80. A curse of castings

"You seek the name of the Saltsworn!" The Lady of Wysthaven was overcome by some sinister joke that left Ada confused and speechless. "Stupid girl. Such a being no longer exists."

A cold horror swept up Ada's spine, and even Raeph sucked in a breath of disbelief.

"No," she said, wishing that the Lady would stop her cruel laughter. "You're lying! I was told about the Saltsworn. They rule over lands with their magic and can live in homes of iron."

But even as Ada spoke, she was doubting her words. The history of the Saltsworn that had been told to her by the sister-seers still rang so sharply in her mind, but could their story have been another trick from their wicked tongues? The Lady of Wysthaven was only half-fae, so the iron tower held a far lesser power over her body, and though she may rule over Wysthaven, she did so with a vehement and enforced hatred for magic.

Yet still, the bird-seer had smiled her cunning smile, and said to Ada, the question asked of me after the tithe was who they were, not what they are named. Surely that meant the true Saltsworn was out there. Perhaps not in the tower of Wysthaven as Ada had suspected, but somewhere else entirely. Had they escaped Wysthaven altogether when the Lady had banned their magic? Or had they made their pilgrimage to the sea to earn their crown of salt and chosen never to return?

"Magic, iron, Saltsworn," the Lady spat each word from her mouth with bitter distaste. "What could a foolish human possibly know of such things?"

"I don't know!" Ada cried, and to her horror, she felt hot tears prick her eyes. She had come all this way—had risked so much to find the name of a powerful and mysterious entity she knew nothing of—and it was all for nought. "When I ask, nobody is willing to explain, and when I try to learn myself from books and records, all I discover are the cruel dealings that you foul creatures brought to my world. I wish I'd never come to this evil place!"

She immediately regretted her words when she felt Raeph stiffen beside her, and saw a fresh smile curl the Lady's lips as she repeated, "Records of dealings? Where could such a thing be found if not the Stone Circle?"

If there had been any hope in Ada's mind of leaving the tower, it vanished. She had known the Lady was searching for the Stone Circle with a desire to crush it once and for all, and now, a direct line to them had thrown herself at her feet.

"It was the Stone Circle who brought you to Wysthaven," said the Lady with unmasked delight. "How desperate they must be to call upon a human after all these years!"

Ada pressed her lips together, unwilling to say another word, even as the Lady picked up the ebony dagger and a droplet of sweat ran down Ada's neck.

"Well then, let us have a little test to see how much you have actually learned about Wysthaven from the Stone Circle," the Lady mused. "Tell me the two forms of magic."

The ebony blade was a dark promise above Raeph's head, and so Ada whispered, "Agrestal and Sanguinary."

"Good. Now, tell me the main sources used for Casting."

"Plants. Metal and stone—" Ada shivered, watching the tip of the dagger touch Raeph's brow. "And wood."

"Correct! Now, your last question, what is the most potent of resources to have ever been Cast upon?"

Ada swallowed and forced her eyes from the sharp dagger. Above the Lady was a skein of twisted branches, ripping the sky beyond as though it were a stretch of ancient silk. "Wystwood."

"See now," murmured the Lady of Wysthaven. "The Stone Circle has trained you nicely in spite of their futile cause."

"They haven't trained me for anything!" cried Ada, suddenly sick of the fae and their false words. "I'm not like you! I can't Cast magic."

But the Lady was shaking her head, just as frustrated with Ada as she was with her. "Use your head, girl! Think! You may not be able to Cast, but our world is not entirely foreign to you. You know more than you believe. You always have. It's in your blood."

Ada wanted to press her hands against her ears and block out all of the riddles that had haunted her through Wysthaven. Instead, she gritted her teeth and looked the Lady in the eye. "I don't understand."

The Lady sighed, as if her frustration had faded into disappointment, and she clicked her tongue. "Curious, do you not think, that all traces of the fae would be gone from your world except for one, singular aspect?"

"One aspect?" Ada repeated, but her own voice seemed very far away as she looked again to the branches of the throne, their dark wood drawing her in, through memories of sap ripped tooth and claw from tree trunks, and a sea of shivering leaves that whispered within her childhood nightmares.

"The Wystwood," said the Lady.

A new riddle, one that Ada hadn't even recognised had followed her since she had first emerged from the Wishing Well, came into abrupt focus. Here was the city of Wysthaven, from which no fae left or entered, and around it rose an untouched valley with its billows of rich, green grass. Why was it then that the Wystwood forest grew grey and barren?

"Wystwood is the greatest curse to have ever been unleashed upon faekind," continued the Lady, "and it was set upon us by you. Whatever fae dealings you might have read of, your kind has never been the innocent suffers. You violated us, and then when ties were severed between our worlds, succeeded in burying your dark histories beneath centuries of forgetting."

Ada shook her head. "But the dealings were traded for by humans with their own gold! What does that have to do with wystwood?"

"Small and petty dealings, perhaps," said the Lady. "But the fae were first drawn to your world by the potency of your resources. So strong was the pull that we built a bridge between our realms through stone alone."

"The Wishing Well," Ada breathed.

The Lady laughed at that, high and cruel. "A pathetic name for such a terrible thing. Is that how the Stone Circle found you? Did you try to make a wish?"

Ada felt her cheeks flame red, but the Lady went on, "You humans always want to wish your problems away. There aren't enough wells in the world."

"I didn't make a wish," Ada tried to say, but the Lady was now lost within her own raging.

"We fae came for the potency of your earth, and in return Cast little magics for you in fair exchange. But you grew greedy, and demanded more and more from powers that you had never before encountered. You did not know the limits that the fae have balanced for all their lives, and did not care to learn when we tried to explain our magic to you. Instead, you forced us further, made us Cast greater and more terrible things, and when the most potent resource of all was discovered, the balance came crumbling down."

"You came to our world by your own choice though," Ada countered, not wanting the story to continue. "You could have taken your wystwood and left us in peace!"

"Taken it?" cried the Lady. "You think your kind were all smiles and curtsies when we met? You held respect for no part of our beings other than our magic. Once our dealings were offered in good faith, you marked out your territories with lines of iron. Humans are not born from kindness, and so you live in spite."

"Then you could have left," Ada said. "Before your Castings turned to curses."

"Except that you had seeded an addiction inside of us, which grew with each fevered night we returned to our land. So frenzied were the fae with your wystwood that Casting soon was not enough. We wanted to possess such power within our very beings, the balance of magic now forgotten. You should have seen them, first using knives and tools, then their own splintering fingernails, to rip the bark from the trees and suck out the sap flowing within. They drank like beasts, and the fae finally saw ourselves as you did us. Beasts. Pathetic, desperate creatures.

"And I grew up watching it. Was born from it, after my mother found that there were other things she could trade with besides her magic. I believe I craved the wystwood less without fully-fae blood in my veins, and eventually, those of us with mind left enough to see the madness brought an end to the bridge between our worlds. But it was too late; the balance had been broken and could not be restored. Fae fought fae, families killed families, we turned our own magic upon one another. A number had secreted wystwood from your world into ours, and though the foul forests grew, they were not made for our soil. Their magic was never quite the same. Still, the only choice remaining was clear: the fae had become lost upon their path of magic, and so a new path had to be forged."

"A city without magic," Ada said. "Your city of Wysthaven."

"A city of peace," corrected the Lady.

"Peace!" repeated Ada, and heard a ragged laugh escape her throat. "How long has it been since you've descended from your tower? Your city is only war and hatred."

Ada felt the pain before she realised the Lady had moved. The old fae's hand had swung so quickly, turning the dagger in her palm so that its hilt slammed wholly into Ada's temple. She gasped, her vision going bright. She thought she felt a hand at her elbow, steadying her, but the Lady's voice was fading in and out of focus, high and distracting. When Ada's dizzy eyesight returned, Raeph was kneeling just as quietly as before, and the Lady was staring stoically down at her.

"Do not presume," the Lady was saying smoothly, "that I have not made great sacrifices of my own in the building of this city. So great was my magic, that once I could have chosen to live with eternal youth and unyielding strength. But now you tire me with your ignorance alone."

The Lady seemed lost in her own thoughts, as though bored of Ada like a child preparing to toss aside their plaything. "It is the Stone Circle that incites violence, and they alone who cultivate hatred. But you shield your eyes against it, just as you blind yourself to your human cruelty. If you still speak of the fae in your world, let me predict that it is only ever in children's tales and makebelieve stories. But listen closely, for I shall teach you what the Stone Circle has not. It is not us, but your kind that are the monsters."