Chapter 17 #2
Blinking away any signs that I held a connection to those images of the witches in battle, I followed his eyes to an unsightly woman in black, ripping the heart from a fae with a wide smile on her lips. Cosimo cleared his throat, bringing my attention back to him, and we began to walk again.
“Moving on, we have the coronation of the queen of the Spring Court after her father was slain.” He tutted, shaking his head.
“An ugly business that was. Very messy, and rare that the throne went to a direct descendant of the previous ruler. Oh well, King Diamid is now crowned ruler of the Spring Court, so I suppose it didn’t matter for long. ”
My brows drew together, trying to piece together what that was supposed to mean and if Baeleon’s eccentricities were a part of his station more than his nature. And why would it be rare to have the ruler’s child inherit the throne? What was that about?
Cosimo continued his stories, following a theme of bloody wars and toppling of royals interchangeably.
Both, it would seem, happened often. The end of the mural, which now began to reach around the corner of the wall, was a fresher addition depicting the plague that had wiped out so many young fae. It was a very sobering end.
By the time we’d circled the room and Cosimo walked us back to his desk, we found Thain reading from a crumbling tome.
“Finished?” he asked, closing the book.
“Indeed. A brief history, but it should suffice.” Cosimo bowed. “If you ever wish to dive deeper into the subject, I have abundant resources that could assist.”
“I appreciate your time today. We’ll be leaving then.” Without another word, the dark fae strode for the door once again.
“Bye, Cosimo.” I offered a wave. The odd little scholar’s delight in history was infectious.
Thain led us out of the palace and through the streets. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the light.
“What were you reading?” I was curious what would interest the quiet warrior enough to look into.
“A history of witches,” he said flatly.
I stopped in my tracks, my heart pounding. “Why?”
Thain’s answer came softly, firmly. “You know why.”
My heart rose to the base of my throat, choking, suffocating. Thain knew. He knew. How did he know? Thain didn’t stop for me, if he even realized his words had halted me on the spot.
“What were you looking for?” Voice strained, I followed at a healthy distance.
“You know what I was looking for, Wren.” He kept walking. “You don’t want to have this conversation here; let’s go home.”
It was true, I didn’t. I followed in silence, over the bridges and around the trees, wondering if I would need to take King Baeleon up on his offer of palace rooms or if this had already been revealed to the strange king.
Other citizens gave Thain a wide berth in the streets. All I could do was stumble after him, trying to keep up. My stomach turned into one big knot when we reached his quiet little street. The once welcoming door now looked ominous.
Thain still didn’t look at me as he yanked the door open, bringing us inside. He shut the door and turned to me. “Do you want to explain?”
“Explain what?” I swallowed my nerves at his anger and scowled at him, holding my own.
“Why you have the markings of a witch on your back. Wairen saw them the other night.” A ripple in his appearance flashed claws and muscles that hadn’t been there before but that I’d seen at the edges of every fight he was in.
His glamour slipped. Hells, he was suffocating me with the thick air around him, hungry and feral and in an agitated state I’d never seen him in before—angry.
He wanted to be angry about it? I’d had twenty-five years to be angry about it, and I had no problems letting him know it.
“It’s not as though I asked for it.” Clenching my fists at my sides, I lifted my chin at him.
“They were there when I was found. It’s another thing that was done to me before I could even speak my first words.
It’s something I desperately want to rid myself of, and at the same time I’m terrified to let out! ”
We had both exploded. A crack in the perfect quiet I had come to know between us.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.
Hiding it all had been bound to come out in a messy way; I had been a fool to think it wouldn’t.
And he had been crystal clear that there was some problem between the fae and the witches.
“Thain—”
“But you’ve been hiding it.” His soft words lashed out. “You are a part of this land, Wren, whether you will admit it or not.”
Every word I’d said to him surfaced, each moment in which I’d carefully chosen to speak in a way that didn’t wholly include myself in the Wyldes. I’d been working on it, to be sure, but at the beginning . . . “That’s not fair.”
“Do you know what it means for me to have brought witching magic inside the city?” he asked.
“I’m not a witch,” I argued. “The only thing these marks do is close off another terrible accident that I can’t control. Just because they are on me doesn’t mean I can do any magic with them.”
“I brought you here.” His voice cracked, and I realized it wasn’t anger. “I asked you to let me help you.”
“Thain—”
“I brought you to my city, my king. My home. And with you here, I . . .” He turned away, and I couldn’t see his expression anymore, but I knew it for what it was now. Betrayal. He felt as though I’d betrayed him.
“They can’t come off,” I said. “Something awful could happen, and I won’t let it happen here.”
“You had every opportunity to tell me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I wanted to help you, remove you from that place and bring you to the Wyldes with the rest of our people. All you had to do was tell me what I was dealing with so I could fix it.”
Anger scalded my bones and roared out of me in a flood. A dam that broke, releasing every piece of hate that had been piled on me with every stare, every whisper, every snide comment and spoken threat.
“I am not something to be fixed.” My voice carried steadily through the room as I glared at him, shoulders squared. “No part of me is something to be fixed.”
“And you don’t think you risk anyone around you?
” he demanded. “I’ve seen what the magics from their kind can do.
I’ve watched skin boil off the living, I’ve watched purple fire swallow people whole, and I’ve watched blight poison the eyes of their enemies until there was nothing left but black rot. Their enemies, my people.”
I paused. Thain was old, and he’d seen a lot. There was no disputing his words, but I couldn’t reconcile them with the witches I’d known all my life either.
“Do you even know what the marks are for?” His voice was so soft now, the fight completely gone from it.
“Yes, my magic has been sealed shut. Yes, by a witch.” I was already backed against the door, the firmness of it grounding me.
“You’ve known you have magic.” He flexed his hands open and closed.
“I never denied having it.”
“Why is it sealed?” he asked.
“I told you; it was sealed when I was found in the woods,” I said evenly. “My friend, a witch, tried to unseal it when I was ten. It didn’t go well. She had to seal it up again.”
“So you’ve been building it up all this time? No release?” he hissed. “That witch was a fool.”
“That witch saved my life,” I snapped. “And what do you know of it? I can’t even tell you who my parents were.
For all you know, I’m not even your kind of fae.
What if I’m half nymph or sprite or whatever?
I can’t glamour. Maybe I should just go work for a shopkeeper who screams at her assistants like servants. ”
I knew it was unfair to bring up Mistress Rhisa, I knew I wasn’t being reasonable. But in that moment, neither of us was, and my only thought was to let it all out.
“This has nothing to do with you being half human. Whatever you are is no sprite—not that it would matter if you were—and the fact that you’ve been in control of yourself is a wonder.
This is about you hiding something so important when I could have helped you before you brought it into Thanantholl. ”
“I didn’t ask you to!” I snapped, tears now fighting to form. My back tensed, a flash of cool air whispering past my ear. “I didn’t ask you to help me. I’m not something to be fixed, or found, or paraded in front of a throne room. You of all people should know how that feels.”
“You know nothing of my responsibilities.” He took a small step forward. “You’re as much a part of the Wyldes as any of us, and still you recoil from us, from me, like we’re some kind of monsters. You forget, Wren, that you’re half monster yourself.”
Hands slammed on either side of me, his claws digging lightly into the wood.
His face was only inches from mine, and I could feel his hot breath fanning my face.
He was furious. I was furious. Snarling and glaring and no more than a heartbeat from letting out more of the anger that swirled inside at everything and everyone who had done something to me or thought something about me that took away yet another decision from me.
It felt like everything was boiling over outside of our control.
“Thain?” Schula’s voice cut through the door at my back. My heart thundered, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Thain. He took a step back and visibly heaved with the effort to contain himself. A brisk wind blew through the room, flickering the fire and scattering papers.
“I’m coming in!” Schula swung the door into my back, not knowing I was right there, and she half caught me as I stumbled. Those cool hands on my arms made me realize how warm I was. My back was burning. My seal was burning. And in my eyes, hot tears were burning through all my rage.
“What’s going on here?” She stepped into the room between me and Thain. Her nose twitched, and she spun around. “We’re leaving.”
“You knew,” Thain growled.
Schula froze, her eyes darting to me, then to Thain.
“When?” he asked, his eyes losing focus as he searched his memories. “The outpost, the bird in the bath.”
“We’re leaving.” Schula lowered her voice. “I’ll see you again when you can control yourself.”
Pulling me outside with her, she closed the door behind us and hurried out the front gate.
A terrible roar shook the house behind me.
I could feel it through the flagstones underfoot as birds fled the tree overhead.
Schula kept an arm around me the whole time as she wound us though unfamiliar streets and over new bridges.
A caw overhead told me Puko was following.
I sobbed, my shoulders shaking. Schula didn’t say a word as she handed me a handkerchief. For now, that was no longer my home.