Chapter 18 Birth of Burden #2
While I was no longer hidden behind a layer of ash, there was also no Celestial Court.
Which meant there was nothing protecting Lumnara from me.
So, while my existence was needed to save our planet, it could also doom us all.
There had been countless moments in my life over the past year where the rug had been pulled out from under me.
Where my world had shifted. And while becoming fae was one of those moments, none of them were as life-altering and world-shattering as this one.
I’d thought my life perversely unfair and complicated, but next to this…
it paled. It was one thing to be hunted for your powers, to which the solution was simple—stay out of the hands of my would-be captors.
It was another thing entirely to understand the magnitude of what Caius was saying.
Stars, at this point I’d even taken back the mere responsibility of being the key to a simmering war. But Gods above and damnation below if the fate of Lumnara and all who called her home didn’t dwell within me.
What had Endymion said? You can create worlds or end them.
A shiver ran through me. The next thing I knew, I was staggering forward, arms outstretched to catch myself on the sun-kissed steps. Elbows resting on my knees with my head in my hands, Caius’ hulking figure blotted the sun before he crouched down so that he was lower than me.
Lifting my head from my palms, I looked down at him, suddenly aware that I was trembling.
“You had no idea, did you?” His words were heartbreakingly soft.
“No,” I managed.
“Would it help if I told you that we believe the Celestial Court still exists?”
On a breath, I closed my eyes. A few tears escaped their confines as I pondered his question and the very real possibility that they were nothing more than hopeful thoughts born out of desperation.
Looking at him through watery eyes, I said, “I honestly don’t know, Caius.”
He looked at me with a pained expression for a long moment. “This isn’t your burden alone, Nyleeria. We carry it too, and understand the pain of sacrifice because of it.”
I searched his features only to find deep sorrow staring back at me. “What do you mean?”
“My father,” he said, the lump on this throat working before he continued. “He didn’t believe in the Celestial Court at all. Thought it was a fable, at best. But Endymion had reason to believe that not only did it exist, but that it went dormant like the spark. So, I believed it too.
“We’ve spent a greater portion of our existence scouring for any trace of the spark, of you.
And the day you were born, when the snow fell, even with his own eyes, my father refused to believe it.
To believe the danger we were all in. Even when High Fae we’d known for generations were affected, he still refused to believe.
He was willfully blind, and one day we got in a terrible fight over it.
“That’s when he called in The Right.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means he challenged me for Lordship. As his heir apparent, I was at an age where my magic was becoming exponentially more powerful, even though he was the reigning High Lord—which is extremely uncommon. Though, it’s been known to happen.
“The Right is rare enough that while it can be invoked, you’d have to go back generations in any court to have witnessed it. So, when he called it in, I didn’t understand what was happening.
“You see, as a son of a High Lord, we’re born to a kind of bargain we have no choice in. When he called it to bear, his words burned the sacred rite into my skin. Only then did I know what it meant.”
“I thought bargains had to be entered willingly,” I said.
He cocked a surprised brow. “True. And although it works like a bargain, we’re bound to it by our bloodline.”
“That’s awful.”
A humorless chuckle escaped him. “That’s not even the worst part. The Lordship Right is a contest of magic versus magic—to the death.”
Eyes wide, I leaned back slightly, searching his features as if looking for him to take back his words. My chest constricted as I realized he wouldn’t. “The fae have a Lordship Right that forces patricide?”
“Or filicide, yes.”
It took a few heartbeats for my mind to fill in what my heart didn’t want to register, because I already knew it wasn’t filicide that happened that day.
No, the fact that Caius knelt before me was proof of his father’s tragic end.
Dread, and pain, and heartbreak for the kind male looking up at me filled my veins.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe as I let myself understand the full magnitude of what I was being told.
My breathed words were a mere whisper. “You won the Rite.
His head bowed, heavy with shame and guilt.
That’s how he’d become High Lord of the Summer Court. “Gods, Caius. I’m so sorry.”
“As am I, Nyleeria. More than you can know.”
Slowly, his gaze trailed back to mine, and I could almost see the stain that killing his father had left on his soul. I couldn’t begin to imagine the weight of it.
“I almost yielded; refused the Rite,” he admitted as if unable to help it.
“What would have happened?”
“He would have killed me on the first blow.”
Unbidden, the scene flashed through my mind. “What made you change your mind?”
“Endymion. He reminded me that this was bigger than me. Bigger than my father. That I couldn’t afford the coward’s way out—there was too much at stake.”
Power stirred in my chest at the mentioning of the autumn fae, and I couldn’t help but add this death to the tally I knew stained his hands out of duty, not choice. As if trying to clean the invisible crimson off, I rubbed my own hands together.
As I did, I finally understood. I wasn’t alone in this because all of our survival depended on the existence of the Celestial Court and the spark.
Survival. That was what was in it for the High Lord of the Summer Court and Autumn’s Second in Command. That was why Rackna had claimed I was here to save them. That was why I was sacred to them. They didn’t want me for my powers—not in the way Wymond and Thaddeus did.
And fuck me if that wasn’t worse somehow.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked, feeling like there was more to it than I could see.
“Because,” he said with a sigh, “outside of how you fit into all of this, I feel like it’s your right to know the truth of who I am and what I’ve done.
How important all of this is to us. How important you are to us—to me.
You’re not one to trust, and I don’t know if that’s from the seven hells Thaddeus dragged you through, or if that’s always been your disposition.
I suspect the former. Either way, you need to know why I’m invested and what I’ll do to make sure Lumnara—that all of us—survive. ”
“Anything,” I breathed, understanding why he’d told me about his father; so that I knew exactly what he’d be willing to do.
“Anything,” he repeated.
The statement should’ve terrified me like it had when Thaddeus declared as much, but it didn’t.
This wasn’t about power or greed or the survival of one side through the annihilation of another.
No, Caius’ his survival was tied to mine—and I’d take mutually assured destruction as a basis for trust over anything else I’d been offered thus far.
“I hope your sacrifice wasn’t in vain, Caius.”
“I hope yours aren’t either, Nyleeria.”
My heart dropped. I didn’t know sacrifice in the way he did, but stars knew what I’d already given up through no volition of my own. Suddenly, I was acutely aware that he wasn’t just talking about the ones I’d already made, but the ones I’d be forced to make in the future.
I nodded, that truth resting heavy on my chest. “Me too, Caius. Me too.”
We sat there for long moments in our own thoughts before booted footsteps pulled our attention.
“Lord Caius,” Sidrick said from the top of the staircase, the lines of his face hard. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but you’re needed.”
Caius’ lips went into a tight line. “The border?”
“The border,” Sidrick confirmed with a nod.
Caius sighed. “Understood. I’ll join you in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.” Summer’s third winked out of existence.
“I’m sorry, Nyleeria. I have to attend to this.”
“Is everything okay?”
He smiled. “I’m sure it is. I’ll try to find you later, but if I can’t get away, I’ll make sure someone else helps you dispel your powers today.”
My shoulders dipped a little in disappointment.
“Chin up,” he said, noting the slight shift, “there will be plenty of time to work together on this.”
And then, he vanished.