32. Aflora
AFLORA
Eight dayslater and I still couldn’t stop thinking about what Kols had told me about my parents.
It was like finding out they’d died all over again, except I never really knew about it the first time. I’d felt their souls detach from the source—a life-altering experience for a seven-year-old—and I’d understood what it meant. Yet I’d never known why it’d happened. Or how.
And now I did.
The Midnight Fae Elders assassinated my parents.
Because they were Quandary Bloods? Because they were helping Quandary Bloods? I didn’t know. But Kols had promised to find out everything he could, including who, specifically, had killed them and how.
I didn’t blame him. I knew better than that. Yet that didn’t stop me from feeling uneasy around him and his direct connection to the source.
He was their future leader.
The Midnight Fae King who would be in charge of exterminating Quandary Bloods and anyone perceived to be assisting them.
What violent lives these fae led. I missed my elemental home surrounded by thriving energies and a love for spirits and general existence.
However, I couldn’t go back to them.
Not in my current form.
Because I was an abomination of unknown origin. Who knew if my parents were even the rightful earth source heirs?
Shade came up beside me, his palm finding the small of my back as he leaned in to kiss my temple. “Want to skip class?” he asked me softly. “I’m sure Zeph won’t mind.”
I looked at up at my Warrior Blood mate and watched as he stretched beside Kols across the yard. He’d insisted we return to the Academy after two nights in New York City, saying we needed to present a normal front and pretend we didn’t know anything about the Council’s plan to use me as bait.
I’d argued that it put the students in danger to keep me near them.
My mates had then reminded me that keeping me safe at the Academy would be easier than out in the open world. Because here they had snake vines and other nefarious wards in place that would automatically guard me as a student. Thereby making it less obvious when they protected me as well.
This whole thing resembled a waiting game—one I didn’t want to play.
“Aflora?” Shade murmured, his lips brushing the shell of my ear and sending a shiver down my spine. I’d stayed at his place after Advanced Conjuring yesterday. It had provided a nice change of pace and sort of solidified our new existence where Zeph, Shade, and Kols somehow managed to share me evenly. Shade never joined the other two, but Zeph and Kols seemed to enjoy putting me between them. Or sometimes Kols was in the middle. Those were interesting experiences.
“That look in your eyes makes me want to skip class even more,” Shade murmured, drawing me around to face him. “Are you thinking about last?—”
A blast of magic from across the yard had both of us jumping apart to find the source.
“What the fuck?!” Kols shouted as he caught the ball of fire with his hand and threw it downward to smother with his shoe.
“That’s my line, Kolstov,” Emelyn snapped, her palm already alight with another flame. “Have you forgotten to tell me something, darling betrothed?”
My heart dropped into my stomach. Oh, no. She knows. She knows we’ve bonded and now?—
“I’m sure there are many things I’ve forgotten to tell you,” Kols drawled, somehow managing to sound both bored and annoyed at the same time. “Care to elaborate on which item you’re inquiring about?”
Emelyn huffed and threw the inflamed sphere at his head, only for him to catch it again and dispense of it like the first one.
“Do that one more time and I’ll show you how to properly use WarFire.” The threat lingered in his golden irises, causing a chill to skate down my spine.
So much power, I thought. So much beauty, too.
Emelyn was either oblivious to the threat or didn’t care. She stopped right before him, giving me her back. “Why did a dress arrive for me today from your mother? I thought we agreed not to go to the Blood Gala together.”
My brow furrowed as I glanced at Shade, my mental connection to him opening automatically. Blood Gala?
Political bullshit, he replied. The Nacht family throws the fancy ball annually. I always skip, but Kolstov will be expected to attend with Emelyn.
I frowned. Oh. Right. Engagement.
A vision of Kols taking Emelyn as his date to the event fluttered through my mind, and I didn’t quite care for it. Not even a tiny bit.
Kols sighed. “Fuck. I forgot to talk to my father about it.”
“Obviously,” she said slowly, annunciating each syllable. “Fix it.”
“Yeah, I will,” he muttered.
“No, you’ll fix it right now,” she demanded. “I’m not going.”
“I said I’ll take care of it, Emelyn.”
“Yeah, and that’s what you said weeks ago, Kolstov. I want it fixed right fucking now.” She put her hands on her hips.
Whatever expression she gave him seemed to irritate him even more, because his golden eyes swirled with red power. “Remember who you’re talking to, Elite Blood.”
“My betrothed,” she spat out.
“Your future king,” he corrected, his tone holding a chill in it that caused all the hairs along my arms to stand on end.
Power sizzled in the air as the two of them squared off.
My stomach twisted at the dark-source essence, my Quandary magic flaring to life inside me at the familiar call. I winced, trying to shove it down, but it spread like rapid fire through my veins.
Aflora?Zeph’s deep voice trickled through my thoughts.
My mind shut down my ability to reply, the magnitude of energy swimming around me, through my soul, and stealing the breath from my lungs.
Shade grabbed my wrist, his voice urgent in my ear. I tried to hear him, to comprehend his words, but I couldn’t understand him over the roar of sound inside my head.
Kols’s golden irises snapped up to mine, his expression melting into concern as he tried to harness his power, but it was too late. He’d released too much, his connection to the source thriving between us like the day we first joined.
Only this was worse.
It ripped through me on a level I didn’t understand, the dark essence searing my being and bringing me to my knees.
Kols shouted, the inky lines climbing up his neck writhing and stirring a cascade of electricity that sizzled through the air and zapped my skin.
Blue embers flickered across my fingertips, forcing me to lock my fingers into the charcoal blades. Pain shot up my arms and down my spine, causing me to tremble beneath the weight of oppressing magic.
Red fire sprinted across the ground, circling me.
My body reacted defensively, shooting off an array of colors in response. Blue. Green. Purple.
How is that even possible? I thought, tears blurring my vision. Oh, Fae. It burns!
The blood-red flames fought mine, the power mounting into an array of light that temporarily blinded me.
And then Emelyn was there, her black eyes narrowed with fury as she engaged in a battle I didn’t understand.
Everything began to spin, her energy somehow connecting to mine in a savage handshake that rippled through the air. Zeph and Shade yelled inside my thoughts, their collective voices leaving me unhinged and uncertain as a tornado of power swept me up into a cloud, the world disappearing behind a thick smog.
A hand grabbed mine, nails digging into my flesh.
Not one of my mates.
Emelyn.
Her Elite essence engaged mine, battling my power for dominance.
Except, it wasn’t my Quandary side that I engaged to fight back, but a new link to unexpected Warrior magic.
Zeph.
I also sensed Shade.
What is happening to me?I asked, suddenly cold and hot all at once. Stop this madness!
I threw out my arms, forcing Emelyn to let go of me, and screamed as the cyclone released me from its smoky grip. I landed with a thump, my pants tearing as my knees met the knifelike grass below.
My chest heaved, breaths coming in and out of me in sharp gusts.
Too much magic. There’s too much!I expelled my mounting energy into the ground below, forcing wave after wave of the overwhelming surge to go deep into the earth. Only, I felt Shade and Zeph absorbing it through our bonds. Kols, too.
And a fourth source I didn’t understand.
A source that reminded me of home.
My eyes widened as I realized what that had to mean—I was feeding dark energy into the earth source! I immediately pulled back, collapsing onto my side into a ball of shivering nonsense.
Abomination, I told myself. This is why everyone fears us.
Because I couldn’t control it.
I couldn’t stop it.
And I’d just attacked my home. My element. My very reason for being.
I reached out on a tentative strand, begging whatever fae gods existed that I hadn’t done any permanent harm. But as I poked at my earth energy, I found nothing nefarious or changed. Just my deep-rooted connection to the existence of life.
My brow furrowed. That’s impossible. I felt the fourth link, the?—
“Aflora!” Emelyn shrieked, forcing my attention to her and the threats surrounding us.
My lips parted in shock.
We were no longer in the training yard, but in the LethaForest.
And the encroaching shadows whispered danger.
Emelyn sent a sizzling web toward one, which resulted in a sharp, screeching echo to sound through the black tree trunks.
Hot, acrid smoke billowed in the air.
This was not the same part of the LethaForest I’d visited with my mates, but a deeper section that clearly didn’t see fae life often. Because streams of fiery liquid slicked the obsidian rocks, one of which was less than a foot from my prone form. Had I landed just a few inches to the left, I’d have been burned alive.
“Fae…,” I breathed, glancing around to gather my bearings.
The sky overhead lacked stars, the inky curtain creating an icy atmosphere that the flame streams heated and illuminated in shades of red and orange.
“Aflora!” Emelyn shouted again, fear etched into her voice.
A rock creature of some kind came toward her, the fingertips long talons of black flames. It lashed out at her, catching her wrist. She cried out in pain, her spells no match for the monster.
I forced myself to my feet, careful of the surrounding terrain, and searched for my wand.
Where did I?—
The thing’s talons whipped out of its opposite hand, encircling her throat and forcing me to act on instinct. A spell left my mouth—one I had never learned—and hit the being directly in the torso. The creature grated out a loud, crunching growl, then exploded into a mound of pebbles.
Emelyn crumpled to the ground, her neck and wrist charred from the creature’s grip. I leapt over one of the fiery streams, then a second one, and knelt at her side. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, the power zapped from her lifeless form.
Adrenaline spiked through my veins, my mind whirring with solutions I didn’t understand. They came from a place deep inside, a foreign strand tied to my Quandary magic. I yanked on it, bringing it to the front of my mind, and sorted through the web of magic before me.
Chaos echoed around me.
Two more rock creatures spurred to life with those deadly claws aiming for me and Emelyn. A spell flew from my mouth that created a defensive wall, more of Zeph’s energy surrounding us both while I tapped into the Quandary line that provided me with a strand of thought underlined in magic.
Words spilled from my mouth that didn’t belong to me but to something else.
No, someone else.
The Quandary link.
Who are you?I marveled even while I spoke, my mind fracturing beneath an assault of confusion and reality woven together as one.
Don’t think; do, a deep voice replied.
Familiar.
Warm.
Underlined in memories and dreams…
A vision of white hair flickered in my thoughts, there and gone in an instant as my mouth obeyed his command.
Yet he wasn’t so much talking to me as he was allowing me access to his mind and power and granting me the knowledge I needed to survive this insanity. It also wasn’t willing, more like my spirit demanding his compliance for my own survival.
And I felt him trying to pull back, to resurrect a barrier I’d unknowingly knocked down.
Who are you?I asked him.
But Emelyn gasping back to life distracted my focus, drawing my attention back to her and the spell I’d somehow woven through her, healing the marks on her neck and wrist.
“How did you do that?” she asked hoarsely.
I just shook my head because I didn’t know, the powers spiking through me a tangled mess of knots I couldn’t seem to unravel.
I flinched as one of the monsters shredded my defensive barrier, his fire hot against my senses. I grabbed Emelyn’s hand, ready to run, but the clouds engulfed me again and sent us spinning through time and space.
Shade, I realized, baffled and completely thrown by his interference. Only it wasn’t him at all, but me, tapping into a dark-source connection created through our bond—a connection I didn’t realize existed until now.
That was where all the magic lived.
A dark orb of power fueled by my mates, allowing me access to strands of energy I intuitively understood.
I frowned at it, confused by the four links once more.
Death.
Elite.
Warrior.
Quandary.
The last was deeply rooted, as if it’d been there for years. Because that represented me and my family line? That notion didn’t feel right.
I tried to investigate it more, only to spin out of the cyclone and into a darkened grove with a stunned Emelyn at my side. Her dark eyes flashed to mine, alarm in her expression. “You’re… you’re…”
“An abomination,” I whispered, unable to lie to her. Not after everything she’d just witnessed.
She shook her head. “That’s not…” She cleared her throat, her delicate hand going up to touch her unmarred throat. “You saved me.”
I winced, not because I regretted it but because I couldn’t explain how I’d done it. “I…” I didn’t know what to say.
A hint of wonder entered her gaze. “I sense Kols in you.” She lifted her hand as if to touch me, only to drop it a second later and spin toward the dark forest around us and the moving trees. “Who’s there?” she demanded, her wand already in her palm.
I tried to find mine again, this time successfully, and mimicked her defensive stance.
Nothing immediately approached, but I felt the building energy and the hum of familiar magic in the air.
Something was coming.
No, the presence was already here.
Multiple essences.
All woven with magic my soul recognized on some deep, dark level.
“Well, well, the queen finally arrives,” a feminine voice drawled from the shadows of a nearby burning thwomp. “And she brought us an Elite Blood to play with as a gift. How incredibly thoughtful.”