71
Free from the invisible energy, I fell to my hands and knees with a grunt. My hair covered my face like a curtain.
“Sister!” Araton rushed over and knelt beside me, resting one hand on my back shaken by sobs. “Are you alright?”
No, no, no.
I felt like I was dying.
I wanted to die.
Keeping my head low, I caught sight of the soldiers forming a circle around Calien’s Crystal. Then I saw the hem of my father’s dressing jacket appear to the left of my view.
“What on earth did we just witness, Nauriel?” he asked in the common tongue to be understood by the witches. He spoke through clenched teeth, barely holding back his anger. “How did he get in here?”
“I . . . I . . .”
I couldn’t find the breath to answer. My tears were falling on the floor. My body was shaking and burning and yearning for his.
Something was stirring inside me, like a beast that only wanted to be reunited with its master.
A beast who wanted to snuff out the lives of all the elves in the room, I realized with growing terror.
“The power that kept us out was beyond any force I have ever faced,” came a guttural, raspy voice.
I turned my gaze toward the temple entrance and, peering through my wavy blond hair, saw Aloiv, the current Queen of the Witches, pause at the doorway with two other women.
She was clothed in a long, sleeveless purple dress with blue highlights, secured at a thick, opaque gold collar decorated with precious stones that matched the fabric, emphasizing her strong build.
Wooden and ivory jewelry adorned her arms up to the biceps.
Her frizzy, curly black hair was shaved at the sides, with small gold gems embedded in her exposed scalp, forming complex runes.
The firelight reflected off her ebony skin, making it appear glossy and oiled, as she moved forward with a heavy look.
“So ancient as to awaken the bequest each queen passes to her heir,” she continued. A primordial fear flickered in her round black eyes. “The memory of the darkest and most corrupt power.”
I dug my nails into the stone floor.
“It’s impossible,” my brother said in the common tongue.
The queen pierced him with a hard stare. “How do you explain the creature that has just vanished before our eyes?”
“And how did that nefarious power survive my mother’s and the Spirits’?” Father questioned angrily. “How could it sneak into my house without any of us sensing it and possess that human to reach the Crystal?”
“He was not possessed,” I found myself saying in a hoarse voice as, almost without realizing it, I stood up. Not knowing why, I kept my head bowed and turned my back on Araton and Father. “The power is his.”
“What are you trying to tell us, Sister?” Araton asked, irritated.
My eyes, wide and full of tears, dropped on the golden sword lying on the ground near the wall. Very slowly, with trembling fingers, I wiped my lips to remove his saliva and my arousal fluid.
“Who is the King of Men?” Father demanded imperiously.
I placed my hand on my wounded heart, haunted by the memory of him pressing his ear against it to hear its beat, then slowly kissing it.
“He is Mornon,” I revealed with excruciating rage.
There were moments of stunned silence.
“By the Spirits, Nauriel!” my brother burst out. An air shift made me sense that he had moved away from our father; then his footsteps began to echo through the temple as he paced back and forth.
“So,” the king said in a tone so harsh and filled with ready-to-erupting wrath that I almost collapsed back to the floor, “why didn’t you use the Crystal to kill him?”
“Or even just to fight him!” Araton added, shocked.
I drew a gasping breath. Slowly, feeling the tears streaking down my cheeks, I turned around. “Because he’s my mate,” I declared in a whisper.
My brother recoiled with a disgusted sound.
“Gods almighty . . .” the Queen of the Witches gasped in horror as her companions got closer to her, dread painted on their faces.
“May the Spirits protect us,” Father said quietly in Elvish, his expression filled with dismay.
Only after a few moments did I realize that their reaction wasn’t about what I had just revealed. Each of them was staring at my face.
Why? What was wrong with it?
Scared, I tried to take a small step forward to ask it out loud.
Queen Aloiv spread her arms to move the two women behind herself in a protective gesture.
My father instinctively backed away next to Araton.
The soldiers gathered even closer around the Crystal.
They were all afraid of me, I understood.
I had to know why. I had to see myself.
So, moving sideways like an intimidated animal under their shocked, watchful gazes, I left the temple and dashed toward the palace.