The Stargazer

Stargazer (chapter twelve)

Pain dragged her awake. Aislinn shifted on the bed, trying to ease the bruised throbbing in her muscles. She felt as if someone had beaten every inch of her body with a stick. She bent her leg and grimaced. Make that a small tree. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this stiff and sore.


She forced her eyes open. Firelight danced on stone walls and the soft weight of blankets held her down on a thin mattress.  She was in Rowan’s tower and in his bed though how she’d gotten here was beyond her.


She eased upright, gazing around her at the neat simplicity of the room. The changeling was nowhere in sight. A sigh slid from her and she rubbed at her face, wishing the throbbing in her head would go away. It hurt to think.


She remembered dancing. The movement, the thrill, and the rush of power. The burn. She remembered falling, but she remembered nothing beyond that. Rowan or Wheezer must have found her. Pushing back the blankets, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, gripping the edge when the weight of her head threatened to tilt her onto the floor. She’d never felt so weak, so drained. Dancing had never made her feel like this. Lighter. Purified. Refreshed. Never half dead.


The door opened on a breeze and Rowan stepped in, framed by the glimmering shadows of twilight. She’d slept the day away?


“What do you think you’re doing?”


The question hammered her sensitive ears and she flinched away, trying to find her equilibrium.


“I’m getting up,” she said numbly. As soon as her feet and legs obeyed her again, she added silently.


“You think.” He shoved the door closed with a sharp crack. “Get back in that bed and stay there.”


Aislinn stared at him uncomprehendingly. Usually, he was driving her away as fast as he could but now he wanted her to stay? That made no sense.


Rowan didn’t wait for her compliance but strode to her, caught her legs behind the knees and dumped her unceremoniously back onto the bed and jerked the covers over her.


“Stay.”


She didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Instead, she stayed where she was and watched him through wide, wary eyes. He headed for the hearth where he knelt, pouring something into a mug. She didn’t have to ask what it was since he brought it to her and shoved it into her hands.


“Eat.”


Tucking her fingers through the handle of the mug, she sipped at the steaming contents to appease him. Soup. Her stomach rumbled in approval and she took another small drink. Rowan’s dark glower lightened a little and he took a seat at the small table. She lifted her chin and took a breath, intending to ask him a question, but a raised finger stopped her. The finger pointed at the mug in her hands and she obeyed the silent command. The soup was good, easy on her stomach and filling. When the mug was empty, she held it out.


“Want more?”


She shook her head. He rose to take the mug and drop it into a basin near the hearth before retaking his seat. His expression remained harsh and grim. Aislinn clutched the blankets, not taking her eyes off him.


“I told you dancing was dangerous, but you just had to go do it anyway.”


His voice was quiet and even but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was calm. No, he was furious and she’d do well to remember that.


“Rowan?”


“Shut up.” The growl rumbled the air between them. “I told you not to dance and this morning I found you near dead in Winter. What would you have done if I hadn’t bothered to go looking for you? You’d have died. Did you think I was lying to you? Did you somehow think I don’t remember in vivid detail what happens when Fae dance here?”


“I thought I wasn’t the Time King’s daughter and my magic is different from his,” she said, her voice thin and small.


“Yes. It’s different. Did that help you at all?”


Snide. She wanted to be angry with him, felt a spark from her temper, but she was simply too tired to put much effort into it.


“No.”


“Do you know why?”


“Because I passed out before I could release the power I’d gathered,” she interjected quickly before he could offer his opinion.  “It won’t happen again.”


“You’re damn right it won’t because you won’t be dancing again.”


“I’m Fae, Rowan,” she protested. “I have to dance.”


“Not here you don’t.” He shook his head, his gaze never leaving her face. “You are in a bubble made of time itself. You could gather all the power you want to, but you won’t ever be able to form it or release it because time simply doesn’t move that way here.”


She opened her mouth and then closed it again, trying to work that one through. “But if time doesn’t move, I can’t die.”


“I haven’t aged a day since he brought me here,” Rowan bellowed, anger spilling into the air. “Nothing in this place changes, not really. You can gather power but the instant you try to release it, it becomes part of this place and stops moving. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to be your conduit again just because you can’t listen to common sense.”


Conduit? Horror held her mute as she stared at him. Just what had she done?


“You were damn near bursting into flame and you asked me to kiss you,” he said in answer to her silent question. “I did and you hit me like I was a grounding rod in a lightning storm.”


She closed her eyes in an agony of embarrassment. She’d used him to release and ground the magic. It could be given back to the earth to create a fairy ring or to another to heal or empower. Lovers often used one another to disperse the magic. Since no ring of forget-me-nots adorned the floor of his tower, she could guess what she’d done.


“No more dancing,” he ordered. “I’m not saving you from your own stupidity next time.”


The insult slapped at her and she stiffened. “I’m not stupid.”


“Can’t prove it by your recent actions,” he snorted, throwing fuel on the growing fire of her temper. “You were told not to dance, that it was dangerous. But did you listen? No, and I had to drag you out of the mess you made before you died. I’m not doing it again.”


“You never told me it was dangerous,” she shot back, shoving at the covers. “You said once the princesses started to dance, they couldn’t stop. That’s true when any Fae dances. You said they danced and went to sleep. You didn’t say they collapsed.”


“I told you not to dance but you refused to listen.” His jaw worked as he stared at her.


“I don’t obey without a reason,” she snapped, swinging her legs off the edge of the bed. “As long as you refuse to give me answers, I’m going to make my own decisions.”


“Get back on that bed.”


“Make me.”


Her wings snapped out, helping to steady her as she shoved to her feet. Every muscle and joint in her body protested the move but her temper ruled her now. He was not going to get away with blithely giving her orders without explaining himself. She’d had enough of his reticence on the subject of his imprisonment.


She didn’t expect him to plant himself in front of the door, arms crossed and looking like a man-shaped wall.


“Get back in that bed,” he repeated.


“No. Get out of my way.”


“Make me.” He tossed her words back at her with a sharp smile that goaded her already frayed control.


Aislinn had never attacked another person with magic in her life but that mocking dare was more than she could stand.  She lost it.


Without conscious thought, she slapped at him with a wave of air and sent him tumbling onto the table. She stalked by him and out the door before he could regain his feet and slammed the door behind her.


She’d made it into Summer before her temper cooled and the realization of what she’d done hit her. She stopped, her head spinning in a dizzying whirl. She’d touched her magic. She’d used air.


Hope rising, she reached for the air to whisper. The power edged out of her reach. A strangled scream escaped her throat and she shoved at the power, grabbing with everything in her. Air slid through her fingers like water through a sieve. The spinning in her brain became a  whirlpool and dragged her under before she could fight it.