Chapter 42
DELICATE PERIWINKLE-BLUE FLOWERS drift on slender stalks, moving with our breaths, and crinkly pale-yellow petals look cheerful and sunny in the dim light. They grow from the pillow and sheets, while above my head cherry blossom branches from the headboard.
“What is…?” My eyelids flutter as I turn from the pale-pink blooms to him. “Is this a King of Death thing?”
“You think…?” With a shocked huff of laughter, he touches his chest and pulls from me. Gently, he lowers my hips to the bed. “Does this look very deathly to you?”
“I-I… I suppose not.” A quick brush of my fingertips over the petals confirms they’re real. They seem to strain toward me. “Then… what is this? And how?”
Mouth open, he tilts his head, staring for a drawn-out moment.
“You mean you don’t know?” Slowly, his eyes widen.
“You don’t know.” He slips from the bed, padding across the room in silence.
I sit up and enjoy the view of his bare body, absently running my fingers over the delicate blue flowers. “Come here.”
His words, the looks he’s given me—they add up to a sense of unease in my belly. Like my life is a strange object that’s about to crack open in some irreversible way. I make my way over, arms crossed over my stomach.
When I join him at the long mirror in one corner of the room, he cups my cheek and shakes his head. “I thought you knew. Look.” He turns my back to the mirror and gives me a small looking glass. He helps me angle it so I see myself in the doubled reflection.
Tousled hair covers my back, ends brushing the dimples above my backside. The unease is pushed back a little by warmth as I see the shape that’s returning, the fact I have fat rounding out my hips and bottom. “Look at what?”
He gathers my hair and pulls it over my shoulder.
Now I see it.
Between my shoulder blades. For a second, I think it’s dirt or inky fingerprints. But then I register the shape. The regularity. The perfect placement at the center of my upper back.
“What’s…?” I reach up. It doesn’t smear off. I edge closer to the mirror.
Finely inked in black and gray, three flowers bloom on my skin.
“A tattoo? But I’ve never…” I stare at the flowers, some logical part of my brain noting they’re apple blossoms.
Drystan traces a fingertip down my spine, stopping when he reaches the cluster of flowers. “Not a tattoo. When I buttoned your gown the other day, they were pale buds. I assumed you’d lied about not having magic, but…” His gaze shifts from the mirror to meet mine. “You didn’t know, did you?”
Not a tattoo, then… “A fae mark.”
The strange object cracks open. Falls apart. Spills a truth that seeps into the very fabric of my life.
A fae mark means…
Is this why I’ve been getting better? Or now I’m healthier, my body has been able to access something that’s always been there, dormant?
“Then I…” I stare at the bed, which looks more like a wildflower meadow. “I did that?”
“You did.” Smiling, he pulls me against him and it’s only then I realize I’m swaying. He kisses my brow and strokes my back, lingering on the mark. “You did, my clever Avellan.”
I bury my face in his chest, let him carry me to the bathroom to clean up, then to bed. It’s a comfort to let him care for me while my brain stutters over its new reality.
I have magic.