Chapter 47 #3
“The Cycle Heir is usually paraded around before the ritual is completed as a way for Zenaida to show the rest of the fae realm that they are in control and will always be in control, but Desolate Winter has lasted too long; their armies are weakening, their borders less secure than they have been for tens of thousands of years, and they know that with the uncertainty of not understanding how the Heir came to be born so far from the Wellspring, they would not risk you falling into the wrong hands—lest you complete the ritual on their enemies’ lands, and make them the heart of the Wellspring.
” That dark laugh again. “No, Evers, the moment the Chorus of Echoes realizes you are their Heir, you will be taken to have your magical blood spilled in some unholy ritual, so their magic may swell once more and fill their greedy coffers.”
“You don’t know that … that the ritual means my death,” Audra protested, though it sounded weak and unsure even to her ears.
She’d known, hadn’t she? That there was a reason to keep the truth of her as Cycle Heir from everyone, that there was a reason not to reveal herself.
Why she’d been so obsessed with discovering the truth of the ritual; somehow, she’d suspected that the ritual would end terribly for her.
“I know it in my bones. I know it because I am one Aithne prince in a long line of Winterborn Aithne princes and princesses before me who have spent their entire lives preparing for this moment.”
He leaned toward her, his gaze beseeching, imploring her to believe him. She felt as though she could feel the weight he’d spoken of, as though she could see it weighing him down. This meant the world to him; this meant everything to him.
His voice dropped low, almost a growl. “The only way to save the Heir’s life is to save you before they can take it from you as they take and take and take from the earth, from us, as they took from the humans—” He slammed a clenched fist on the table, the lock on his fury faltering.
“As they took from the gods themselves!”
She realized with apprehension that his fury was long, spanning thousands of years of failure, and that he was the well that held his people’s endless pain, and that he’d spent his life sharpening his anger into a spear that pointed directly at the Zenaidan fae.
He closed his eyes, loosening his clenched fists, and pulled in a steadying breath, dampening his anger, reinstalling that lock that held it down to a low, manageable simmer.
He lifted his gaze, his eyes, which shimmered with unshed tears, locked onto hers.
She felt, suddenly as though she were under his spell, as though the emotion in his gaze acted as an incra demanding her complete focus, all her awareness, every fiber of her being connected to him in a way she’d never felt before, as though she could feel the weight of both their prophecies, of this shared prophecy, pressing them together, this unmovable force larger than the gods themselves.
She found herself utterly unable to break away from his gaze, even if she tried, and it frightened her when she realized that she didn’t actually possess any desire to look away.
She only remembered to breathe once he spoke again, as though it broke the spell. She looked down at the table, following the pattern of the wood grain.
“However, every Aithne prophecy bearer before me pleaded with the Cycle Heirs of the past to see the veracity of our claim, to denounce the greed of Zenaidan fae and their lies, to come with us to the underworld so that we may teach them to wield their powers.”
“What do you know of what I can do?”
“We believe that you have the potential to become as powerful as the gods themselves.”
She uttered an incredulous laugh. “No mortal could rival the gods.”
“One mortal can.”
She was not who he claimed her to be.
She was neither someone to pin the hopes of one’s entire people on, nor was she someone who could decide to end the lives of a whole race, no matter their ancestors’—or current—crimes.
She was just one person, from a town no one had heard of, and hardly anyone escaped from, born of a Nightly to parents who’d known nothing but life’s disappointments.
She could feel the prophecy’s crushing power; she was so very fragile, how easily she would fold, balk, beneath the prophecy’s weight. Even now, it felt as though, at any moment, she might be crushed under the burden of it all; any moment, her bones would be ground to dust.
Zhaire implored, “Come with me, command our armies with the strength of the longest Desolate Winter ever recorded, defeat the fae at their weakest, and, once and for all, bring us home to this realm so that my people might know what it is to live beneath the sun, to know that their children born of spring need not wither, need not starve, that they will know the taste of plenty as no Spring-borne demon ever has.”
He would mold her to his will, as the fae molded the earth to theirs. This Aithne demon would melt her down and pour her into a casing, until she hardened under his anger, then he would fashion her as a whittled branch, and loose her as an arrow upon his enemies.
She could not deliver him this.
A wave of dizziness descended upon her.
“Heiress,” he said, sounding far away. “You cannot run from this, you must choose my side, now, this moment—”
She gripped the table to steady herself and tried to pull in breath, to clear her mind, but all she could feel was the crushing, demanding weight of not one but two conflicting prophecies; she could not remain here, could not listen to any more of this, she had to be as far away as possible from this tavern, from all he said, from all foretold, from all of this.
“Five minutes are up, Zhaire,” was all she managed to utter before she fled the tavern.