Read Blood Faerie for Free Online Page A

done this? Was he yet another casualty of her deformed magical talents? They used to laugh together, all those many years ago. Now, seeing his stony expression, she couldn’t remember what his laughter sounded like.
     
    “Do you know who he is? Has another been exiled since my…departure?”

    “Since you tried to kill your own father and ran away?”
     
    Another blow to the heart. “He lives then?”

    Saor nodded. “He told the conclave that he fell and said when he awoke, you had gone. An obvious lie.”
     
    Eilidh did not let herself smile, but she was pleased by her father’s cleverness. If he’d told the story of her overpowering him, they might have suspected him. But since he told them the opposite, they blamed her instead.

    “Too obvious,” Saor said, a warning in his tone.
     
    He knew. And he was telling her, as clearly as any faerie would speak. Was there threat in his words? If anyone learned that her father helped her escape, he could face the same fate. “What do you want, Saor?”

    He blinked at her directness. It was not their way. The fae spoke in half-nods and flicks of the eyes. “You have changed, Eilidh.”
     
    She fought the bitterness in her throat. “The human world is ugly, Saor, and I have grown slow. I miss…” Eilidh could not say it. She would not let herself reminisce about the Halls of Mist or the Otherworld. Only the outer reaches of the fae kingdoms overlapped the human plane. Even they were forbidden to her.

    The pair stood in long silence. Another thing Eilidh missed. Humans rushed everywhere, filled every moment with noise. They lacked the discipline of quiet.
     
    Finally, Eilidh spoke again. “This blood faerie. He smells wrong , Saor. And strong. I tracked him, but the trail vanished.” She wondered if she should tell him that the faerie had touched her mind but decided that would only remind Saor of her own wrongness.

    “I’ve never known you to lose a trail.”
     
    She nodded her appreciation of the compliment. “Do you know who he is?” she asked again. Few of the fae would choose to live outside the kingdoms. The pull of the Otherworld was too strong.

    Saor turned his face downward to indicate he did not, a subtle gesture that made her smile. Even with the horrible and irreparable rift between them, she had missed him. It pleased her to see she still recognised his tiniest movements.
     
    “If he attacks again, could you best him?”

    Eilidh had wondered that herself, but only briefly. “No. You know me, Saor. I’ve never been strong.”
     
    “Not in the Ways of Earth, no.”

    His admission surprised her. Earth magic was the only acceptable magic among the fae. She’d been weak, ridiculously so. Like the runt of a litter, expected to crawl away and die because the Mother Earth had rejected her. It had always been Saor who protected her, he who trained her in the skills of the Watchers. What she lacked in magical talent, he taught her tenfold in plant lore, agility, strength, and skill. And now he spoke to her of the Path of the Azure, forbidden to the fae because of its corruptive and addictive nature.
     
    “I had no training in astral magic.”

    He knew as well as she that her statement, although true, did not answer his question.
     
    She relented. “No. I could not best him with the Path of the Azure. I resist the flows, so they are unfamiliar to me.”

    “You keep the law?”
     
    His surprise annoyed Eilidh. “I am fae,” she said.

    “You are not of our kingdom,” he reminded her.
     
    “I am fae,” she repeated, setting her jaw firmly.

    A flicker of a smile passed his lips and then disappeared. “I will speak to the conclave. I doubt they will trouble themselves, but they will want to know of this…turn.”
     
    “Thank you,” she said, feeling bereft as she realised their conversation had drawn to a close. “Will you tell my father I am well?”

    “Would it be true?”
     
    “Will you tell him?”

    She thought she