Chapter 22 #3
I only had one word for the emotion that had claimed me in that moment.
Beautiful and dark.
Gloriously seductive.
“Wrath.”
My half-sister reared back and then rallied, snatching my arm and pulling me close. “Perhaps we keep what just happened to ourselves.”
I realised why she would want to hide this—why it would be wise for me to hide it.
The Wrathful King.
Kaeleron.
I replayed what had happened, how that golden bolt of solar magic had been woven with shadow, as if I had somehow summoned both light and dark.
Meiryn had seen it too.
“We should keep it to ourselves.” I clutched her arm, gripping it so tightly I was sure I was hurting her, but she didn’t flinch as I hissed, “You dare tell anyone about this.”
“Are you mad? I wouldn’t tell a soul. Goddess, if anyone finds out about this, we would both be for the dungeon.
I promise, I won’t breathe a word about this,” she clasped my hand where I still gripped her arm, “but maybe we should find somewhere far more private to practice from now on… maybe somewhere far from the castle.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I glanced at that burnt patch of dirt. I had done that.
The giddiness that had filled me when I had done something as incredible as summoning magic was nowhere to be found as the implications hit me. I could no longer cling to the false hope that Sylvan was wrong about me, or that this was all some twisted sort of joke, because I did possess magic.
Which meant my father hadn’t been my biological one.
The plunge from the high of doing something so incredible to the low of reality hitting me was something I hoped I would never feel again. It was a low so deep it was crushing, pressing in on all sides of me as I thought about my father, and as I thought about Kaeleron.
I was seelie. A member of a breed he openly hated. Daughter of his sworn enemy.
“You… seem upset.” Meiryn’s grip on my hand softened, her voice a soothing melody as she studied me.
“I’m just upset that my father wasn’t my real father.” Part truth. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was crushed because the man I loved was possibly now my sworn enemy, and that I couldn’t banish the doubts that lurked in my heart, whispering poisoned words to me.
How could Kaeleron’s feelings remain unchanged, untainted by his hatred of seelie?
What if he no longer loved me?
What if he… rejected me?
Tears filled my eyes despite my efforts to hold them back, to silence that wretched voice and not listen to it, not let it poison my heart.
He loved me still.
If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to hold on to the bond between us.
He would have let it break the second those seelie had started to remove it, glad to be rid of it.
He loved me.
Meiryn pulled me into a hug, startling me.
“I lost everything too. Everything I loved. I’m only here because I have nowhere else to go.
When my father discovered he wasn’t my real father…
he wouldn’t listen to me. He wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say.
He pushed me away, forced me upon Sylvan.
He was so angry. He wouldn’t even let me speak with my brothers and sisters.
I haven’t been able to contact them. He doesn’t allow it. ”
She trembled as she held me and I scented her tears, and wrapped my arms around her, not denying that connection I felt to her as I thought about my own family.
Maybe I was lucky my father had known I wasn’t his but had loved me anyway.
I couldn’t imagine how it must have felt for her to be pushed away like that, to not be allowed to contact her siblings, or how she had to feel knowing her father was alive but wanted nothing to do with her.
“My family,” she whispered. “My home. Everything I love has been taken from me because of this place. My entire life has been turned upside down, and now…” She pushed back from me, her blue eyes dark as she narrowed them on the castle behind me. “Now I’m just trying to survive.”
I understood that feeling all too well as I looked back at the towering white castle, with its gleaming copper, gold and turquoise roofs. “I think the only one who wants to be here is Lorien.”
That got a chuckle from her.
She wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms and sighed. “Maybe we should try something else… something not magic. The power unique to the Summer Court is invisibility, and with Lorien after you, it would be a useful one to master.”
“I’d like that.” I meant it, and not just because I wanted to survive whatever Lorien had planned for me next, but because it might help me get Danica away from the Summer Court.
I followed her instructions, grounding myself in this court, in the nature of only this one and how it made me feel.
And by some miracle, managed to go invisible for a few seconds, long enough that the world became veiled in shimmering gold as if someone had dropped a sheer curtain between me and it.
When the veil fell away, my breath rushed from me, as if I had been holding it and the action of releasing it had caused the invisibility to slip from my fingers.
“Well, you might not be a natural with solar magic, but you handled that well enough.” Meiryn beamed at me.
I grinned right back at her, finally feeling more confident, eager to practice with the new power.
A power I knew I would need in the coming days, together with another which felt as if it was vital to my survival and getting Danica safely out of this court.
I looked at Meiryn.
“Teach me how to teleport.”