to use either without ruin. A wrong word, spoken in fear, could tear the ground apart. Lorne had given him locks and no hands to turn them. "You want me to keep teaching him," Lorne said to Oberon. "Yes." "Then give me time. Not the vault. Time to teach him what the keys do." Lorne's voice cracked. "He can open doors he can't survive walking through. That's on me." Oberon nodded once. He turned to his daughter. "Take Nyx. Punish her by your law. Leave the man and the boy to me." Titania's eyes moved from her father to Lorne. She weighed it. "You'll answer for this," she told Oberon. Then she rose, dragging the bound Nyx by the vine, and the green light pulled back out through the roots. The tree went dim. Lorne sank onto a root. His hands would not stop trembling. "You bought me a lesson," he said. "Not a war." "One lesson is enough for one day." Oberon folded his wings. "Teach him fast." Lorne looked at Damien. The boy waited, not asking, sitting with what he did not know. Good. Lorne pulled him down beside the pools. "The second key isn't a spell," Lorne said. "It's a warning. Speak it whole, and it unmakes. Speak the first three words alone, and it only listens. That's how you test a door before you open it." Damien repeated the three words. Just the three. The pools rippled and went quiet. "Again," Lorne said. He had passed on a key and, at last, the hands to hold it. But his chest ached with every breath. Oberon had shielded him once. Titania would come back. And Lorne could not teach a hundred keys with the strength for one.