Chapter 61 #2
Her eyes lifted to meet mine, a hint of colour darkening her cheeks.
“I wanted you to see the beauty and power it held, and know that you are more beautiful and more powerful, and more bewitching.” I brushed the backs of my fingers across her rosy cheek, falling into her eyes as they glittered as brightly as those stones I had coveted.
“I also wanted you to wear it because I wanted everyone to see how deeply I trusted you. No one had set eyes on those jewels for centuries, and they had become more of a myth than something real. I wanted everyone to see you in them and know they were real, and that you meant so much to me that I was willing to risk them and reveal their existence in order to bestow upon you what are easily the most beautiful and coveted jewels in all of Lucia.”
That blush deepened and I thought she might avert her gaze, but she boldly held mine instead as she said, “I guess now I’m the most beautiful and coveted jewel, since you said I was something more to you than this necklace.”
“Beautiful, yes, but coveted only by me. I shall not share you with anyone. I would slit the throat of any who even looked at you as if they wanted you for themselves.”
Her smile bewitched me.
Radiant, devious, beautiful little wolf.
She liked the thought of me defending my claim to her.
“And what was your request?” I placed her arm over mine, guiding her towards the cliff side of the rotunda, wanting her to see it.
“I have another question first. One I don’t think you’ll like.
” She grimaced when I halted with her, lowering my gaze to her.
“I know I said I would let it go for today, but… think of this more like a history lesson. I read the seelie story of how they came to be, but I had the feeling… is there an unseelie version?”
I nodded, biting my tongue to hold back what I wanted to say, silently cursing Vaeleryn instead for putting thoughts of the unseelie creation story in her head.
“How different is it to the seelie version?” she asked.
My brows met as I thought about them. “I have read both accounts, and believe the unseelie one is the more honest version. We do not paint the seelie as monsters in our story.”
“Will you tell me it?” She took hold of my hands, her gaze imploring me. “Please? I just want to hear it.”
I did not trust that she just wanted to hear it, and I feared that it might only encourage her, but I refused to obey the weaker part of me and deny her. Perhaps we would find answers in it, answers I had promised her.
“The Great Mother sat upon Broken Ridge, in the Stygian Isles, and cut a sliver from her heart and then cut that piece into two, because she was lonely in this great realm with only her beasts. She wanted children, ones who would be like her in beauty, strength, and magic.” I eased down onto the couch, drawing her down with me, and she angled her body towards mine, so eager to hear the tale of our beginnings.
“One of the pieces, she placed in the fiery hearth of the Forge to imbue it with the violence and darkness of that volcano. When she had moulded the fragment into a heart, she gave it the fierce blood of the Forge and flesh made of moonlight, and breathed life into its lungs with the Great Bellows—the wind that scours the archipelago. When the babe cried, she nursed it on the Sacred Milk from the great lake in the mountains south of the Forge that are steeped in magic, and that sustenance granted the child eternal life and magic.”
That rapt look on her face as she reached for my hand and stroked her fingers down the undersides of mine warmed my soul.
“What about the markings?” She followed the line where they would be if I allowed that side of myself to emerge.
“She painted them with black ash from the Scorched Isle, marking their skin with her ancient tongue to protect them, and raising them in her hands as an offering to the moon, which the babe held in its marked fingers, tying them to the earth and the sky, and gifted them with dragon claws and teeth and ears to give them the power to protect themselves.” I turned her hand over, recalling the markings that had appeared on her during the battle when she had tried to reach out to Lucia, offering comfort to her.
Giving back what she had been given. Markings I had never heard of before I had seen them appearing on her skin.
“Would you like to know what we say about the seelie?”
She went to nod and then shook her head. “If the fae are born of one heart—one sliver split into two—then would it be possible for a seelie to become unseelie?”
I did not like that question, not because I did not like the seelie and the thought of one becoming like me angered me, but because of the connotations and that steely sort of look in her eyes. A look that warned me she was thinking dangerous things.
“The Sacred Milk is toxic to the seelie, Saphira. Just as the Starlight is toxic to the unseelie. The qualities the waters possess are a death sentence,” I growled.
“How do you know that?” She scooted back on the seat, glowering at me, apparently not letting this go for the day after all. “Have you seen it with your own eyes?”
“No, I have not. I have only heard tales of what happens to a seelie when they are forced to drink the Sacred Milk.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Then you don’t know if it would really kill rather than transform if the seelie chose to drink.”
I snared her hand, holding it too tightly as the sudden fear that she might teleport away seized me. “I do not, and I do not want to find out. I will not lose you, Saphira. I promised you we will find the answers together, and we shall, but rushing into this is suicide.”
Her lips flattened and I feared she might continue to argue, wearing me down until I begged her to not speak of it anymore, until I could not take it. My heart fractured at the thought she might listen to those ideas Vaeleryn, Arianell and Neve had put in her head, following them to her death.
Neve had never steered me wrong, her visions had always been true and right, but I could not let Saphira follow them. Not yet. It was too risky. We needed answers. We needed another vision. Something to clarify the path Lucia wanted Saphira to take.
“My heart is missing something,” she murmured and when I frowned at her, so wrapped up in my dire thoughts and fear of losing her that I could not unravel her words, she tapped her chest. Tapped the spot where my brand had been.
“My second request… I want you to put your brand back. I miss that connection to you.”
“Goddess, I miss it too.” I reached out and stroked that spot where it had been, hating the absence of it, and focused there as I laid my palm over the left side of her chest.
The first fragile blooming of that connection between us stole my breath, and I sank into it as it built between us, my power funnelling into that point so close to her heart.
I lifted my eyes to hers, silently apologising to her as she gritted her teeth and grunted, her face contorting as the threads of the bond wove stronger, firmer, tethering her to me.
Tying us together.
When it was done, I reluctantly removed my hand from her chest, torn between keeping it there to feel her skin beneath mine and seeing the brand as it emerged.
Sparks chased around in a circle, swiftly weaving the brand, flickering like burning embers as they formed the elkyn head and the five stars suspended between its antlers, one for every member of my family, and then my crown.
“I am sorry if it hurt,” I whispered.
She shook her head, looking so in love with the mark as she gazed down at it, gently tracing it with her fingers, that I grew a little jealous of it.
“You know… this is where I came at Beltane,” I purred.
She lifted her eyes at last, taking in the rotunda and then me, that colour on her cheeks returning as her eyes darkened.
“Kael?” she whispered softly, enthralling me.
“Yes, Saphi?” I murmured, my gaze falling to her lips.
“Kael?” Her sweet voice grew husky with the need that rolled off her, making my fingers itch to take hold of her and draw her to me for a kiss.
“Hmm?” I lost myself in that thought, in those lips that beckoned me.
“I want…” She reached for me, twisting my tunic into her fists, her breath bathing my lips. “I want to train tomorrow. Are you up for it?”
I grinned at her, sure I would never tire of her teasing, and kissed her anyway as I pulled her onto my lap. She wound her arms around my neck and stroked the seam of my mouth with her tongue, and I opened for her, relishing her breathy little moan as our tongues met.
She nipped at my lower lip.
I groaned and not because she was wreaking havoc on me. “I need to deal with court matters tomorrow before returning to Wraith Wood, but perhaps you could join me and after we are done, we can train.”
“I like the sound of that.” She pressed a kiss to my lips. “I could do with blowing off some steam.”
“I am always happy to help you with that.” I grinned against her lips.
And claimed them in a searing kiss.