Chapter 15 #2
Now Carwyn understood... everything. His anger, his hate, his disgust. The way he’d treated her in the beginning, his desperation, and the burning guilt she’d experienced last night.
He thinks he failed his sister.
That he was failing her, and he was ashamed he couldn’t help her himself. She didn’t need to touch him to know that he was suffering under the onslaught of it all – how much he must pity his sister and how enraged he was on her behalf.
And he was so desperate he’d sought help from the very creatures that had done this to her.
Her face crinkled into a sympathetic wince. “I’m so sorry. For you, for her. I understand how it feels to–”
“What would you understand?!” he roared, throwing the book in his hand, and it crashed against the wall so hard it split apart, causing her to flinch.
Pages fluttered to the ground on the opposite side of the room as he turned to her, gesturing beyond into the tunnels.
“Does your only family lie there, motionless, after your enemy defiled the sanctity of her body, her will?”
She cringed and backed up as her stomach knotted. “It’s not the same, but–”
“She is all I have left!” He sat back on his haunches, and with rigid, clawed fingers, frantically gestured at the air.
“Everyone has been stolen from me, and when I realised she’d been taken, when I saw it, I saved her from it, but I have not taken a proper breath since! What would you know of this pain?!”
“Aldora was taken!” Carwyn screamed out so loud her eyes clenched and her voice crackled. “Because I had to witness the very same thing!”
When she opened her eyes, they were filled with furious and sorrowful tears that stung, as if they were saltier than ever. It wasn’t her story to tell, to share, but thankfully it made the dragon shut the hell up!
He’d snapped his fanged maw shut and narrowed his eyes. But they weren’t filled with fury. No. They reflected what she felt. Remorse, pity, and understanding. They held the warmth of someone who may not be kin by blood, but who knew this brand of suffering.
Carwyn squeezed her palm around her opposite wrist as she looked to the side, then at the ground.
“I feel your pain, Kier. I have felt such shame, such hate, as I witnessed my sister chained on an altar. It was me who broke her shackles and dressed her while Valerie kept dark witches at bay. We all were almost captured on our retreat.” Her grip on her own skin tightened until she thought it’d bruise.
“The ending may be different – Aldora was returned home conscious – but she was never the same. I lost a part of my sister that day.”
The reason was also different. They didn’t want to breed her sister but sacrifice her... in her own virginal blood. Carwyn scrunched her nose, finding the idea disgusting and grotesque, but that was the horrifying, dark reality of this evil’s way of life. They found power in everything.
In firsts, in lasts, in blood and flesh. In twisting everything until it was ruined.
“It’s why we keep who we are a secret,” she muttered, unsure as to why he wasn’t talking, why he’d gone silent, but she couldn’t handle it.
She needed to fill the air. “We are Faerydaes. We are the first. We’ve always known...
always been warned... that we will bring destruction to our family, our home, our way of life, if it becomes known to dark witches we exist. It’s why we don’t know our fathers...
so they can’t try to take us away to be used for power. They will hunt us.”
It was why their witchcraft was so strong.
Their very blood housed a strength that only kings and queens carried. Strolguil would’ve turned his sights on them, and only through other beings’ suffering and his greed would he have been able to overcome their home’s strong protective wards.
They’d feared every moment he’d been alive, terrified he’d come from the shadows and snatch them from their very beds.
It’s why we considered killing Amalia. Before the dark moon, before she could fulfil the prophecy that she’d take the WitchSlayer’s heart and birth his child.
Strolguil would have taken that power for himself.
But they’d hoped the prophecy had been foretold wrong after Valerie had left home to drive a knife into Amalia’s heart...
only to have returned to their cottage utterly perplexed by the woman.
Valerie the Heartless... had felt tenderness towards the na?ve witch that didn’t know who or what she was.
They’d hoped she would remain good, stay pure of heart, and somehow win over the famously ill-tempered dragon.
They’d made the right decision, and their fears had unwound. They’d celebrated the death of Strolguil after witnessing it in their scrying mirror.
Carwyn drew her shoulders inwards to make herself smaller, wishing to shrink under the weight of everything. “I fear being persecuted every time I leave my home,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Kier grated softly, lowering himself onto all fours. “I shouldn’t have assumed you didn’t understand.”
“It’s not your fault,” she answered, flicking her gaze to him, only to crinkle her eyes. “We hate dark witches just as much as your kind does, and we have every reason to fear them just as much. You only learned who I truly am yesterday, and you didn’t know about Aldora.”
“It’s awful that is what the world has come to.”
She gave a humourless laugh. She’d never heard truer words.
“I want to help you, Kier. I want to help Selene. I’ve wanted it since you brought me here.
It’s why... it’s why I’m trying so hard.
” She let go of her wrist, turned her palms upwards, and stared down at them.
“Yes, I also want to go home, and that’s partly the reason for it, but to us...
dragons are our kin, not other witches.” Her features furrowed as she swallowed the lump in her throat that threatened to strangle her.
“But this ability... I’ve never trained it.
I’ve never told anyone about it. My mother thinks... ”
Her lips tightened when she almost let slip about her empathetic abilities. She brought her gaze to Kier, braving his stare.
“If I can visit the memory of when they hexed her, I’ll hear the incantation, and I’ll see it when it first glows on her skin.
I don’t know for sure if I’ll be able to break it, but I’ll at least be able to draw it and know what we’re dealing with.
I know you probably don’t want me going through her mind, but it’ll–”
“Carwyn, I’ve known for days what you’ve been doing.” Her lips parted in disbelief, and he lowered his gaze. “Balor had such an ability, one that eludes me to this day. He was called the Nightmare before the title was handed down to me.”
Her body felt heavy with understanding. “That’s why you healed my face... let me rest, took over my tasks.”
“What you are doing will achieve more success than this pointless endeavour,” he said, brushing the back of a short stack of books.
Hurt pinched her features. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”
“I’m... aware of the danger it brings you, and that Selene won’t give in so easily.
” He knocked the stack again, like one might kick the ground when they were ashamed.
“I promised that you would be safe here... while allowing you to do something that risks your life, all so I can see my sister open her eyes. I’ve been hoping you would succeed sooner and be done with it. ”
She was sure he’d be the one doing it if he had such abilities. He was working within the constraints of what he had available, which was her. Now Carwyn understood why guilt had been the strongest emotion she’d felt when he’d held her face to tend to her wounds.
He had no reason to care for her welfare. She was a stranger to him, his prisoner, someone he’d only brought here to save his sister. She and her life meant nothing. She was something he hadn’t hidden that he despised.
Yet, he showed care and tended to her. He was pretending she hadn’t seen his human face so that she still had the chance to leave... and maybe he’d let her anyway. I don’t think he expected me to awaken. His touch had been light, but his emotions loud.