A Court of Legends and Myths

Chapter 40 - The Spell

Aelin's POV

She was standing on a beach on an island called Cretea surrounded by wyrdmarks with her friends and family, the Court of Dreams, and two others at her back. As she settled in her ring of wyrdmarks she thought over how she got there.

"You what!" Cassian screamed after she told him about her evening with Bryaxis. Nesta and Mor were laughing in their seats, tears threatening to spill over. Azriel had a small smile splayed across his lips. Amren sat at her spot indifferent towards this situation. Feyre was still shocked and the others were a mix of all.

"I sat down with a Bryaxis, ate chocolates, and told him a bunch of legends and myths and true stories from my world all while he helped with my research." Aelin repeated, she was still annoyed at how Feyre treated Bryaxis.

"Yes I got that but... How? Why?" Cassian sputtered.

"Because he's a sweetheart who is lonely." Aelin answered. By this point Mor and Nesta had stopped laughing.

"Girls are so weird" he muttered, Rhys, Azriel, Connall, Fenrys and Enda all nodded slightly. From the corner of her eye Aelin could see that Mor had rolled her eyes at the boys.

"On another note, you're prepared and ready to do the spell now, right?" Rhys asked from his spot at the other end of the table. Aelin simply nodded her head, she already had food in her mouth and it would be unsavoury for a queen to speak with her mouth full.

"Ok good. While Rhys, Cass, and Nyx were learning Itealaich with Miss Borte, I scouted out some areas where we might do the spell." Azriel said, stepping out of the shadows and taking a seat at the table.

"While we were going over the possible areas Enda brought up a rather good concern that we hadn't thought of." Rhys continued. We all looked at Enda to finish.

"What if those who would prefer Aelin to not regain her magic found out what we were doing and tried to stop us?"

"At first we thought nothing of it. No would dare step in our lands and do anything stupid." Rhys continued. "Then we realized how stupid we were for thinking that and thought it best to just use a spell of concealment to hide what we were doing."

"The only problem there is, is that none of us have the power or skill to perform a spell of that magnitude." Feyre added.

"So we asked Miryam and Drakon if they could help us." At our confused look Mor explained to us who they were. A seraphim prince, whatever the hell a seraphim is, and a demi-fae woman.

"They of course said yes."

"So we leave just after dawn tomorrow." Rhys and Feyre said interchanging between lines as if they were of one mind.

And that's how she got to Cretea with two strangers behind her. The beach was a much more unpleasant conversation they had.

"So with the information you gave us. Which wasn't much I may add," the female named Miryam said shooting daggers at Rhys, "We found a good place for this."

"Right here." The winged male named Drakon said pointing to a spot on a map laid out across the table before her. Unlike the Bat Boys Drakon's wings were made of feathers and resembled a lot more to the angels described in human mythology. Aelin leaned over the table to see where he was pointing at, upon seeing the spot she froze.

"Please tell me that's not a beach." She said accentuating the word not. She could see the worry washing over Fenrys's face from his spot across the table. He knew what moment she was remembering. Enda also shifted uncomfortably, just slightly noticeable to anyone but her. He was there that day too, along with her and Fenrys.

"Why? Do you have something against beaches?" Drakon asked.

"Nothing against beaches per say. It's just that nothing good ever comes from being on a beach." Aelin answered. She got a mix of pitying and confused looks. Very little of what happened that day all those years ago was released to the public. So though some of them know vaguely what happened after visiting the museum, they wouldn't really know why she hated and feared beaches.

"Come on, not all your experiences on beaches could have been bad. Right?" Cassian asked, Azriel elbowed him in the ribs for that little comment.

"No, I guess not all of them were bad. Not that one time." She said remembering that time in Skull's Bay with Rowan.

"But nevertheless, someone always nearly dies. So I don't like them." She added.

"How many times has someone nearly died while you were on a beach with them?" Enda asked carefully.

"Well... There was the time when I was 16, Sam nearly died, so did I, and Rolfe, a few of his men definitely died, all the slaves Sam and I freed also nearly died. Then Lysandra was close at Skull's Bay too. And you know what happened in Eyllwe." She replied.

"Ook, anyways we digress. Unfortunately there isn't any other place where we can do this. Most of our island is made up of mountains and cliffs. This is the furthest place from any towns or cities that isn't at the top of a mountain." Miryam responded.

So here she was, on a beach about to do a spell to make all her magic come back. She took a deep breath calming her nerves. "Enda, make sure you're ready with that shield." Aelin was pretty sure it would be better if everyone had a shield, but she couldn't bring herself to tell them. Though she had a feeling they were getting ready anyway. And with a last drop of blood the marks began to glow.

Nothing happened for a few moments, then a wave of magic crashed into her from all sides. The water rippled and crashed into the sand banks. The sand also rippled, she imagined the sand of the Red Dessert doing the same thing when magic disappeared and reappeared back home.

At first she felt nothing. She started the descent into her magic, layer by layer her magic appeared. And layer by layer her magic started to cry, started to fight for release. Control, she had to control it or those she cared for would be burned to a crisp if Fenrys and Connall weren't fast enough. Slowly she pulled her magic up, she let it out in a magnificent pillar of flame. She felt many shields go up around her, she felt one of ice and wind. Her heart jumped at the familiarity. Her magic raced out to greet it, but it wasn't the same, it wasn't old and vast like her mate's. Because it wasn't her mate's. No, Rowan was worlds away, literally, ruling her kingdom. Enda was here.

She felt the shields of raw unrefined power collapse first. Then the one that felt old and otherworldly, it felt like it was from a world that was neither this one nor hers, it felt like it was once greater but has diminished. The next one to fail was the one that reminded Aelin of Demaris.

The longer she held this the more difficult it became to control. It would be so, so easy to just let go and let her magic take her. "Come back to me Fireheart" Her mate had said those words before she left. Her husband. Her carranam. Her Buzzard was waiting for her back home. That memory of her mate was enough to keep her in the present focused.

The shield of ever changing magic crumbled. Then soon after was the one of night and shadow and darkness. One shield left. There was one keeping her friends from her inferno, and it was cracking. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled. With one last breath she reined her magic in, and her inferno of wildfire ceased to burn the sky.

A/N

Hi so, I wrote and finished this chapter like a week ago during my March break and I got so bored super quickly, 'cause I completely forgot that now I have two weeks instead of the one I'm used to, and I had no idea what to do with my time. Then I forgot I had written it and went to write one for April. When I finished that one I realized I hadn't published the one that goes first, so instead of getting one chapter this month you get two. Yay you.

Also on another note I just finished The Priory of the Orange Tree a few days ago and I thought it was kind of boring, and long. Not long in the way that books are long when they have 600+ pages ('cause that's just a big book). But I found the story to be long and move kinda slowly. I also thought that character development suffered in favour of world building. Is there anyone else who thought the same of the book? I only know 3 other fantasy book readers in real life (two of whom are teachers, the other is a friend) but none of them have read the book, so I don't have anyone to speak about these books with.