Seeking the Fae (Daughter of Light #1) - Leia Stone

To the daughters of light.

I was pulled from a deep sleep by someone shaking my shoulders. My eyes snapped open. Trissa was hovering right over my face, her lips pulled into a frown, eyes wide with terror.

“Lily, you must get up,” she hissed and yanked me forward.

Bleary-eyed, I looked outside to see the moon was still high in the sky.

“What’s wrong?” My voice was thick with sleep. Trissa’s face was a mask of fear, nostrils flared.

Anxiety spiked through me as I started to become more coherent and realize my mother’s personal guard was waking me up in the middle of the night.

“Where’s my mom?” I demanded, throwing the blanket off of me as my heart jackknifed in my chest.

Trissa just grabbed my hand and yanked me towards the door. I stumbled, trying to run after her while still half asleep. Shaking me awake in the middle of the night … something was gravely wrong. It was only then that I noticed her pale blue t-shirt was soaked with crimson blood.

“Trissa, daughter of Bethany, inform me of my mother’s condition right this moment!” My voice shook and she must have recognized I was near total panic because her entire body stilled. We were halfway out of my room when she stopped and faced me.

Holy crystals…

She was … crying. Trissa Hart didn’t cry. Not when she nearly lost her right leg on a mission, and not when her husband left her for another Fae who lived three cottages over—and had four kids, all with different men. Trissa was made of steel. She’d trained me in Earth studies and deadly weapons since I was three, and I’d never seen her shed a tear. Ever.

“Your mother … has fallen.” Her voice broke and the room spun around me. “She won’t make it … but if we hurry, you can have a final word.”

Fallen. Won’t make it. Her words slammed into me like bullets and I wasn’t prepared for the shock. A shriek left my throat, my knees gave out and I sagged forward into her. Grief and panic crashed into me with equal measure, weighing me down like I carried a truck upon my back. My gossamer wings wilted with the news as I no longer had the energy to keep them upright.

“Call a healer!” I thundered, trying to think of how I could save her.

My mother’s guard clamped her hands around my arms to steady me, forcing me to meet her big brown eyes. “The healer is with her now. She’s the one who sent me to get you.”

Oh fuck.

My whole body felt like it was made of iron. Surely I would pass out any moment. But without another word, and for fear of wasting any more time, I allowed her to pull me in the direction of the front door. I felt like I was sleepwalking; Trissa just yanked me this way and that, while I forced the sobs down from my throat.

Stepping outside to the moonlit streets of Faerie, we took to the skies, my wings fluttering through our small village. We flitted past my best friend Elle’s cottage, and then Nikola the blacksmith’s, before quickly reaching the jagged cliff that butted against the raging river. I craned my neck to look at our one source of fresh water. A clear glass-like magical dome cut right into the middle of the crystalline blue river, as five feet of black water from the other side smashed against the protective wall. The black water lapped against the protective shield, keeping what was left of Faerie from drowning in darkness.

I’d lived my whole life in this dome, like an upside down salad bowl covering what was left of the faerie. Everything outside of it was… too horrifying to even think about. Even seeing a passing shadow of the creatures that lurked on the other side gave me nightmares. Coming to the edge of Faerie was always a frightening and humbling experience. One crack in the dome shield and…

Trissa yanked me towards the ground and snapped me from my thoughts. We walked right up to the blue door cut into the cliffside and I stilled. My wings quivered at the thought of going through it.

I looked at Trissa with shock. “The blue door … am I … ready?”

I’d wanted to open this door since I could talk. It was a privilege and responsibility given only to the females of my lineage. Only to seekers. “Our work, our purpose,” my mother would say, “is done beyond the

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024