KELTANIA
Ice pelts our North Tower window, the rhythmic tapping nearly drowning out the quiet knock at the door. Startled that someone is visiting at this late hour, I pull myself away from the pile of Apothecary, Chemistrie and Mathematics texts on my desk to go answer it.
“Who’s there?” I ask cautiously.
“Yvan,” comes the tentative reply.
A wave of surprise washes through me. Yvan hardly ever comes here, and things between us have been awkward ever since we latched hold of each other’s fire so wantonly back at Naga’s cave.
I open the door, my heartbeat kicking up a notch. The golden glow from the hallway lantern flickers over the hard planes of Yvan’s handsome face. He swallows, and I can sense his fire give a sudden flare, as if my very presence unnerves him.
“May I speak with you privately?” he asks with a measured politeness that’s at odds with his chaotic fire.
“We could speak here in the hall,” I offer, struggling to tamp down the heat that’s suddenly kindling along my own lines. I step out of my lodging and shut the door behind me.
Flustered, I sit down on the stone bench, and he takes a seat beside me as I futilely try to ignore the effect his proximity has on me.
“I know someone who can help Marina and the other Selkies,” he says, meeting my gaze.
“Who?” I ask, surprise breaking through my unsettling haze of attraction toward him. “That would involve an armed militia, and Jules told me that only the Keltic Resistance has an organized force...”
Yvan smiles wryly. “Have you forgotten where I’m from?”
I blush and return his smile. Of course. If anyone in our small group has a connection to the Keltic Resistance, it would be Yvan.
“A friend of my mother’s is one of the Resistance leaders,” he tells me. “I’ve known him since I was a boy. The Keltic Resistance was willing to help both the Fae and the Urisk during the Realm War. Perhaps they’ll help the Selkies, too, once they know how horribly they’re being treated. And...how they’re running out of time.”
“Can we send word to him?”
Yvan shakes his head. “We can’t send a rune-hawk. It’s too risky. They’re intercepted regularly. We need to speak with him in person. He lives in Lyndon, my home village.”
I’m thrown by this. “What do you mean, ‘we’? You think I should come with you?”
Yvan’s answering smile sends a tremor of heat shivering through me. “I don’t think he’ll believe the story if you don’t come with me. And—” his green eyes glint with humor “—you’re persuasive.”
I laugh at this and eye him teasingly. “Am I? Perhaps that’s my secret power.”
“I think it might be,” Yvan says, his tone unexpectedly flirtatious. His gaze lingers on mine, and I have to fight a sudden, restless urge to move closer to him.
“Marina would be the best person for him to talk to,” I say, flustered.
Yvan shakes his head. “The trip is taxing, and Marina’s not well enough to make it in the form she’s in. And it would be nearly impossible to disguise her.”
I lean back against the cold stone, silently contemplating. Traveling to Keltania. With Yvan. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea of it.
“What’s your friend’s name?” I ask.
“Clive Soren. He’s a surgeon. He used to work with my father, years back. I apprentice with him during the summers.”
“I could get someone to cover for me in the kitchens,” I consider, my mind awhirl with the bold idea. “And we have a few days off from classes for the winter break.”
A troubled thought occurs to me. “Yvan, I can’t leave Verpacia. There’s an Icaral who attacked me back in Valgard before I came to University, and if I travel over the border—”
“I’ll protect you.”
His statement is so unwaveringly firm, it stops me short.
“The border crossing will be a problem,” I remind him. “The Verpacian Guard is allied too closely with the Gardnerians. They’ll want my aunt’s permission before they’ll let me through, and she’ll certainly never give it.”
“We won’t be going through the border crossing.”
I cough out a laugh. “Yvan, we’d have to. The only other way into Keltania is straight over the Southern Spine.”
His lip lifts, as if he’s amused that I actually think this could be an obstacle. “We can get over it.”
I eye him with wry disbelief. “Are you telling me you can fly? Without wings? Or do you magically sprout them at will?”
Yvan’s face tenses, his smile disappearing. “I can climb it.”
“The Verpacian Spine?” I sputter, confused by the sudden change in his demeanor.
“It’s not unheard of. Some Amaz can climb it, as well.”
I regard him speculatively, remembering the immense tree he scaled the night we rescued Naga. “So, you have advanced climbing abilities, among your many other supernatural talents. I’ll have to go back to my books about the Fae and find out which type can climb vertical cliff faces.”
He rolls his eyes at me, amusement quirking the corners of his mouth. The sensual curve of his upper lip snags my attention for a moment, sending a warm flush prickling over my neck.
“Maybe you can climb it, Yvan,” I point out, struggling to ignore his ridiculous beauty, “but I can’t.”
“I’ll help you. Really, Elloren, it will be easy. I never travel home through the border crossing. I always go over the Spine.”
“So, you’ll carry me clear over the Spine.”
He nods slowly, a slight smirk on his lips.
I eye him warily. “I’m not fond of heights.”
Yvan looks at me patiently, as if waiting for me to finish protesting, probably knowing that my concern for Marina and the other Selkies will win out over my fear. And there’s something else I think he knows—that beneath all the tumultuous feelings and fiery tension between us, I trust him.
“How long is the trip?” I ask, relenting.
“After we get over the Spine, a few hours on horseback. Andras is showing four mares at the Keltanian winter horse market, so we could meet him there and get a horse. Then we can travel to Lyndon, meet with Clive and spend the night at my home. We’ll come back the next day.”
I eye him skeptically. “Your mother approves of having me stay over?”
He gives me a sidelong, cagey look. “She doesn’t exactly know about it.”
I laugh bitterly. “Oh, I can just imagine the welcome she’ll give me.”
“She’s fair, my mother. She’ll give you a chance.”
“I’ve never traveled outside of Gardneria before,” I tell him, both nervous and excited by the prospect. “Except to come here, that is.”
“Well,” he says, cocking his head to one side, “here’s your chance.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “To be surrounded by a whole country of people hostile to me.”
He smirks a bit at this and gestures toward my tunic. “You’ll need to disguise yourself a bit, but you already dress like a Kelt much of the time.”
I glance down at the very un-Gardnerian brown woolen tunic and skirt I usually wear when I’m here in the evening or working in the kitchens. “I guess I do.” I hold out my hand, sliding my tunic sleeve up to my elbow. “But what do we do about this?”
My skin shimmers emerald in the hallway’s shadowy light. Yvan brushes a finger over my glittering hand, sending a shiver up my spine and a pulse of his fire through my lines. He pulls his hand back abruptly and looks away, clearing his throat. After a moment he turns back to me, eyeing me sidelong and keeping a careful distance. “You’re an apothecary, Elloren,” he says softly. “I’m sure you can find a way to disguise your shimmer.”
I blush and pull my sleeve back down, wondering how I’m supposed to go anywhere with him and keep my wits about me. But we have to find a way to help Marina and the other Selkies. That’s all that matters right now.
“When do you want to leave?” I ask.
“At week’s end, when the winter break begins.”
“All right,” I tell him, drawing back from my intense attraction to him. “I’ll go with you.”
* * *
A few days later, Yvan and I set out for Keltania before dawn. We take a transit carriage toward the southwestern Spine, then disembark at an isolated stop and hike into the Verpacian wilds while the sun creeps over the horizon.
As we move deeper into the trees, I silently coax my fire lines into a steady, threatening blaze to keep the forest at bay and hurl the fire outward. Yvan’s back shudders before me, his head arcing back. He slows to a stop and turns around to cast me a feral look, his green eyes briefly flashing a fiery gold.
The very air feels charged, and for a moment, he seems to be on the verge of saying something. Then he looks away, and I can feel him holding back, struggling to rebuild the wall between us.
“We should keep moving,” I say, self-consciously aware that the words come out too breathlessly.
Yvan nods, and we resume our trek through the trees, both of us banking our fire power firmly down. Contained.
* * *
We reach the Southern Spine by midmorning, and my throat goes dry as I take in the sheer face of the mountain. It’s not quite as high as the Northern Spine, but it’s still impossibly steep, a mixture of long stretches of vertical rock and ice scattered with stubby pine trees and low brush.
Flying over the Northern Spine with Lukas on dragonback was terrifying enough, but I had his magic to ground me and tamp down my debilitating fear.
“Yvan,” I say, unable to control the vertigo that’s assaulting me as I look at the peaks. “I can’t do this. It’s too high.”
Yvan squints up at the imposing landform, hands on his hips. “You’ll be safe,” he says, his voice certain.
I shake my head vehemently. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’m sorry—”
“I’ll be carrying you,” he insists. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall.”
I tense my brow at him, my heart slamming against my chest just from thinking about climbing the Spine. “Now might be a good time for you to finally explain the exact nature of your mountain-climbing abilities,” I say nervously. “It would be encouraging to know that I’m not about to plummet to my death...”
I prattle on as he patiently waits for me to finish. Eventually, I grow quiet and closer to relenting. He has such an aura of calm authority about this.
“You won’t fall?” I press.
“No, Elloren,” he replies evenly. “I won’t.”
“Okay,” I agree, glancing up at the Spine again. “I’ll do it. For Marina.”
Yvan nods in understanding.
“So, how do you want to...” I begin, my voice trailing off awkwardly.
He peers up at the mountain again, as if gauging its difficulty. “Wrap your arms...around my neck.” He gestures toward his neck, his voice becoming slightly stilted.
“From...the back?” I wonder, my face warming. The dreams I’ve had about him flash uncomfortably through my mind.
“No,” he says, “from the front.”
I hesitate, then take a deep breath and step toward him, keeping a polite distance between us. I reach my arms out and rest my hands on his broad shoulders. My cheeks grow warm, my heartbeat kicking up.
I can tell he’s flustered by this, as well. I’ve a sense of him reining his fire tightly in, but chaotic tendrils break through. “Get as close to me as you can,” he directs formally. “As flat against me as you can.”
I take another deep breath and move right up against him, wrapping my arms tightly around his shoulders, my cheeks burning.
His long, lanky body stiffens against me as he wraps his own arms firmly around my back.
I try desperately not to think about how warm his body is, how good he smells. Like a midnight fire.
“Now wrap your legs around my waist,” he says tightly.
What? This is just too much. We’re not fasted. This type of thing is completely forbidden.
“Elloren,” Yvan says with effort, “I know this is...awkward. But I can’t support you if your feet are dangling in the air. I need to be able to move freely. I know it’s...highly improper.”
“That’s an understatement,” I say, letting out a nervous laugh, but I move to do as he asks. I take a deep breath and pull at his neck and shoulders, hoisting myself up at the same time he reaches beneath me to support my weight. I wrap my legs around him, my thighs coming to rest just above his hip bones.
My heart is thudding with heated force against my chest, and I can feel his doing the same.
“Now, hold on tight and stay as still as you can,” he tells me. “And...you might want to close your eyes.”
I nod silently into his sharp shoulder and screw my eyes shut.
His grip on me tightens and his fire ripples through me, hot and strong. The skin of my back prickles with a sweeping heat that courses through my fire lines and makes me shiver.
Yvan starts to move, the muscles of his neck and shoulders tensing against my hold as he leaps up, steadily and effortlessly. I can feel his strength, his grace as his arms and legs move around me, and I quickly abandon all shyness to cling tightly to him for dear life.
I don’t dare open my eyes or think about how much slick ice coats the Spine as we ascend at what feels like breakneck speed. Instead, I try to remember complicated apothecary formulas. I silently recite the names of different constellations. I think about the steps of making a violin in sequence and try to visualize them all.
After a while, an icy wind picks up, and the sounds around us are different—open and stark. I realize we must be quite high above the trees.
Then our orientation changes, and I feel Yvan’s hands beneath my thighs, steadying me. “Are you okay?” he asks gently, and I nod into his shoulder.
“We’re at the top,” he says, keeping a tight hold on me as wind whips against us. “The view is beautiful.”
I open my eyes slightly, glimpsing a dazzling blue sky above. He turns and hoists me up a fraction so I can see the view over his shoulder, and I gasp with wonder.
We’re on a bare outcropping of rock, the wilds past the Southern Spine splayed out before us. The villages of Keltania are tiny and still far off, the land snow-dusted and glittering in the sunlight. It’s so spectacular, and I should be freezing, but I’m not at all. Yvan’s so decadently warm.
I close my eyes again when we begin the descent, an almost vertical drop. After a while, the sharp smell of pine trees grows stronger, and before I know it, Yvan’s stepping onto level ground.
“We’re down, Elloren.” His lips brush against my neck as he says it, warm and soft.
I open my eyes to see a thick pine forest surrounding us. Yvan loosens his hold on me as I drop my feet to the ground. I untwine my arms from his neck and step back, instantly missing his warmth as the cold snakes in under my cloak.
But more than the warmth, I miss being so close to him.
“So, what are you, Yvan?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light. “Mountain Goat Fae?”
He smiles slightly at my joke, but then his expression turns pained.
“Yvan, is it really that bad?” I ask gently.
He doesn’t answer, but the anguished look that momentarily passes over his face fills me with concern for him. Whatever it is, it is that bad, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.
At least not with me.
Yvan averts his eyes, his face tensing. “We should be on our way. Andras will have the horses waiting for us. And we’ll want to reach Lyndon before dark.”
I nod in agreement, and we continue on, side by side, winding through the trees, our arms bumping against each other every now and then. Every time it happens, a zing of heat trickles through my fire lines, and we give each other a hesitant smile, and I resist the urge to take his hand.
My mind wanders back to the night we freed Naga. I remember how Yvan touched my face; how it seemed like he wanted to kiss me. And that night by her cave, when we recklessly let our fire power rush toward each other. In those rare moments, it was as if his true self finally emerged. And for a brief moment earlier, when we were wrapped around each other climbing the Spine, it felt like that again.
Feeling reckless, I let my hand lightly bump into Yvan’s and hook a finger around his. He inhales sharply, and I feel the hard flare of his fire power as he shoots me a heated look.
Then he twines his fingers wordlessly through mine.
* * *
Eventually, we come to the end of the wilds, and I can hear the sound of male voices mixed with horses snorting and whinnying up ahead.
“Make sure you hide your hair and pull down your hood,” Yvan cautions me, peering out through the trees and dense brush toward the horse market, his fingers still clasped around mine.
My face is already camouflaged by a dye Tierney mixed for me, the tone a ruddy Keltic coloring to hide the emerald glimmer of my skin, and my hair is mostly hidden by a long white linen scarf wrapped around my head.
I let go of Yvan’s hand and push every last strand of my jet-black hair under the scarf, drawing the hood of my cloak over it. Then I pull up my woolen scarf, hiding the lower half of my face.
“Do I still look like my grandmother?” I ask him, the wool of my scarf scratching against my lips as I speak.
“No,” Yvan says with an affectionate smile as he assesses me. “You look Keltic. I don’t think your grandmother would have been caught dead in clothing like that.” He holds out his elbow, and I thread my arm through his. “Just stay close to me until we find Andras.”
* * *
Activity swirls all around us as we enter the market. Multiple horse dealers show off steeds of every color and breed. Keltic men kneel next to the animals, studying them, running their hands down the animals’ legs to check for defects, bargaining for a good price.
The warm smell of horse droppings, fur and hay hangs heavy in the air. The pungent scent brings back good memories of caring for our own two horses at Uncle Edwin’s and happy times riding with my brothers.
Andras’s horses are by far the healthiest and best-looking of all the horses there, and he’s surrounded by a number of interested buyers. He catches sight of us and waves, then says something to the men around him and strides over to where we wait near the pasture’s gate.
“Hello, Andras,” Yvan says.
Andras nods in greeting and glances up at the Southern Spine. “I didn’t expect to see you two until much later. You made good time.”
“It was my extraordinary climbing abilities,” I nervously joke. “It was like I owned the Spine. I was getting a little tired of having to keep rescuing Yvan from falling to his death, though. It got old real fast.”
Andras cocks one black eyebrow at me in surprise as Yvan’s mouth lifts into a wry grin.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’m a bit on edge.”
Andras laughs and goes to fetch our mount, returning a few seconds later with a beautiful ebony mare, to the evident disappointment of the man who was assessing her.
The mare is already saddled up and ready to go, and I feel grateful for Andras’s attentiveness.
“You don’t have to hurry,” Andras tells us. “I’ll be here all day tomorrow. I’ll wait for you.”
Yvan takes a few minutes to pat the mare’s neck and mane to soothe her before easily swinging himself into the saddle. Andras helps me climb up behind Yvan before he makes his way back to his prospective buyers.
As I watch Andras’s broad back recede, I wrap my arms around Yvan’s waist and pull myself in tight against him. The muscles of his abdomen stiffen in response, but then he relaxes. It feels intimate, holding on to him like this. And more than a bit thrilling.
“So,” Yvan says, turning his head so he can peer back at me, his lips lifting in a teasing smile. “It sounds like I can count on you to help me back over the mountain tomorrow.”
“Only if you ask me very nicely,” I say enticingly, wrapping my arms a little tighter around him. “And say ‘please.’”
I rue the overly flirtatious words as soon as they’re said, acutely aware that we’re crossing too many boundaries with each other.
Yvan’s banked fire gives a hard flare, his eyebrows go up, a spot of color lighting his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I backtrack. “I’m just...nervous.”
“It’s okay,” he says, smiling slightly, his hand coming up to caress mine, and my breathing turns erratic.
Yvan stiffens, as if he’s suddenly remembered himself, his hand falling away from mine. He makes a sharp clicking sound, jerks his heels in toward the horse, and we’re off.