20. Zakkai
Symbolism, I realized. That was the meaning for Zenaida giving Aflora the staff today.
Oh, I had no doubt it was also because of the cape and the source showing its favor by kissing Aflora with magic, but Zenaida had strategically chosen that moment to present the staff, knowing my father would see it for what it meant—Aflora is our queen.
Clever, Zenaida, I mused, relaying my knowledge to Aflora in a brief synopsis of the thoughts in my head.
Does that mean she agrees with my path forward?Aflora wondered.
Undoubtedly, I said. But I could have told her that without the staff. Hell, I hadn’t even known the thing existed until today, but clearly, my father had recognized it.
“You never mentioned the staff to me before,” I said to him. “Why?”
“Because it was never relevant. Zen was the Midnight Fae Queen, the staff a gift presented to her by the source over a thousand years ago. She rarely used it, and I never expected her to give it to another fae.” His focus went to Aflora. “But I’ll admit, it suits you.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It does.”
A few others murmured positive remarks as well, the respect at the table seeming to increase with each passing second.
Finally, the other Quandary Bloods sat, their gazes reverently downcast rather than staring at Aflora head-on.
Zephyrus broke the silence by reaching for one of the carafes first, filling Shade’s mug and then his own. My lips twitched in memory of the breakfast where I’d done the same to Shade, treating him as the Omega of our circle.
His icy gaze slid to mine now, his lack of humor evident.
I made a show of distributing coffee on my side as well. First to Aflora, then to Kolstov, and eventually to myself before passing the ceramic carafe to my father.
Everyone else began pouring their own, some of them taking eager sips after tasting the blood lacing the warm liquid.
Aflora only gingerly tasted hers before focusing on my father once more.
He relaxed into his chair, eyeing her with a mixture of admiration and wariness. “So I assume you’ve chosen the side of reformation, then?” he guessed. It wasn’t a question for me, or he would have spoken in a harsher tone. This one was for Aflora, and I was genuinely curious to hear how she would reply.
“No.” She leaned forward, clasping her hands on the table beside her untouched pastry plate. “I’ve not chosen reformation or retribution. Because you’re both wrong.”
A few of the Quandary Bloods glanced at each other. My father merely lifted an eyebrow. “I see.” He studied her for a moment. “Then tell me what you believe is right. Detail your plan.”
She shook her head. “No,” she repeated. “First, I need you to understand why retribution isn’t the correct path.” Her gaze flickered to Kolstov apologetically, causing my brow to furrow.
Then I felt the energy shifting in the room as she brought up a memory spell to showcase what she’d observed in the village earlier.
I wasn’t even aware she knew this charm, but before I could ask how she’d learned it, the memory began to play before my eyes like a vivid picture.
I could not only see everything, but I could also feel the warmth of the crowd, hear their laughs and cheers, and sense the urgency coming from the dark source, just as Aflora had earlier.
Emelyn was already dead.
Then Dakota appeared, dragging an unwilling Ella onto the stage.
Constantine read out her conviction.
Ella screamed.
And Aflora focused on Trayton.
Which was where she froze the memory, her voice entering all our minds as she said, Do you see it? The compulsion wrapping around him like a thick rope, strangling the male beneath? She increased the clarity, ensuring we all could see and feel the malevolent energy.
Then she slowly pulled the memory from our minds, returning us all to the room on a shiver of cold air.
She picked up her coffee to take a sip, her stance perfectly composed, but I felt her aching for Trayton as well as for Kolstov.
A hum of static opened between them as he spoke to her, and her to him.
Then he reached beneath the table to press his palm to her thigh, squeezing it gently.
She set down the ceramic mug, the sound echoing in the stillness of the room. “Well,” she prompted, meeting my father’s impassive gaze. “Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re aware of what it means?”
“Yes,” he repeated.
She nodded. “For the others, in case you couldn’t sense the compulsion charm around him, Tray is a prisoner in his own body. The spell isn’t visible to others. He acts and appears completely normal to them. But the dark source showed me the truth. And it showed me that truth because it aches for those who are being manipulated by this magic, which tells me Tray is not the only one compromised by this spell.”
A fair deduction.
And a reasonable explanation.
“Constantine is clearly the orchestrator of this magic,” she continued. “So he needs to be removed.”
My eyes narrowed slightly at her word choice—a word that reverberated through her mind, telling me she’d chosen it with purpose. But she didn’t allow me to follow it to completion, her strategy already moving ahead to the next phase of her decision.
“Once he’s removed, we will need to try those who have been involved in the extermination of Midnight Fae and test them for this spell.” She clasped her hands once more on the table, leaning forward ever so slightly. “Those found to be complicit by choice will be dealt with accordingly. Others will be freed from their confinement.”
I took a sip of my coffee, considering her words along with the others. Not once did she mention death. Just removed, which was a very carefully selected word.
Because my mate was all about life.
And that told me whatever she truly intended to do would be about creation, not destruction.
“It’s not a fully contrived plan, but it’s a fair one,” she concluded. “It marries retribution to reformation. Because we will punish those who have wronged the Midnight Fae, and we will reform this realm.”
“And you expect us to just join you in this effort? To trust you to see it through?” my father asked, a hint of censure in his tone.
“Yes,” she replied.
Both his eyebrows shot up. “Just like that?”
Now it was her turn to repeat the word. “Yes.”
He huffed a laugh. “I had no idea you were so na?ve, Aflora.”
She responded with a laugh of her own, but it lacked humor. “Why do all Midnight Fae mistake my sincerity for na?veté?” She voiced it as a rhetorical question, her expression sobering after a beat. “I’m not na?ve, Laki. I’m the Earth Fae Queen, a mantle I took on at the young age of seven after the Midnight Fae Elders killed my parents for consorting with Quandary Bloods.”
She pressed her palm on the table, a tree beginning to take root over her fingers, growing while she pressed on.
“I’m not na?ve. I’m a survivor. A survivor who stood up to a crazy abomination not once but twice, and lived. A survivor who was bitten against her will and taken to a kingdom starkly different from her own, yet learned how to not only use their magic but embrace it as well.”
The tree sprouted upward, igniting in a flurry of branches as she stood, her hand functioning as a root beneath the creation as she continued to speak.
“A survivor who nearly destroyed a roomful of Elite Bloods in fury after the Midnight Fae Council killed her mate. A survivor who then helped bring that mate back from the dead, only to be rewarded with an ascension she never wanted, thereby marking her as an abomination for life.”
Magic swirled through the limbs, the tree itself only about a foot tall but boasting a hell of a lot of power.
“A survivor who has mated four different Midnight Fae lines,” she said, the smoky tendrils of energy taking on the various hues of all her mates. Cerulean. Red. Purple. Green. “A survivor who has passed three ascension trials in less than two months, earning favor with the dark source and finding a way to successfully combine it with the earth source.”
The tree began to grow upward, the movements measured and controlled by Aflora’s power.
“I’m not na?ve. I’m energy redefined. A queen of two worlds. An abomination. And a royal who craves creation and life over death. Midnight Fae have been taught to adore violence for too long. It’s time for an outsider to show them how to live again. I’m that outsider, the survivor who knows how to fight without bloodshed. The survivor who knows how to win without killing those she’s up against.”
Multicolored leaves sprouted from the branches as she sent the tree sprawling across the table like vines, the organism morphing before our eyes.
“The Midnight Fae have forgotten how to love and respect one another,” she concluded softly, her focus falling to her invention as the roots and branches began to twine together to form beautiful arrays of color as their pieces blended and matured as one. “Together, we can unite the Midnight Fae.” The branches went up in flames in her next breath, her stunning tree disintegrating to ash. “Or together, we can watch them all burn.”
She took her seat once more, clasped her hands before her, and said, “The choice is yours.”