Chapter 13 #2
When Alexia tightened her cloak around her shoulders, the one she’d refused to change out of no matter how many times she’d been asked, Bridget decided to change the subject, realizing now that the cloak might be from Andarre.
She eyed the dark green stitching, and the thick wool that had hidden Alexia’s amethyst tattoos for so long. Did she use to have something similar?
A wave of dizziness hit Bridget hard. Not only did she have one bizarre past life with Cade to comprehend, there was another one in Andarre she still knew nothing about.
“So my father is not a nice person,” Bridget said. From Alexia’s descriptions, that much was obvious. He’d been so cruel to Cora, the Witch had practically tortured her to get back at him.
“Well… he’d probably be nice to you.”
The thought was nice, but it certainly wasn’t true. A father who cared wouldn’t have let her be shuffled from home to home in a new world with no knowledge of her actual home. “Who knows… He did send me away.”
“Are you saying you would have been better off growing up in Andarre? Knowing exactly who you were and what fate awaited you with the prince across the sea?”
A spark of anger ignited inside Bridget. “Is that why he sent me away? My family knew?”
Alexia paused, then slowly said, “I can’t be certain.
I was never privy to the conversations between your father and Cora, and she certainly kept most of the details to herself.
But looking back… I believe they did. Why else would he do it?
Why else would he threaten innocent families just to ensure your return? ”
“If my father wanted me back, why even send me to the human realm in the first place?” Bridget’s voice cracked, despite her angered resolve.
The question reminded her too much of her childhood, the one she did remember.
The one where she’d obsessed over that question until she’d finally learned and accepted there would never be an answer.
“Unfortunately, the person who would know the answer to that question is dead. So you can take that up with him when we get to Andarre.” Alexia’s face darkened as she glared at Stellan through the window. “If we ever get there…”
Bridget glanced at Nylah’s sleeping form.
They would get there. She still had to be cured.
Then, almost like she knew Bridget was watching her, Nylah sleepily rubbed her eyes before burrowing further into Archer’s side on the couch.
The heat that had been building inside Bridget’s chest dissolved.
If growing up in Andarre and knowing about her past meant giving up her sister, she wouldn’t do it.
Not for anything. Not even for one less scar on her body.
Bridget traced the outline of the Virgo symbol on her hand.
“How did it start?” she asked. “Cora and the blood magic?”
Alexia stilled. A heavy silence surrounded them as the other girl got lost in a memory.
Just when Bridget thought Alexia wouldn’t answer, she whispered, “It started small... A blood spell here or there to keep us hidden from the prince. But then… she started to talk to someone. Sometimes in a mirror… or a pond. Sometimes to midair. Like there was a ghost in the room only she could see. That’s when it got worse. That’s when it consumed her.”
Bridget’s throat tightened. Panic flared in her stomach. A ghost. The girl. Appearing to her like one. Like a vision from her nightmares, so real that she’d attacked it. “Was it Vega?”
Eyeing Bridget up and down, Alexia frowned. “She never said.”
It couldn’t be Vega. Vega wore a mask. And claws.
And dripped blood. Bridget scrunched her eyes closed.
It was the dreams. They’d become so realistic, it was getting to her.
If someone from Iegorus was using magic to communicate with her, she’d feel it.
Pay the price for it. Still, she didn’t want to look in any dark corner in the room, afraid of what she would see.
Grabbing her leather jacket, Bridget darted for the door. “I’m going to talk to Stellan.”
“Whatever hallucination you’re seeing…” Alexia said. The warning in her voice stopped Bridget dead in her tracks, the door handle like ice on her fingertips. “Don’t listen to it. Hearing voices is never a good sign. In any realm.”
Without looking back, Bridget thrust open the cabin door and slammed it shut. Thick blinds rattled behind her and she darted over to the porch ledge and leaned over the railing. The cool air stung her flushed cheeks as she took a deep breath. No one was using magic on her. No one was using her.
And she wasn’t crazy.
“Having a nice chat?”
Bridget jumped. She’d almost forgotten Stellan’s presence. Behind her, he propped himself against the cabin, one boot flat against the wood. A puff of smoke disintegrated around him, the red glow from the cigarette hanging from his mouth barely visible in the moonlight.
Shivering, Bridget crossed her arms. “I don’t know if you could call it that.”
Taking the shortened, white stem between his fingers, Stellan offered it to her. When she shook her head, he shrugged. Only in a dark blue flannel shirt and jeans, he seemed unbothered by the cold.
“A bad habit I picked up here.” Moving next to her, he flicked the cigarette into the snow below them. “I guess I’ll have to stop now.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bridget watched him take off his ball cap and shake out his blond hair, revealing the tips of arched ears.
“And this,” he said, holding up the hat.
He ran his fingers through the straight locks until they finally held in place off his forehead.
“I guess there’s no use trying to hide once we’re in Elyria. ”
How was he so old, but still so young? If she didn’t know better, Bridget would have guessed they were the same age. There was barely a wrinkle around his blue eyes. Or an ounce of trepidation in their silence. Mirroring her stance, he stood next to her, completely comfortable in it.
They’d known each other. Once upon a time. How was she supposed to talk to him?
But how could she not?
There were so many things he knew. About her. About Cade. About Elyria’s future. Though she doubted he would be too forthcoming with that information.
A million questions ran through Bridget’s mind, but each one got stuck in her throat.
Where to even start? She glanced at her broken emerald ring, and then at Stellan, only to find him already watching her, patient and expecting.
Had he seen this moment? The pressure of asking the right questions mounted in her chest even further.
The beginning, that was the only place to start. And how she even survived and remembered at all. “How did the curse break?”
Stellan’s eyebrows raised. So maybe he hadn’t seen this conversation. “I thought you learned your curse lore in Elyria.”
“I did, but…” Bridget glanced down at her ring again. A ring that had almost been lost so many times. And brought back to her in two very unexpected ways. Luck… or fate?
“It was yours,” Stellan said, nodding at the ring on her finger.
“In some weird, twisted way, Vega must have thought she was being funny, using it for the curse. Bronwyn said your family took it before you were buried. It looks like they kept it in the family. They should have thrown it in the ocean when they had the chance.”
Part of Bridget wanted to bristle at his words, she wouldn’t have her memories without the ring.
But a broken curse meant a greater chance of Vega escaping Iegorus.
From the shadows dancing behind his eyes, Bridget knew that was the last thing Stellan wanted.
As she slowly processed his statement, another slip-up, or fact, sent her reeling.
“I’m buried somewhere?”
She wanted to vomit. And find the grave. Or completely forget the notion. Forever. The thought of seeing it was completely…
“Believe me, obsessing over the past will only make you go crazy,” Stellan said. A ghost of a chuckle escaped his chest. “You won’t find it. I promise. Besides, I was still asleep when it happened. I couldn’t help you if I tried.”
Bridget buried the urge to inspect the ring down to the last chisel to see if the past was somehow imprinted on the stone for her to read.
Or hurl it toward the woods. She wasn’t exactly sure which action she wanted to accomplish most. What she did know was how strange it was to be wearing something so old…
something that was hers that had traveled through time to belong to her again.
The ring had always been the nicest, most expensive thing she owned.
Throughout the years, she’d fought off foster family after foster family to keep it. “Was it you?”
When Stellan tilted his head, she continued, “A Shaman is the one who told my father in Andarre to send Cora to bring me back… According to Alexia, anyway.”
She couldn’t believe the sentence coming out of her mouth. Her father. The idea that he was out there somewhere was mind boggling. Had it been that same Shaman’s idea to also send her away?
It was a long time before Stellan answered. “I haven’t been to Andarre in over a century.”
Part of her was relieved it hadn’t been him…
She wasn’t sure if she could look him in the eye or trust that he would protect Nylah if he had.
Beside her, Stellan gripped the porch’s wooden railing, his knuckles white.
Bridget didn’t have to look at his face to know he was struggling with not being able to say more.
“Who was I?” she asked instead. “Or is that also something you don’t remember? ”
It was the question that scared her the most. Who had she been to have this ring? To catch a prince and incur Vega’s wrath, in one fell swoop?