Melissa Marr - Fragile Eternity

She paused. The words she wanted to say weren’t there. There were no reasons not to. I am not a mortal. She took a deep breath. “Can you figure out this dating thing? I’ve dated one person and…”

He brushed a soft kiss over her lips. “Be ready in an hour?”

She nodded, and Keenan left.

I can do this. The step from friendship to love isn’t that far. It hadn’t been with Seth. She forced thoughts of him away. He was gone, and she was moving on with her life.

As Seth stepped through the moonlit veil, the world around him changed. It wasn’t as simple as going from the peace and perfection of his mother’s side to the harsh and jarring mortal world. In that single step, he was changed. The bargain he’d made was manifest. Seth was not mortal on this side of the veil: he was fey.

The world shifted under his feet. He felt it, the thrum of life that burrowed and nested in the soil. Wings from a far-off egret sent gusts of air that swirled into the currents in the sky.

Sorcha took his hand in hers. “It’s strange at first. I’ve watched the mortals in the Summer Court change. Let the difference find its place inside you.”

He couldn’t speak. His senses—and not just the same five he’d had before—were flooded. As a mortal, his understanding of the world was restricted to a basic comprehension. Now, he knew things that had no physical sensory source. He could feel what was in order. He could feel the rightness of what was and what should be.

“Do they— we —all feel like this?” His words felt too melodic, like his voice was reflected back through some filter that was softening sound.

She paused, her hand still holding his. “No. Not so fully, but they aren’t my children. You’re the only one who is that.”

When he glanced over at her, he saw her through his changed vision. Tiny moonlit chains like silver filigree stretched between them in a net that wasn’t visible to him when they were in Faerie. He reached for the net. “What is this?”

He could touch it; even as he realized it wasn’t tangible, it felt weighty in his hand like chain mail, heavier than it looked.

“No one else will see it.” She caught his free hand in hers. “It’s us. You’re of me, as if I’d borne you myself. You share my blood. It means you’ll see things, know things…I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“‘See things’?” He looked beyond her to the white sand beach where they stood. He didn’t think it was seeing . He felt things: crabs scuttling in the sand, seagulls and terns’ feet touching the earth. Absently, he walked toward the edge of the sea. As the water brushed his feet, he felt the life teeming in that water—animal and faery. Selchies mated somewhere to the east. A merrow argued with her father.

Seth concentrated on not-feeling it, not knowing.

“It’s not seeing,” he told Sorcha. “I feel the world. It’s like the whole time I thought I was alive, I was really barely conscious.”

“That is faery. More so because you are mine. The Hounds create fear. Gancanaghs create lust. That’s what they feel.” She led Seth away from the water to a bit of worn rock. “You’ll feel all that and other things too. A few of us can feel all of it, but some things will be stronger. Niall feels lusts and fears more truly. You’ll feel rightness, logical choices, pure reason.”

Seth sat beside her on the rocky outcrop and waited.

“The seeing part is different.” Her gaze was wary, but her voice was unwavering. “My sister and I have far-seeing. She chooses to see the threads to pluck to create disorder. I choose to focus on the inverse. But they are all only possibilities and connections. You must remind yourself of that.”

“Because I’m yours.” He hadn’t thought about any traits beyond longevity and strength when he sought this bargain. “This is all different because I’m your son.”

“Yes. You will have some…differences from other faeries.” She squeezed his hand in hers. “But when the seeing becomes too much, you will have time to be not-this within Faerie. You can return to me anytime and enjoy being mortal; you can escape from being a faery, from being of my blood.”

“What all will I…I mean, what other changes…” He struggled to make sense of this added gift— curse —as he struggled too to make sense of the flood of information from the world around him. “I see possibilities.”

She held tight to his hand when he thought to pull away. “Your own threads are less clear. It is only be others’ threads you see. It may be only sometimes. I don’t know how much of me you carry inside.”

He lowered his head and closed his eyes, trying to block out everything but Sorcha’s words. The sensory differences dulled to a distant din, but silvered threads of knowledge stretched out like roads he could follow with his mind. He would Know things if he let himself—and he didn’t want to. Knowing without the power to change things was enough to make him feel unstable. He wanted to fix the conflict between the two merrows. He saw their threads. The girl was going to leave in anger. Her father would mourn because her death was likely after she left.

“How do you endure this?” he whispered.

“I change what I can, and I accept that I am not omnipotent.” She stood before him and looked at him intently. “If you weren’t able to be this, I wouldn’t have chosen you. I can’t see what you’ll do now; too much of my essence lives in you. I know, however, that you are quite capable of anything you want to be. You are someone who will slay dragons, who will do feats worthy of ballads.”

Seth realized that the gift Sorcha had given him was so much larger than he’d guessed. He had a purpose, a true purpose, out here as well as in Faerie. In Faerie, he created art for his queen mother; in the mortal world, he knew the things that could be set right. He could be her hand of order in this world if he had the skills to do so. “I don’t know how to fight or politics or anything ….”

“Who are your friends?” she prompted.

“Ash, Niall…” He smiled as understanding dawned. “Niall knows how to fight. Gabriel and Chela are all about fighting. Donia knows all about politics. So does Niall. And Ash. So do the Summer Court guards…I can learn part of what I need from all three courts.”

“All four courts,” Sorcha added. “But you don’t have to do those things. You don’t have to become a hero, Seth. You could stay in Faerie, create art, walk with me and talk. I will bring us poets and musicians, philosophers and—”

“I will. Every year I’ll come home to you…but this”—he kissed her cheek—“is my world too. I can make things better for the people I love. For you. For Ash. For Niall. I can make both worlds safer.”

They sat silently for a few moments. Seth thought about the merrows who quarreled under the water.

“If the kelp strands were snarled as if by a storm, woven too tightly for the daughter to leave—” He stopped as that very thing happened. The merrow daughter was frustrated, but she turned back to her home.

Before he could comment, Sorcha pulled him to her in a quick embrace and said, “I need to leave. Go to your Aislinn. Find your place, and if you need me…”

“I do need you,” he assured her.

“Call, and I’ll be here.” She gave him a look that was one he’d seen often on his father’s face when he was younger—worry and hope. “Or you can come to me. Anytime. Devlin will assure your safety as well…and Niall…and…”

“I know.” He kissed her cheek. “I remember all the instructions you gave me.”