Read Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) for Free Online

look different. Better.”
    “Yes, the Mage was a great help. Thank you for that. I wondered how we would lure one in. It was easier than I expected. I was sorry to make you lie to them.”
    “You made me say I wanted to study there? Just so you could take his magic?” I ask, shaking my head in disbelief. I think of the Mage in the sitting room. The strange shimmer that nobody seemed to notice. The stream of light that bled from him.
    “Just a little bit.” Mevyn sits on the ledge beside me. Peers up at me. Watches. I can’t stop thinking of Zhilee.
    “It was necessary,” Mevyn says. “He won’t even miss it.”
    “What happened to her?” I ask. “My sister?”
    “Which?”
    “Zhilee.”
    “You,” he says gently, “asked me to take that memory away. Are you sure you want to know?”
    I push myself to remember the night that the Sorcerer came and took us. We were all under his spell. He brought us to the trees. Left us with the fallen fae, trapped in our cruel prisons. I start to shake. There was one. One white, twisted creature. One with a red slab that sent promises and commands. I could never see the writing, but I could see the gold light. I could see the reactions of the one who read its words. Anger. Sadness. Fury. Defeat. Cruelty. A fateful word. Sunset. The dread it carried with it. Then it goes black, as though nothing happened after.
    Next, I’m climbing the towers. Lighting fires. Swimming to a ship.
    “It’s better if you don’t know, Tib.” Meyvn says. “Trust in me. Trust in our agreement.”
    “You told me to do all of those things,” I murmur.
    “What things?”
    “Burning the towers,” I whisper.
    “That was your idea,” he says with the same careful, gentle tone.
    “Why?” I ask. I’m not sure I want the answer.
    “To avenge Zhilee and your nan. To stop the Sorcerers from hurting anyone else. You came up with it.”
    “To avenge…” I shake my head as the realization stabs me like a knife through the heart. “They’re dead.”
    “Dead.” Mevyn whispers, shaking his head. “It’s just you and I left. We’re the last. The only remaining.”
    I think of the cruel white creatures that bound us in our root prison. How they were commanded by words on a stone. Ordered by Sorcerers who made promises and didn’t keep them. Sorcerers who turned them against each other. I remember the screams. Animal. Guttural. Savage. White and bony. Fighting. Slashing. Sapping each other until there was nothing left. And Mevyn, who tucked himself beside me. Whispered ways to keep us both safe until it was over. And when it was over, he’s right. No one was left. Just us two.
    I bury my head in my knees and sob so hard I fear I’ll fall off the edge of the wall. I remember Mevyn doing the same as we sat on the edge of the empty bowl that was once his people’s Wellspring. Magic given freely by fairies, and drained by the greed of men. Reaped and ravaged by those who only wanted more power. These words. Are they my own? Are they Meyvn’s? This grief, is it mine? Is it his? I can’t tell. I don’t know.
    “The last.” Meyvn sighs. “Unless…”
    “Unless?” I look up. Wipe my nose on my sleeve.
    “If we could get to Kythshire, they would help us. My kind flourish there. I’m stronger now. We could make the journey together.”
    “They would help us?”
    “Yes. There are ways. Ways to restore the Wellspring. To guard it from Mages and Sorcerers. To revive my people. We could put an end to the oppression of Zhaghen. Free those gripped in its clutches. Make it a city like this one. Like Cerion, where babies laugh and no child is motherless. No one would have to suffer a fate like the one suffered by you and your departed family. We could live in harmony.”
    “Wouldn’t it be better if Sunteri’s Wellspring remained empty?” I ask. “Then nobody could use the magic or fight over it. If it stayed dried up, the Sorcerers would be powerless.”
    “Not so,” Mevyn says gravely.