Bloody Hel's Abyss, this had to be the oddest sensation to ever exist.

Being subjected to the fae's Shadow-Light felt akin to having one's innards turned inside out and then placed on the outside of one's flesh for all the assembled Elementi to dissect.

Other than that, it was rather pleasant. A warm hum that traveled from the tips of Matthias's pointed ears to the toes of his booted feet. It numbed his tongue and filled his thoughts with the lazy afternoon light of the setting sun.

It did cause his healing wound to throb, but that could have been due to the oils and herbs Nairol had slathered onto his leg. A bit excessively and with much unnecessary added flourishes.

"Keep your eyes closed," Matthias managed to mutter to Abel, but he couldn't be sure his words had been intelligible. Everything felt muffled. Which said a lot about what the Shadow-Light was doing to his senses because elves' ears could pinpoint the exact drop of first rainfall.

Matthias had never undergone Shadow-Light, but he had heard plenty of horror stories as a child of the invasive transgression used by those of the Court of Avylon. Towards the end of the Purge, Matthias remembered his own mother submitting herself to it; Commander Nimosk had arrived in Lantholen after Davina and Niklaus had set fire to the tree city in their final, desperate attempt to locate the Black Quill. Unfortunately, Nimosk had been too late to strike down Davina, but he had not been late enough to find Matthias's mother, who had been unable to complete the Ceremony of Trees and seal herself into the Willow before the feared commander had arrived. Back then, rumors had spread that Matthias's mother had not only aided Pavel Kyiva in securing the Black Quill in Holalethe Lake but that she had even harbored a fleeing Soleitian priestess when Davina had come looking for her.

There hadn't been time to learn if the rumors had been true or not; Matthias and his sister had already been hurried to Soleita where a portal awaited the fate of Eleanora's two youngest children.

To be fair, Matthias would never put any of the hushed rumors past his mother. She had lived for centuries, and the secrets she kept were almost as numerous.

Just like the Monverta she now hid beneath her twisting roots.

He could sense Earth's threads tugging the small book deeper beneath the soil as Light's threads pulled at his flesh, flaring brightly against the back of Matthias's shut eyes.

"Enough!" Araric demanded. "The children hide nothing. Not unlike the last time you subjected one of our own to this nonsense—!"

"Trickery!" Leolin swore. "The mortal realm taints their souls! It explains how they can lie and deceive us."

"One's blood cannot be tainted unless the Spirits deem it to be so," Nimosk said; it effectively silenced Leolin, though he still fumed. "Pavel's Monverta is not on their persons."

The searching glow dimmed, pulling away first from Matthias's face, leaving flares of red and orange that splashed against his eyelids in dizzying dots. With care, he blinked his eyes open only to find the fae commander watching him with crooked lips. As Light's threads retreated back into Nimosk's veins, it lit his expression in a taunting, ghoulish way.

"Mother and son," he drawled. "Like calls to like." It was an accusation as much as it was a threat. The two stared at each other. Matthias half-wished Nimosk would be reckless enough to attack him, though it would most likely be crazed Leolin who snapped their truce, but then Nimosk cleared his throat and stepped back.

"It appears the halfling misplaced the book."

"As I claimed." From next to him, Abel curled her fingers into fists. "I believe an apology is in order."

She somehow looked down the elegant shape of her nose at each of the imposing males gathered around her. Matthias hid a grin; Nairol did not, that prick. His smirk was wide and, dare he say it, impressed.

"Furthermore," she continued in a lofty tone, "I would like my malachite back."

Nairol snorted.

Nimosk reached into the pocket of his weapon's belt. "Such weapons should not be placed in the hands of a child." He tossed the green stone at Araric instead. "Your Elder shall possess it until he deems it otherwise."

It was only the Elder's swift, inbred reflexes that allowed Araric to catch it; Nimosk's aim had gone wayward. His hands shook as if the Shadow-Light had eaten away at his strength. An act that should not have weakened one of such an imposing, thick stature. Before the Purge, performing Shadow-Light would have needed no more exertion than a mortal needed to step upon an ant.

Internally, Matthias frowned. There had been hopes that once Niklaus's Monverta had been destroyed, the released threads would have slowed some of the deterioration seeping into the lands of Elementi. However, even though Astrid and Sebastian had broken through its seal and unleashed those threads of Earth's stolen magic, the Monverta could not truly have been destroyed with Niklaus's spirit residing within it.

It was why the elves and fae had formed an alliance, no matter how tenuous it may be; both realms were aware of the hiding place of the Black Quill. To truly destroy Niklaus's Monverta, they would need the Black Quill to do it. Then, it would be used to destroy all the surviving Monvertas.

To do what Pavel Kyiva had come to acknowledge two decades earlier: to save the seven elements.

Regardless, Matthias allowed himself to feel a moment of gratitude that Belsynen's connection to God Lumu's threads remained delicate. Especially considering Matthias had just lied to the commander of their warrior fae court. Well, not lied, per se. More like circumvented the truth. He would prefer to avoid being rejected by Goddess Elayn and having her absorb him into her earth.

At least for now.

Matthias sidestepped Abel and placed a restraining hand on her arm when she moved to grab Matthias's sword to wield it like some fearful goddess of revenge. But it was Nairol who appeared on Abel's other side and slid one of his arms around her shoulders. Matthias's frown deepened. Curse him! Nairol had always been annoyingly charming in his childhood diplomacy. He had talked his way into getting whatever he pleased even as a mischievous, gap-toothed toddler.

"I would advise against calling the halfling anything other than a ferocious woman," Nairol said. "Your little light show stole your strength, and it was she who injured Matthias, a full-blooded Elven male, you should know."

Abel's lips twitched, and Matthias certainly did not approve of the way she leaned into Nairol's side. "I do not take well to dishonesty," she said, "nor to those who accuse me of such."

Leolin snarled. "This is who the plan relies on?"

"This," Abel began, "thinks you should finally tell her of the plan before she grows bored of all these tiresome shenanigans."

"Certainly." Nimosk said in a tone that forced Matthias's jaw to grind. "Let it be as you wish. You are in love with Sebastian Kyiva, are you not?"

To her credit, Abel kept her expression relatively blank except for the slight rouging of her cheeks. "He is my oldest friend."

Commander Nimosk clipped his heels together. "Young Matthias, along with Hollace Lambert, have passed information to us during their time in Halorium since the Purge came to an end. Matthias claims your feelings for Kyiva's son are mature."

"Hmph." She breathed the sound like female dragon-shifters would spew out flames. "Has he?"

Matthias half-expected her voice to incinerate him where he stood.

She met his muddied gaze. "Perhaps I should have made that wound a tad more fetal."

Araric held his clasped hands before him, clapping them once to regain Abel's attention. "You would do anything for the boy, I presume?"

"Yes." Her eyes narrowed. Spine straightened. Tone sharpened. An arrow on its target. "Within reason."

Leolin sneered. "If you wish to keep him, little halfling, then you must save him from himself."

Her nostrils flared as she raked her gaze over Leolin before directing her attention back to Araric and Commander Nimosk. "You mentioned a curse: the Curse of Authors. What does that mean?"

"Like it sounds," Leolin spat. "A curse is rarely a good force in the world, no?"

Matthias's hand was now the one reaching for the hilt of his blood-blade. He gripped it, nails digging into his skin; instead of stabbing the bastard, he turned his gaze sideways to Abel. "It's a rumored bit of folklore, having to do with the tale of Queen Branwyn and Lady Guinivere," he said. His mother would be much better at explaining this. Too bad she had bonded her soul to a tree. "Our Elvish Queen, Branwyn of Holalethe, held an esteemed regard for her human soulmate, Guinivere Verilibros—"

"Yes," Abel said, "I know this bit of history. Lady Guinivere became the first Author, an honor gifted by Queen Branwyn to help secure an alliance with the humans of Rainier."

"It was not a gift for her to give," Nimosk said. "Your...queen—" he spoke the royal title like some mockery of a poison—"presented a mortal with all seven elements, six of which were not threads for her to give away. The Spirits of Eyelesene deemed it treason, so they cursed the thread of Spirit that Branwyn and Guinivere imbued into the Black Quill as punishment."

Abel regarded Matthias again as if, for some endearing reason that made his chest swell, she trusted his words above all others.

Well, at least over the present company, anyways.

"Meaning what, exactly?" Abel asked with an impatience that masked her apprehension rather impressively.

Matthias had never been one to coddle. Mostly because his feet were far too large for tiptoeing. The truth came out in one gust of breath. "To dilute the blood of Authors throughout the generations, the curse would destroy any two Authors whose souls risked becoming intertwined."

Her cheeks paled. "Intertwined?" Her words shook like loose leaves. "Like how Astrid weaved her Spirit's thread with Bash's to stop him from killing me?"

"That is one of the ways. The far less potent, literal way," Araric replied, "but there is also the intertwining of hearts."

Abel stepped out from beneath Nairol's arm. "They are not in love."

Leolin scowled. "The wild portal currently raging in the heart of Belsynen states otherwise."

"Unlike alchemical portals," Araric explained, "ones created from the tearing of the realms' fabric cannot be closed. It is now an open curse near our lands."

"It is only near yours; it is in ours," Nimosk corrected through a tight jaw, "and the secrets of such effects live with the traitorous hoarders of the Soleitian temples." 

"They created a cursed portal?" Abel leaned backwards into Nairol's chest to retreat from the truth being hurled her way. "Truly? It cannot be fixed?"

Curtly, Nimosk nodded. "The status of that remains unknown." His moving tattoos spun up his arms like slithering, hissing serpents. "From what we can surmise, however, Kyiva's and Salvera's threads collided recently, and it ripped a tear into the realms' void, which, if left unchecked, could grow to swallow my court."

"It also transported them both directly into our territory," Nairol interjected, his tone oddly gentle, "into Galandreal. On the banks of Holalethe Lake, to be exact."

"By the Scribes!" Abel's eyes narrowed. "And we're to believe that all happened by chance? This cursed portal Astrid created—" It wasn't lost on Matthias that Abel had purposefully left out Sebastian's participation in it all—"brought them exactly to the location where the Black Quill supposedly resides? The same quill that Astrid's mother designed this entire blasted tournament to claim?"

Matthias spoke up then, his intestines thrashing with something akin to panic. "We have suspicions that Astrid has been taught about this curse—" His molars felt like they ground together after each word—"and how to use it."

"From who?" Abel demanded. "How would she know of such a thing? You made it sound like it's a secret kept by the Soleitian priestesses."

"That is true." Nairol's hand found Abel's shoulder again. "However, there have been two recorded instances of the Author's curse manifesting in our history." His fingers flexed into the material of her tunic as if he cared. "The last being between Davina Salvera and Niklaus Verilibros."

Her dark pupils flickered, expanding, shrinking, moving in rhythm with the rapid exchange of her thoughts. Watching the reactions playing across her otherwise tight expression, Matthias noticed the exact moment Abel completed her analysis of the facts and found it positively enraging. Her entire posture narrowed, like a coil being set to sprung, and her palm flung to Matthias's sword. It was the closest weapon in her reach. Her fingers covered the tight fingers of his own fist wrapped around the hilt.

Abel glared between the males, her amber eyes fossilizing with a determined anger. "What do you need me to do?" 

_ _ _

Thoughts on Astrid? The fate of Bastrid? Is their love true? Is it not? Has Astrid been playing us this entire time? GASP! And what, exactly, is up with Matthias's childhood past? Who, exactly, is Eleanora? We'll post the next chapter when we know the answers to these questions ourselves... (haha! Just kidding! We have planned this out! Mostly...)

Thank you for reading!