Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The declarations rang in the air, clanging with piercing blows, peeling from the sky and raining down on us. No one moved. Not a word was spoken.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Killian tense, as if he could feel the shift in the silence coming.
At one time, I might have been able to as well, but my senses were dull compared to theirs.
They could smell adrenaline spike, feel the moment before someone moved.
I knew because, at one time, I was able to pick it up too.
“Liar!” Sam and Breena were first to react, the twins in sync, their matching lucerne hammers swinging for Tad at the same moment. Liam, Rory, and Roan only a millisecond behind, their howls of vengeance and death resounding together.
Sloane and Killian countered with the same speed, grabbing for their weapons before my brain even registered what was happening.
“STOP!” Tad picked up his staff and slammed it into the stone with effort. The impact chimed through my ears and down into my bones, the force of the strike tossing us all up like feathers. Our bones crunched to the ground as everyone flew back, our bodies strewn around Tad in a circle.
“You have no chance fighting me.” He directed his comments to the O’Laighin clan, their hisses of anger directed back at him as they rose.
I scrambled to my feet, my head whirling with what I just learned.
Tad had killed my grandfather, but my grandfather was also a murdering traitor to fellow druids, and possibly cursed his own family.
“You were able to challenge me that night because of circumstances, Eabha, not skill.” He tsked my mother as she got back up.
“I do not wish to fight you. Too much blood has already spilled from us, don’t you think?
” He moved closer to Eabha, looking directly at her.
“Your father’s death sits on my soul and has marked it forever, but I will not apologize for saving the lives of those druids by hiding them with me.
He was no longer the man I once knew, one I had called my friend.
She twisted his mind and blackened his soul.
She was the one who convinced him to curse your family. ”
“What? He would never curse us,” Rory spat.
“Aneira had perverted his mind so much, he no longer had power over his own thoughts. She was in complete control. He was a puppet.”
“No!” Sam shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I know you always assumed it was her, but it wasn’t.
Think about it. Aneira was always afraid of druids because they held different magic, could challenge her.
It was why she had us hunted down and slaughtered.
Aneira knew any curse she put on could probably be unraveled by someone like me or broken in her death.
So, she made sure that could never happen.
Instead of her own magic, she used your father’s.
He made sure it was something I couldn’t even fix.
” Tad rubbed his lips together. “Black magic.”
I saw my mother swallow, her fingers twitching on her scythe.
“Father would never do that. He loved us. He would never curse his own family.” Morgan appeared like she wanted to stab Tad, but Eabha touched her arm, telling her to lower her weapon.
“He’s lying.” Morgan shook her head, almost pleading. “Father would never do that.”
“He is not lying, Morga,” Mother replied in a low voice, calling her by a pet name.
“What?”
“I saw and heard things. Things I didn’t want to believe.
” My mom’s eyes were glossy, peering at her little sister.
“Things I kept from you. You were so young, and I convinced myself I was wrong. Mistaken. I let you believe father was a hero. Believe in the man he once was, who I knew when I was a small child.” Eabha lifted her gaze to Tad.
“But Father was too far gone. He muttered to himself, would stare at the walls for hours, and only come to life when she was around.” Mom croaked.
“I want to believe somewhere inside if he did do it, it was because he was protecting us in some way.”
Morgan and the rest of the clan looked gutted, their expression still hoping she was lying, that none of this was the truth. I also wanted to believe it wasn’t true. That their own father wasn’t the reason they walked the earth for the rest of their life in the in-between.
“After his death, she became even more unhinged. We were able to escape, flee here, and hide. That was until the fae war, when we became . . .”
“Became necromancers,” I finished.
“Yes,” Mother affirmed. “We had to fight for her. We had no choice; I had you to think of. I was willing to do anything to save you.”
“Including using black magic on me to make me forget, to hide her from me.” Tad gritted through his teeth, once again jerking every head toward him.
“This . . .” He motioned to his bowed back.
“Is because of you. This whole time, it was your signature on me. Your dirty black magic afflicted me, twisted and scarred me forever.”
Another detail of the moment the nectar had shown me—Tad’s spine was straight, his body strong. Now, because of whatever my mother did, he was coiled and stained by her mark.
“I would cut you down dead if I had to,” Eabha snarled, glancing at me. “I was not going to let you touch her. Even know about her. I was protecting my family.”
“Protecting your family?” Tad huffed. “Is that what you called using that poor human man, getting pregnant, knowing perfectly well what would happen if you ever faced him in battle? What would become of the child you had with him? Keeping him ignorant of the truth?”
“I loved him.” Eabha got in Tad’s face. “Do not for a moment make it sound sordid and false. I fell in love with him.”
“Enough to blind you to your morals?” Tad did not retreat, challenging her back.
“What would have happened if you had to face him on the battlefield? You would’ve had to kill him.
The curse overrides everything, Eabha. Even affection.
You would have killed your own baby’s father?
The man you say you love? Or let him kill you?
And what about Brexley? You were willing to have this child and know the same would befall her?
It was only by chance that made her different; otherwise, she would be just like you. ”
My mother’s mouth quivered, emotions I had not seen so far filling her eyes. Her expression was a mix of shame, guilt, anger, and grief.
“But I’m not.” My mouth opened before my brain totally caught up. “I’m not a necromancer, though I have qualities similar to them, but I’m not actually one. Why is that?”
Almost every head swung to me; their gazes were like stones piling up on my shoulders, full of confusion as if that revelation just hit them as well. Except the two standing in the middle. Tad and my mother didn’t even peer at me, their heads bowing.
“Why?”
“Aneira.” Tad slowly twisted to me.
Beads of sweat trailed down my back, my heart knocking against my ribcage. “What do you mean, Aneira?”
“It wasn’t until earlier when I saw your aura that I started to put it together.” Tad licked his lips, adjusting his stance. “At the moment you were born, she died, sending a wave of magic out, like an atomic bomb.”
I recalled the moment when the book showed me Queen Kennedy killing Queen Aneira, slicing off her head.
I felt her power shooting out, crumbling the last bit of the wall.
Her energy struck lightning from the sky, and I watched it crash into the baby, feeling it surge through me while I was bringing Warwick back to life.
I knew what he was going to say, and my limbs started to shake.
“Part of her embedded herself in you, and with that, she changed you. The curse would no longer recognize you as the same as them. In the wave of their deaths, you were the purest of life. When they collided, I think somehow you fell in the middle.”
The area between life and death.
The gray.
“You said my aura was like hers, and her magic was part of me, but she’s not in me or anything? She can’t influence me, right?” I gaped and peered around. “I mean, is she going to take over? Will I suddenly go batshit crazy and start killing people?”
Tad let out a soft chuckle. “No, my dear, that’s not how it works.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past that tyrant bitch,” Killian scoffed. “She would do something like that.”
“Not helping.” Tad shot him a look when I started to hyperventilate.
My mother stood awkwardly, as if she had no idea what to do, as Tad strolled over to me, his hands firmly gripping mine.
“Think of it as more of a trait. Something passed down to you, like your dark eyes from your mother or a personality trait. Aneira used her power for evil, but it didn’t make her any less great.
She was extremely powerful and smart. You are made up of those same aspects.
It’s how you choose to use those things you inherited.
You might have a weakness for power as she did, but she is not inside you, waiting to burst out at any time.
Aneira’s magic is another quality you have that makes you who you are.
She never had children, so maybe this is her way of continuing on her line. ”
“So, are you sure I’m not gonna suddenly turn evil, wanting to take over the world?”
“I don’t think so.” He patted my hand.
“Though if you suddenly want a kinky sex chamber—I heard she had a few—let me know.” Killian winked at me.
“Enough from you,” Tad shot over his shoulder with annoyance, though Killian’s teasing heaved a breath from my lungs, curving a smile on my face.
“As confusing as this is, Aneira saved your life.” Tad’s statement dropped the smile from my lips.
“No baby should have survived what you did, but you soaked it up and used it. Remember, if anything should show you are not like her, across the field at that time, you were saving two people’s lives. ”
One knowingly and the other more a bystander.