Chapter 23 Ariana
ARIANA
Icouldn’t move, let alone draw in a single breath.
Instead, I stood there. Mortified.
Millions of thoughts rushed through my mind, none of them making sense, none heard clearly enough to even try to decipher. My world shifted.
Only when more words were spoken beyond that open throne room door did my thoughts go silent. The storm stilled enough that the ocean inside of me turned flat and waveless as I listened.
“You haven’t even asked about how she is doing. Do you not care to know?” Clause asked.
“She is alive. That is all I need to know. Will you stop dragging your feet and give me what you owe?” Edda replied.
“This will destroy her. You vanishing like this. It isn’t too late. You can live out the rest of your life at her side. I will welcome you here if you wish to stay.”
“She has been here only a few weeks and already you have turned sentimental?” By her tone, I easily imagined the arch in Edda’s silver brow that accompanied the comment. An invisible dagger of emotion pierced my heart.
Clause released a sigh. “Very well. How young are we going for? Your early twenties again?”
Again. A word meaning that this was not the first time they exchanged things.
“Yes,” Edda confirmed.
There was a moment of silence, and then her voice, but it wasn’t hers, not quite. A new youthfulness held her tone. “Was that so difficult?”
The Sidhe King chuckled darkly. “Not at all.”
“Well, I would love to say this was a pleasure, but it wasn’t.” Edda quipped.
“Your kindness could kill.” Clause replied, his tone light.
She snorted, and suddenly footsteps echoed through the throne room, approaching the exit.
My body acted before I ever gave it a command. Suddenly my back straightened, shoulders squared, head held high. I moved down the rest of the hall, turning into the room without missing a beat.
My gaze slid to her. Onyx eyes I could recognize anywhere stared back at me, but a face and body much younger. She was beautiful, her hair black as her eyes, not a single strand of gray. Skin void of the timeless wrinkles that were once permanent fixtures.
She glanced at me, yet her face portrayed nothing. Her steps did not falter as she hurried towards the exit. I slowed as she approached, the space between us closing quickly.
“Do I know you?” I asked, voice certain and strong. It portrayed nothing of the mass of emotions wreaking havoc within.
Her attention flickered back to me. “Sorry, girl. I don’t know you.” Her lips curved down disapprovingly. She did not even hesitate as she breezed past me.
I froze in my tracks. She saw me and addressed me, yet acted as though I was no one to her. It was such an exceptional act that I nearly doubted everything I heard moments ago.
My gaze locked with the gray eyes across the room, Clause’s features unreadable. It was impossible to know what he thought or felt at that moment. A perfect facade, just like Edda’s.
Another pulse of energy shot through me. I whirled around.
“Edda,” I called her name.
The woman stopped mid-step then. Her head turned, not quite looking at me, eyes cast down. “I do not know anyone by that name.” She twisted away and continued towards the exit without waiting for a response.
Pain melded with my conjuring, condensing within, before traveling to my palm. My hand shot out before me, and with it, a wall of mist formed, blocking her path and the door.
She spun around, eyes blazing, as they met with mine. They harbored accusations. However, none of it made it to her lips. As if too surprised to actually speak.
“Why?” My voice wavered, the only sign of the terrible hole in my chest.
Her jaw clenched. “Girl, have you been hit in the head? I do not know you or what you speak of.”
Clause tisked softly from somewhere behind me. “Oh, C’mon Edda, why not answer her question?”
Her eyes widened just a fraction in shock, gaze cut to him, sharp as any conjured blade. But no conjuring could ever touch him. “How dare you?” Her lip curled.
“How dare I?” His voice grew colder. “You have kept her from me for how long? You knew she existed this entire time, yet kept us apart.”
I shook my head. “What does that even mean?” I looked over my shoulder at him. “Why me? You have plenty of conjurors. You do not need me for anything.” Why did he pretend I was so important to him?
His attention moved to me, drifting over my face, dipping to my lips before rising. “You are wrong. I have always needed you.” His tone remained firm, yet grew a gentle edge when addressing me.
“Don’t listen to him.” The venom in Edda’s youthful voice was potent, drawing all of us to her.
“He will destroy you if you let him.” Her onyx eyes blazed as they often had when I was a girl and Fraser did something terrible to me or in front of me.
Yet now that cold, judgmental look should have been reserved for no one but herself.
I wanted to hate Clause, yet a part of me felt sorry for the Sidhe King.
His views of the world and people isolated him.
The life he lived was a sad shell compared to what it could have been.
It didn’t help that since my arrival, he primarily only showed me kindness.
I began harboring a strange compassion for him.
A difficult life path led him to such a sad belief.
“How?” I asked.
“How?” She looked at me, baffled.
“Yes. How exactly will he destroy me?” I asked, gaze narrowing. Clause did not obliterate my heart, did not tilt the world beneath my feet. She, however, did.
I felt as though I was falling into a bottomless pit. My stomach wedged in my throat, my heart no longer beating.
Edda scoffed. “Have you forgotten already of your long-lost friend Landin?” She took a step towards me, eyes burning with a viciousness I knew all too well, but from a face I hardly recognized.
“What, out of sight, out of mind? You wept for a few days and now have found a home in his murderer’s arms? ”
“How dare you.” I shifted on my feet out of pure shock. Red misted over my eyes, becoming the only color I saw. The blood rushing through my veins boiled, and when it traveled to my heart, a sharp pain tore through my chest.
“You are in a mess of a situation right now, and you need to get your head on straight.” Edda’s gaze narrowed, completely unapologetic.
“You think you are the one to give me advice?” I shook my head. “Why did he owe you this...” My gaze traveled down the length of her body. Fat was redistributed into all the right places. Curves filled out her dress, and long limbs gave her a willowy look. She was beautiful. “...this favor?”
She didn’t answer.
My teeth ground against each other. “I asked you a question. What did you pay for this favor?”
The silence broke when Clause spoke. “This time, her payment was helping me acquire conjurors.”
I could have laughed. The lie of the conjurors being chosen by the Spirit, being taken for a higher purpose, was propagated by her.
She stole our people and sold them to the Sidhe King for youth.
How many families were torn apart because of her?
How many lives were stolen? The entire Dunes Clan was erased from our lands because of her.
My eyes burned and I shook my head in disbelief. “Why?”
No response.
“Why?” I pushed the word through clenched teeth.
The rage within grew till I trembled with it, unable to contain it within my body.
For the first time, I felt too small for everything.
Incapable of controlling the feelings coursing through me.
Failing to control even myself as I navigated through the world.
Clause sighed and answered for her. “To gain youth. Edda here is nearly as old as I am. I guess you can say she is one of my oldest friends. We have been trading in favors for a long, long time.”
I shook my head, breath leaving me. “Did you ever care for me?” I asked Edda.
She stepped in my direction before stilling, and her gaze for the first time softened.
Though I no longer believed what I saw in her eyes.
“You are the only thing I have ever cared for in my entire life. I was too late to save my daughter, but you, I protected, however I could.” Clause had said she and I were blood relatives when he spoke to her before I entered the room.
With her current comment…Was her daughter my mother?
“You raised me to care for others,” I stated.
My whole life, she taught me kindness and patience, amongst other things.
Yet her actions the entire time were anything but.
They were callous and cruel. She played the role of the warm caregiver, yet was a monster underneath.
A nightmare dressed up as a pleasant dream.
Not an ounce of remorse colored her dark eyes. “I raised you to not be like me.” She nodded. “To not destroy the world, like your brothers would have if your mother had allowed them to be birthed. If my daughter had allowed them to be birthed.”
Tears lined my eyes, despite my anger. “Everything is a lie.”
“My love for you is true,” she stated. The worst part was that she believed her own lies.
The way she said it, the certainty in her voice, in her stance.
She truly thought she loved me. But how could one love fully without letting the other person even know them?
She was a stranger. I cherished a shadow that never existed.
“How can you say that?” My voice broke, tears sliding down my cheek. I didn’t even try to hide them. Didn’t care if they made me look weak. “Why are you doing this to me? Why didn’t you just disappear?”
“You don’t think that’s what I was trying to do?” She said, gaze cutting to Clause, accusing him of the situation we found ourselves in.
“You are a Seer.” She knew this was how our story ended.
Edda scoffed. “So, you assume I see crystal clear? I have to make sense of broken, fragmented storylines that are interwoven with lies. And my future, in particular, had been shaded for a long time. As soon as it happened, I saw myself for the threat I could be to you. And I tried to protect you the best I knew how.”
“The time with the Lysians,” I whispered. “That’s why you were so cruel?” The reason she pushed me away.
“I needed you to stand on your own, to not rely on me so much. To show you that you did not need me, not really, not anymore. I never wanted to hurt you, but in the event I disappeared from your life, I wanted you to know you were ready to continue on your own. Without me.”
“Do you now see?” Clause said while my gaze remained on her. “How trust is so easy to be betrayed by those we least expect. And how they claim it is for the greater good, for your own good even.”
My eyes slid shut, hot tears running down my face. I couldn’t argue with him any longer. He was right.
“What now?” I asked the Sidhe King when a strange numbness settled over me.
He approached until standing at my side.
His attention moved over me. I was thankful that he did not try to touch me.
“This fairytale I broke for you. It is now up to you what you wish to do with the pieces, discard them, burn them, free them. I will let you decide.” He turned to Edda.
“The Seer is yours to do with as you see fit.” His head tilted as he viewed her.
“You tried to fool me, Edda. That will never happen again. You meddle in things you know nothing of.” His words were a cold threat, even without the promise of death.
What to do with her? I couldn’t just let her go. But death? Could I have her killed for this? No. I didn’t know the right path. I needed more time.
“I take it you have a dungeon or cells or something I could have access to?” I asked, my voice cold and foreign.
He nodded.
“Ariana.” Edda stepped towards me.
“No!” I whirled towards her. “Keep my name out of your mouth. I don’t know who you are. You were never more than a cruel illusion.”
The wall behind her fell when I released my hold on it, and Soren moved, blocking the exit.
“Lock her up,” I stated.
Soren gave me a single nod and closed the space between him and Edda, slipping a hand under her arm.
Her shoulders sagged, sadness misting over her fiery dark eyes. She didn’t even try to fight him.
Edda spoke with her chosen parting words, her tone that of a warning from a Seer.
“Before you decide anything more, remember who you are, Ariana. Remember what even started this entire thing, the answers you sought. If you search again, then this time you will be granted answers. But I warn you, there will be no going back. A chain reaction of events will be put in play.” Her eyes actually lined with silver.
“You will break, and yet you will remain whole.” She then turned her dark gaze onto Clause.
“He thinks he opened your eyes to the lies while he is no better than I.” Her attention sliced back to me.
“Allow me to return the favor and show you who he is.”
I didn’t want to listen to her, yet I heard.
I didn’t want to trust, yet I believed the warnings.
What did that make me? A complete fool?
“Take her away,” I said by way of goodbye.