The Goblets Immortal by Beth Overmyer (highly recommended books txt) 📗

and himself. It was a gamble, finishing the meager amount off, but he was optimistic that they would reach Wontworth before noon the next day.

With a yawn, he shot a glance over at his traveling companion, who was hunched over and staring mutely into the blaze. “You should get some rest.”

She didn’t answer at first. The firelight danced in her glassy eyes, and she moved nary a muscle. It was almost as if she had fallen into a trance. She was too still.

“Slaíne? Are you all right?”

“I’ll keep first watch.”

“You don’t have to.”

“There’s a storm coming.” Lightning crackled in the west, and the sky darkened.

Aidan felt the wind. “It should pass us.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He opened his mouth to ask her what she did mean, but she turned her back to the fire and himself, ending the conversation. Well, if she wanted to keep guard, that was up to her. Not that he trusted Slaíne, but he was fairly certain he could rest. Her Pull would alert him if she moved too far…he hoped. There was little choice left to him.

Aidan yawned, stretched, and lay down on his side. He was sore from riding and exhausted from the week’s trials. Before long, his eyelids flickered closed, the yellow flames dancing on the other side as sleep overtook him.

* * *

He was standing in a great room. If he didn’t know that his country had no true royalty, he would say he was standing in a palace hall.

The structure was made of gleaming white stones, bricked together so seamlessly that the octagonal room’s walls might’ve been carved from a single rock. But that couldn’t be. There were no windows, no door, but the ceiling was open to the elements, and silver moonlight poured in.

A crystal-blue carpet runner spilled out before him, twisting and winding its way from where Aidan stood in the middle of the room to an unoccupied glass throne against the wall on his left. He turned toward it and took a tentative step forward, but ran into some invisible barrier. Not one to quit, Aidan rose and tried again with the same results. Without being told, he knew he had to reach that throne before someone else did. Someone wicked. But short of cursing, there was nothing he could do. “What is this place?”

“You are dreaming, Aidan Ingledark.” It was a woman who spoke, her voice a deep, rich roar.

Aidan made to turn around, but found himself paralyzed from the waist down. Panic seized hold of him and he pounded with his fists on the invisible wall, making no sound. Sore, he paused. “What is this magic?”

A woman – no, an angel stepped out of the throne’s shadow and approached him. Her hair was blacker than the deepest night, her face as pale as snow, and the silver circlet atop her waves suggested that she was in fact a queen. But the land had no queen. This made no sense.

“You are wondering why I summoned you here.”

He shivered, trying and failing to meet her gaze. He settled instead for staring at a spot just over her left shoulder. “Summoned? What do you mean?”

She laughed, a lovely sound that made Aidan think of children playing in summertime. “No, Aidan Ingledark, not the sort of Summoning you are thinking of.” Her smile widened as she glided toward him without making a sound.

“What am I doing here? Who are you?”

The woman tut-tutted him. “They told me you were a suspicious one. I see that they did not express the half of it.” With a sigh, she reached out as if to touch Aidan’s face, but her hand swept right through him. “I told you. You are not here. You are dreaming. That is how I brought your Inner Man to this place.” Her smile went lopsided when he opened his mouth to protest. “You’ll be gone as soon as you wake. There is no keeping the living in this room.”

Aidan swallowed. “So, am I dead? And you are…?”

“We’re both very much alive. Aidan Ingledark, I need your help uniting the Immortal.” Her eyes became two pools of fire at the word, and Aidan grew afraid, though he knew not why. It passed soon enough, along with the memory of the sensation.

The Immortal. There was that word again. But what did it mean? “The Immortal? Who?”

She shook her head. “Not who. What.”

He considered this for a moment. “I’ve heard of you.”

“I assumed no less.”

“You are Meraude, then. They say….” He hesitated. The reports he had on her were conflicting. The girl, Slaíne, apparently wanted the mage dead. The elves and the Romas had warned him that she wanted all magical beings dead. Yet the seer at Prewitt Manor had said Meraude would be able to help him. That she was the only one who could help him.

The mage gave him a knowing look. “I am neither good nor bad, Lord Ingledark.”

“What do you want with the Immortal?”

Her eyes twinkled in the moonlight and she whispered, “That is my own concern, milord. I need the Goblets Immortal, and you are the one who can get them for me.”

He stalled. “The Goblets?”

She nodded. “You know of what I speak. You are Blest.”

“Blest?”

How could a smile be benign and so piercingly cold at the same time? “I warn you, do not play the fool with me. Lady Meraude knows.” The room trembled at the sound of her name. So did Aidan, for that matter. “You met with one of my servants. It has been said you are on the road leading toward the Warring Goblet. Have you found it?”

He’d run into her servant? When? Who? The truth slipped out of Aidan’s mouth without his meaning it to. “I came across a Goblet.”

Her grin widened. “And did you Claim it?”

“Claim it? No. The elves took it.”

Lady Meraude scowled and put a pale white finger to her brown lips. “Interesting. No matter. No matter. It shall be recovered soon enough. I thank you for your honesty,