9. Alaric
Chapter nine
The seer watches through narrowed eyes as I approach the fountain, and my feet drag as I force myself closer. The feeling of wanting to know and the fear of knowing twist like a blade in my gut. I swallow when I reach the edge. The water is still like a mirror reflecting the stained face of a man who, once dead, now lives to stare back at me. His eyes, my eyes , are no longer cold and hard but softened by my time with the group of Fae fate has led me to be intertwined with.
I look down at my chest, where I know the bond mark with Raelle marks the skin under my tunic. The questions I have about why I was able to turn away from my duty to her.
My teeth pull my lip in, and I raise my gaze back to the seer, who tilts her head, spinning the single black feather between her fingers.
“When you are ready to ask the question of the gods, drop the feather into the water. You need not say a thing. The fountain will show you what you desire to know without spoken words.” She holds the feather out to me. I stare at it a moment before I lift my hands, removing my gloves. I place them into my pocket and grab the feather.
A tingle starts at the connection my skin makes with it. It runs through my hand, turning to the warmth that spreads up my arm and fills my chest. As I turn back to the fountain, my mouth opens to ask a question, but before I am able, my grip on the feather fails and my words clog my throat. The swaying back and forth as the feather floats down feels as though time has slowed. The glass-like water ripples as soon as it touches the surface. My reflection morphs into that of a man I’ve only seen once before. The portrait burned into my mind of the man standing behind my mother, looking down at a baby that would grow into the man I am now. My father.
His eyes are the same; only the skin around them is weathered. Aged with the passing of time. The downturn of his mouth and the heaviness in his eyes show the strain his life had given him, but the kindness I saw in the portrait is still there in his gaze.
My vision goes dark, and the feeling of falling consumes me.
When I land, my vision is not my own. My eyes open with my head bent down, looking at my bent knee, both hands on the hilt of my sword in front of me. At my feet, the sharp point of my sword remains embedded in the dirt. When my gaze tracks up to the owner of the boots who stands in front of me, I swallow hard. I meet the gaze of a man wearing a gleaming silver crown on his head. He nods when his eyes meet mine. The mossy forest green is immediately recognizable. Raelle’s eyes are the same hue as her father’s. King of Aldramani, Algerone Aberra.
“I accept your pledge, and as you rise, you do so protected by my word, my hand, and the gods. My shield, my blade.” His hand presses firmly to my shoulder. “My soldier.” My legs push me up into standing, and at once my arm is braced into the king’s. Our hands grasp each other’s forearms as magic sizzles and pops around us, and a smile tugs wide across the king’s face. The metal of his rings clinks together as he pats my back. My chin rises, but a smile does not bracket my mouth. Instead, my lips press into a hard line as my eyes fall over the king’s shoulder to meet the woman I would recognize anywhere. The woman who raised me and there in the center of what could only be the courtyard of the palace, I see my own wide eyes taking it all in.
The castle is bigger than any I’ve ever seen before. All the Fae surrounding us are dressed in either leather or the finest fabrics and dripping with jewels or precious metals. I watch from my father’s eyes as he steps back, bowing to the king; his voice vibrates through me. “Thank you; it’s my honor, my king.” I nod my head in respect.
The king pulls back his sleeve, showing a dagger I have seen before, marking the flesh of a royal before, and I swallow. I know what comes next. My hands come up and unlace the tie at my throat, and I pull down the fabric to reveal the shield that marks my skin.
But I can sense it’s not the mark on my skin or on the kings that brings the clench to my jaw. It’s the look in the eyes of the little boy. My eyes, or rather, my eyes from when I was a child. My small hand gripped firmly in the hand of my mothers as I looked up at her and watched the single tear that rolled down her cheek. It’s overwhelming to watch the younger version of myself from my father’s eyes.
The child looks back and forth between his mother and the man he does not know, but the understanding in his eyes is what brings the clench to my jaw, to my father’s jaw. The ache to my heart and the steel to my spine.
‘This has to be done. A sacrifice I wish I didn’t have to make, but one that must be made, for the key to the kingdom lies in the hands of the shield. I’ll find the answers. This won’t be your burden.’ Hearing the thoughts of the man who I’ve never met—the man who sired me… I’ve felt something shift. A realization: It was at that moment I truly understood why my father walked away from me.
He did this all for me, so that my fate could lie where it was needed. So that I would become the man the gods had destined me to be. I can’t explain how I know this, but the feeling deep within him radiates the knowledge to me. As though his memory is a distant one of my own. As my back turns on the child and his mother and I look out into the crowd, my eyes land on a man who sends fire into my veins. Soren Croix. The amount of hatred I feel boils over to replace any feeling of unease.
Soren stands rigid, his arms crossed at his chest. A young boy of his own at his side and fear marked in his eyes. It’s not fear of the king he stands before but of his father, whom he keeps one eye on. Cano.
Dax is also at his father’s heel; all of us are merely babes. No sense in our presence, but there nonetheless. My father takes a deep breath, eyes burning as he looks upon Dax. His chin rises as he turns back to face the king. The eyes we share through the vision roam past him one last time to search for the faces he wanted to see above all else, but they are gone. The young boy and his mother melted into the crowd, and with them, his heart left too.
I gasp as I’m thrust from the vision, my hands coming out and gripping the fountain’s edge. It’s only a moment of heavy breathing, trying to catch my breath before I am sent spiraling into the next.
Chains hang from my wrists as a manic laugh rips from my throat, never-ending. Even as blades slice through my skin and boots and knuckles slam into every inch of my body, the laughing continues.
“STOP!” Keep him alive!” The men part, letting Soren step through and stand above me. My eyes meet his wild ones, and the voice that comes from my mouth is both near and far, my own and not mine at all. His mouth falls open as he listens to the eerie sound.
“Blood red skies meet the dark depths of the sea; a storm will bring together those worthy. The last of the fallen will ascend when the moon meets the sun. An unbreakable bond is sealed when the daughter of the moon bleeds by a blade of silver light. A stone of white weeps red, and what has fallen will rise again.” More laughter splits the silence, and then, with my voice rising, I say again, “A stone of white weeps red, and what has fallen will rise again! With this vow—my life now bound to yours—let this be your warning. While fate deals hands to the deserving, there is no mistaking what is deserved. When that which is hidden in the shadowed sea comes to light, guided by the bond, the shield in the night. Your death will be sealed with the moon raven rising.” My head tips forward as the manic laughter relents, and my eyes fall on the man before me menacingly.
“My sacrifice will bring together my kin. The kingdom will once again thrive, and the moon raven will rise.”
“Sorry for you; you will not be around to witness any of it.” Soren says through clenched teeth, before the hilt of his short sword comes down on my temple, and as my body lands in the dirt at his feet, my eyes jerk open.
My knuckles are white with how tight I grip the edge of the fountain. My stomach clenches, and I try hard to stop from wrenching, but as the spinning continues, I turn from the magic that held me in its grasp for who knows how long. I run to the bushes, bending at the waist, and I lose all the contents of my stomach until nothing is left.
“What the fuck was that?” I say, wiping the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and turning to face the seer who guided me. Only I was left alone in the courtyard. Only a raven on a low branch tilts its massive beaked head, blinking before taking off into the night sky with a caw.
As I watch the raven disappear into the darkness, another realization washes over me. This is the true reason I was drawn to Raelle. Not to see her take the throne but to guide Dax back to the light. The queen.