The Faerie Curses

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Winter Wand

Glen immediately leaped over the edge and into the yawning chasm without a second thought.

"Hurry up!" He yelled up to me with a wink. I watched him sink into the darkness, his wings buzzing.

I looked behind me, expecting to see Andrion chuckling amusedly as his ghostly silhouette flickered in the red-lit dawn. But the woodland spirit had vanished.

I took a shuddering breath, craning my head over the edge. It was just a simple drop, but something about the way the darkness seemed to crawl up towards me made me hesitate. I thought of my nightmare, being trapped beneath the ground as I suffocated in my grave. Anything could be waiting in the dark.

"You're wondering what you're going to face down there, aren't you?"

I jumped, startled. Diandre's huntsman coat withered in the wind as he smiled at me fondly.

Sometimes I wish that he didn't know me so well.

Before I could deny it, he took a step closer until one of his legs dangled over the abyss.

"There's no time for that now," Diandre added, his eyes glimmering. "Not if you want to catch me."

With that, he stepped off the frosty ledge and plummeted into the pitch black.

On instinct, my wings sprang open and I leaped in after him. Without thinking, I was diving into the void, hurtling deeper into the dark. I glanced over my shoulder, noticing how the sky was growing smaller and smaller as it faded away. The wind roared in my ears as I gained speed. The drop seemed to last for an eternity, and all at once the light from above had disappeared.

I couldn't see a thing.

My breaths struggled to escape my lungs as I desperately folded my wings, willing my body to travel faster. My mind was rushing frantically, wondering how far away Diandre was.

"Moron." I seethed.

As I zoomed deeper and deeper, I didn't think about how my mother and brother has endured this very fall three years ago. The fall that has killed them. All I could think about was now.

Jutting my arms out, I locked them around Diandre's chest just before he could splatter onto the chasm floor. I gritted my teeth. My wings strained against the added weight of his body as I kept him aloft in the air.

"You idiot, Diandre," I scolded him, hoping he didn't feel the heat rising on my face as I held him tightly against me. "You could have become a Sprite sized stain on the ground. What were you thinking, falling like that?"

Beneath his shirt, I could feel Diandre's muscles strain as he turned to look at me. His face was inches from mine.

"Sorry," he apologized, but his smile told otherwise. "It was the only way I could get you to jump."

My eyes widened, and I finally noticed the fact that I had flown all the way down here without even wondering what I would have to fight. What I would have to sacrifice. I hadn't even considered the swallowing darkness through the field of my narrowed worry for him.

"Don't ever do that again," I snorted, punching Diandre lightly in the shoulder. "Or I'm just going to drop you next time."