Chapter 40
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From loving arms, I will rise.
“What about Ember?” Zahra asks, taking a bite out of one of the sandwiches Castor and I brought to movie night. “You said you were something fiery. Ember is pretty and fiery.”
Sure is. Pretty…fiery…and so cliche.
“If you want fire, what about Dark Flame, Ruler of Chaos?” Alana—Cael’s soulmate, who has a very clear and obvious attachment to pop fiction, as judging by the fact she’s sitting here in full Kaleidoscope Dawn cosplay—suggests. “It can both be a name and a title.”
“I don’t think so,” Willow interjects. “I like Persephone.”
I do, too, but that feels very firmly like not my name. On account of it being, you know, Persephone’s name.
“You could go back to Storm!” Frelsi cheers into a sandwich she’s been violently tearing to pieces ever since we got here and uncovered our meager offering for everyone.
Thankfully, she’s only hissed at Cael once, because Castor said she wouldn’t be allowed to stab him anymore if he let her come.
“You’re much more kachow, kachow now. It’s perfect. ”
I’m not sure I can be reborn with an old name like Danielle or Storm…
My attention drifts toward Castor, on the couch, with Ash in his lap, and Alexios leaning against his legs, and Andromeda on one side, and Pollux on the other.
Saintly, at the head of the room in a chair dragged from the kitchen, Cael sits, watching, a serenity to him that feels somewhat… different than when I met him before.
Pila, on the floor by the TV, rests with her own baby, Terra.
Kitty Zylus snuggles Willow while she, Zahra, and Alana help me with my name issue.
Nearby, Brittny and Ollie—as an adorable fluffy pomeranian and an unbelievably cute little arctic fox—doze, occasionally shifting into their human forms to make a comment or get some food from the snack table.
It’s warm here.
It’s family.
This is what a family is supposed to feel like.
I guess I never realized before this moment that I’ve never had a family before.
It took being kidnapped to learn that my mother was the real warden in a prison without bars.
Now, I am weightless. Now, I am surrounded by people who care enough to forgive each other, no matter what has happened, because that’s what family does.
That’s what family is. The people who love you when you’re broken and stay with you while you heal.
Even if I could, I don’t know that I want to take any part of the supermodel Danielle Storm with me into this new era. I don’t think I want to hold onto my past. I have learned from it. I have appreciated the parts of it that have led me to my present. And, now, I am ready to let it go.
Which means, of course, I’m starting from scratch.
Sighing, I mutter, “This is hard. I don’t want to end up with another Billy situation.”
“Billy?” Zahra asks.
Frelsi’s shrieking laughter fills the air. “Billy!”
“Have you not met Billy yet?” I let my lip jut. “I may have named a goblin Billy, thinking she was a boy… She turned into the prettiest bugbear I’ve ever seen.”
Cael’s smooth voice drifts toward me from across the room. “Is that how your pandemonium has grown? You’ve the power to rename the fae?”
Frelsi pricks, wings irate. “Yeah, what of it?”
“She’s a phoenix,” Castor clarifies.
Cael’s eyes—along with Alana’s and Zahra’s—go wide.
Zylus yawns as Willow says, “Huh.”
“A phoenix?” Cael states.
Silly me thinking what I am was a secret. So much for saying I wanted to pick a new name because I’m ready to choose who I am…while I was literally asking other people to help me choose who I am. I guess I could have started this conversation a lot differently.
Deflating, Cael covers his eyes with his hand. “Short of a story fae, we’ve many of the most powerful creatures in existence tucked in this room.”
“Ah,” Zahra cuts in. “I need one of those to contract with me so I can lie again.”
“No,” Castor says, “you don’t.”
Alexios tilts his head back and Zylus looks up, both staring curiously at Castor, who ignores them.
Alana interjects, “Can we circle back to the fact you have a pretty bugbear in your kingdom?”
I pout. “Sure. What about it?”
“You have a pretty bugbear in your kingdom? A bugbear. The massive, hairy goblins with teeth like tusks.”
My lashes flutter. “When was the last time you saw a female bugbear?”
Her attention drifts upward, then she declares, “Never!”
I sniff. “Well, there you have it, then. They are very pretty. Large. Muscles for days…no, weeks, but beautiful. No tusks. They should never—ever—be named Billy. Yet I did. Maybe I should call myself Failure.”
“Hey,” Zahra chides. “Don’t even joke about that. Especially if you’ve got the power to award true names.”
If only I were joking. Why is it this hard to pick a name for myself that feels right?
If only I’d been born completely fae like Frelsi.
Then my name would have whispered into my heart the moment I opened my eyes, and that would be that.
I’d be me. Born whole. Unburdened. Unafraid.
Unashamed. Without a single care in the world as I bury my face in a sandwich twice my size, no goals in my head beyond finishing it.
Imagine being born with the knowledge of who and what I am.
Imagine never having been raised and told to be anything for anyone else.
Just imagine.
Willow says, “I’d offer Hilaeira as a great option, considering she’s the wife of Castor in mythology, but the story of Castor and Pollux is horrible, and after a family feud, Castor dies.
” Raising her voice, Willow calls toward the guys, “Aren’t you glad you aren’t feuding anymore?
” She throws a piece of popcorn at Castor’s face.
“If you hit my baby with your projectiles…” Zahra warns.
“It’ll be good for him,” Willow notes. “Send them to the war young. Trauma makes children funny.” And then she throws popcorn at Andromeda, who blocks it with her coloring book.
Angling himself to better protect Ash from any stray kernels, Castor chuckles. “Mind yourself, child. I don’t wish for competition where it concerns being the funniest one here.”
“Because it’s not much of a competition?” Alexios murmurs, too cuddly to be evil.
“Don’t fight,” Willow snaps, as though she didn’t start it. “Castor, what would you name Danielle? You know her best. What do you think suits her?”
“I’ve already given her my name, but it’s not about what any one of us would call her. She is searching for her true name, the one that makes sense to her, the one unburdened by the shadows she’s grown in. It’s not up to us to tell her what it is.”
So, basically, it’s very hard and complicated and serious work.
“One’s true name is linked to the very essence of their soul,” Cael offers, princely, a hand positioned at his regal chin. “You may find it whispered in your heart during the silence of meditation.”
I blink at the moth man.
Then I meet Zahra’s eyes.
Then we assume meditating positions, legs crossed, fingers pinched into circles.
Om.
Terra begins to cry.
Her whimpers infect Ash, and Castor protests. “No, no, no. We like me now, remember? Pila!” he chastises. “Quiet your urchin. She’s teaching Ash bad things.”
Pila frees an airy laugh, rising with all the grace of a breeze. “She’s just hungry.”
Frelsi lifts what she can of the remainder of her sandwich. “Here! For baby. So she will be quiet and not bother King Castor, the most royal one here and the highest rank, in case anyone didn’t know that.”
Tenderly, Pila smiles. “I appreciate your offering, but she needs her formula.”
Frelsi lets the sandwich fall back into her lap. “I forgot. Your child’s mouth is weak and yet to grow bones.” She sniffs and resumes her efforts of destroying the sandwich alone. “So sad.”
When Ash doesn’t stop fussing, Zahra rises from her meditating position and retrieves him, much to Castor’s distress. When he begins to sulk, both Cael and Pollux chuckle.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Castor mutters.
Alexios smiles, sly. “If you want a baby soo badly…”
Castor kicks him.
“Castor, don’t kick your friends,” Cael bosses.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Prince Cael. Didn’t you just hear? I outrank you.” He kicks again.
“Castor, don’t kick my husband,” Zahra says, lulling Ash back to silence.
That makes Castor huff. “I’m being bullied.”
Pollux links a hand around Castor’s head and pulls his face against a broad shoulder, second only to—sigh—Billy’s. “It’s a sign of affection, and you’ll probably get used to it.”
“Gah,” Willow declares, startling Ollie and Brittny awake in their fuzzy little cuddle pile. “Affection. Gross.” She grabs the remote and turns on the TV. “Everyone shut up now before this gets way too mushy. It’s movie time.”
As the found family finds itself settling in to watch a movie about finding family, I find my mind drifting from name to name, yet settling nowhere at all.
?
Hand in hand, Castor and I wander the long way home, through the woods dappled in vibrant hues of purple and red and the most unassuming little bell clusters of white. Since Frelsi went on ahead, it’s just us. Here. In the quiet. In the dark.
“Still struggling to find a name that feels right, my feather?” Castor asks.
I sigh. “Picking a name is stupid. I wish the universe would just give me one.”
“It has. It’s just a matter of finding it now.”
“Well, then I wish it hadn’t put it under a rock.” I poke a single white bud as I pass. “Maybe I should try meditating again. Like Cael suggested. Listen to my soul and what not.” A brilliant idea consumes me, and I turn to my soul’s mate.
“Oh dear,” he murmurs.
“What? What’s that? Oh dear? Why would you say such a thing to me?”
He lifts his shoulder and turns his face from me, as though he can hide his smile now—he’s not stopped smiling since we left Willow’s. “I just have a feeling you’re about to suggest something impossible.”
How rude. “You’re my soulmate, which means you’re part of my soul, and you don’t use your eyes, which means your hearing should be better than mine. What, fair lover, does our soul tell you my name is?”
His smiles stretches, ever more. “Alas, my darling, my sweet, my angel and heart…the sound of my tainted soul calling yours mine overpowers all else.”
Melting into his arms, I relax, despondent. “If only yours were a name that others might share, I’d claim it now and take flight.”
“My poor feather,” he murmurs into my hair. “Such misery could be avoided, if you commit your life to me alone. Then your name can be Mine for all eternity, never uttered by another as long as you live, content, within the safe bars of my ribs.”
His caged bird.
How romantic.
And concerning.
But, whatever.
I’m well past the point of caring, and I find myself once again baffled that I’m not unseelie.
Being a monster with him instead of a bird made of light seems far more fitting for the life I’ve led.
I’ve grown up grounded, wings clipped, in the shadows, treated harshly even as I was treated with utmost care.
My body was left preserved and perfect, while my mind and innards found themselves mutilated.
Resting my chin on Castor’s shoulder, I stare at the spackling of white dancing through the forest.
Such a pretty flower.
Pure and lost in this land of char and monsters.
“Castor?”
“My love?”
“What are the little white flowers that grow here called? Are they the same ones you keep in your garden?”
“Yes, though here they can only spring up a few at a time. In my garden and in the human world, the bunches they grow in are far more dense. They’re heathers.”
My heart thumps.
He continues, “White heathers, to be specific. Known for good fortune, resilience, and beauty. They are one of the few naturally flowering plants that have managed to take root in these lands.”
“Heather,” I murmur, letting the word into my heart where it nestles, taking root in my soul. In the silence, in the stillness, I hear it whispered like an echo in my mind. “That sounds like…feather.” Heat blooms in my chest, warming my limbs. “Castor?”
“Yes, Mine?”
“Is it going to hurt, when I change?”
Drawing his finger down my clothes, he opens the fabric in the back for me and whispers, “No, my Heather. Becoming who we are meant to be only hurts when we fight it or others reject us. You will not fight, and I will never reject you, so it will be safe. Like walking into the dawn.”
With that confirmation, my body burns, my flesh gives way, and I step out into a light that comes from me.
I shed humanity, and history. I shed the pain of the past and welcome a hope for the future.
I breathe deep, letting the unseelie woods wrap around me like my lover’s arms. Weightless and made of feathers aflame, I free wings that stretch from one end of the path to the other.
My hair crackles, blonde tones and waves igniting.
Fire caresses my skin.
I glow.
Power vibrates in me.
Overwhelming, all encompassing.
I am liquid. I am gas. I am untouchable.
I am held.
When Castor’s mouth hits mine, his lips sear me, and I fall into their torment as I stretch my wings, command their size and shape, and coil them around his shoulders. Without asking, I brand him as mine.
“Castor?” I gasp, breaking our kiss.
“Love?” he exhales.
“I want to fly.” I want to fly so badly it’s a thunder in my skull.
Quick and hard, he kisses me again, burying his fingers in my body as though he might keep me here, as though I am not now keenly aware that this flesh can become flame and slip free of any grasp with immaculate ease.
“Go,” he breathes into me at last, though slices of pain accompany the word.
“Light this sky in the dead of night. Become the sun you love and long for. Gather the clouds in your hands. Feel the freedom that belongs to you eternally. Then…then if you wish it, if you might still find it in your heart…return to me. For I will always be waiting for you.”
I hug him, crushing our souls together, then I step back, keeping our hands joined.
“You’ve waited long enough. Rest assured, I will always return to you now.
We will never truly be apart again. I feel you more fully than I ever have, and I know with certainty what we are to each other.
You are my freedom, and I am yours.” Granting him a last swift kiss, I let our fingers come undone and turn.
Finding a break in the trees, I lift my wings and take to the air.
Finally.
Free.