Time. She’d always had so much of it, but now it ran between her fingers like grains of sand. The tighter she held onto it, the faster it seemed to disappear.
She finally stopped teleporting. A quick look around confirmed the only thing Ailis would run into was one of the black deer that called the forest home. She sat beneath a colossal abifer tree covered with moss and opened the book, her eyes quickly scanning the words. The author described a realm just as verdant and abundant as theirs. A world with many treasures to be discovered. That was the place she wanted to visit.
Chapter after chapter, the descriptions entranced her. It had to be real. No one could describe such details without having been there. Yet this was the only copy of the work. Thousands had been burned three generations ago when both the Light and Dark Kings demanded to know if the author had actually gone to the new realm.
He’d vanished, never to be heard from again. And with his disappearance, his credibility crumbled. The entire realm was in an uproar about whether the story was fiction or truth. Light and Dark Fae alike began attempting to cross realms to prove the author right, and thousands upon thousands died in the process. The Light King demanded that all copies be gathered and had them burned. Even the Dark King agreed, ordering his subjects to destroy every copy. It seemed everyone listened but one.
Ailis read the last page and softly closed the book. She smoothed her hand over the cover before setting it on the grass. It had taken hundreds of books and dozens of meetings with some of the most dangerous Dark known to acquire the knowledge needed to build her magic enough to create a doorway to another realm. She’d never told anyone about her plan and carefully worded each query. The instant her questions caused alarm, she ended the conversation and severed all contact.
She had read and studied everything she could. She had practiced. All that was left was to actually try crossing the realms. She rubbed her hands together nervously. This was the first time she was undertaking this. She had thought to have as many attempts as necessary to create the doorways before ever stepping through.
“Seems Fate has other ideas,” she murmured.
The Dark Fae were all about power. And if someone thought another attempted to gain more, it garnered everyone’s attention. Quickly. The fact that every Fae was born a Light and chose to become Dark by action and deed said something about the Dark Fae—including her.
Ailis shoved that out of her mind. She needed to focus. There was no time to reminisce. She had devoured the words in the book and had an excellent memory. She didn’t need the tome anymore, but it wasn’t as if she could leave it. Nor could she return it. There would be too many questions, and if the king discovered what she was about, Ailis would never see the light of day again.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said to herself as she tucked the book into her bag before standing. “I won’t be around for them to find. And when I come back, they’ll applaud what I’ve done. Hopefully,” she added with a grin.
She walked from under the shade of the tree. Once in the sunlight, she took a deep breath and mentally went through the checklist of what she needed to do. Then, she held her hands before her, palms out, hesitating for a moment. A surge of exhilaration shot through her as she focused on her magic, letting it build as she pictured the realm in her mind. She imagined it by the words in the book, letting images fill her mind’s eye, all while imagining herself there.
When the magic thrummed through and around her with enough intensity that it vibrated, Ailis swept her hands up and outward as if outlining a door while her magic poured through her hands. At first, she felt nothing unusual. Then the pinpricks of discomfort began, quickly turning to sharp, stabbing pain. That led to unbearable agony. She tried to calm her breathing, refusing to look away from the doorway for fear her skin was ripping from her body. Ailis gulped, and her stomach roiled violently. Her fears of not correctly forming the door might be for naught. It was highly probable that the toll this took on her body would kill her before then.
She focused on the door and the realm she sought. Her knees quivered. Her lungs seized painfully. Then, blessedly, she spotted a shimmer of air like sunlight on water where her hands had been. Her legs gave out. She crumpled to the ground, catching herself with her arms that also threatened to give way. Despite the agony that lanced her, she didn’t look away. She couldn’t. Somehow, she was still alive, and she wanted to see if she had succeeded.
Gradually, a doorway appeared.
Tears pricked her eyes as she released a half sigh, half laugh. Only then did she pause to take stock of her body. Ailis let her head drop forward. She hurt. A quick look showed that everything was intact—at least on the outside. She sat up and took a few large gulps of air in an effort to get a handle on the pain. Thankfully, it was fading fast. Though she wouldn’t forget it anytime soon.
Nothing she had read or heard had cautioned her about that. Then again, if anyone had created a doorway to another realm, they were no longer alive to speak of it. Not even the author of the book had mentioned it. That could make the case that it was a work of fiction. She ran her gaze over the violet doorway. If there wasn’t a realm out there like the book described, then she wouldn’t have been able to create a door to it.
Would she?
It was time to find out. Ailis climbed to her feet, testing her legs. She dusted off her hands and stood before the door. She had told herself that if she could make the doorway, she would walk through it regardless of whether it took her somewhere or gave her instant death. Yet as she stared at it now, she felt a thread of fear, troubling doubt that threatened to make her destroy the door.
Other Fae—much stronger than her both mentally and magically—had tried to create such a doorway and failed. Who was she, an unknown, a nobody, to think she could do this? And on her first attempt, no less. Her magic was adequate, but surely not enough to do something so…grand.
Ailis could almost hear Bea’s laughter at her insecurity. Her aunt would’ve given her a wink and a little shove.
“Don’t let your self-doubt ruin your life. Think you can, Ailis, and you will.”
Ailis licked her lips, Bea’s words making her square her shoulders. There was a chance she could die. She had no way of knowing if she’d constructed the doorway correctly or not. Creating a gateway between realms was more than baking bread. She could have all the magic in the universe and still get it wrong.
Or…she could have gotten it right.
She knew Bea wouldn’t have hesitated to go through. Regardless of whether life or death waited on the other side, Bea would’ve greeted it with a smile.
“Then so shall I,” Ailis said.
She had come this far already. She hadn’t spent years searching and learning, only to turn back now. Whatever happened, she’d attempted what others hadn’t been courageous enough to even think of starting.
Ailis reached for her bag and draped it across her body. She took one more look at her home world before lifting her chin.
“Here goes everything,” she whispered and stepped through the door.
CHAPTER TWO
Ailis held her breath, squeezing her eyes closed as she waited to feel anything alerting her that she’d failed. Yet there was no discomfort, no ripping apart of her body. Instead, she saw a bright light behind her eyelids. It beckoned her to look, tempted her to glimpse the truth—be it success or failure.