9. Elorie
Elorie
My mother’s face tilts, confusion pinching her eyebrows as my knees give out at the edge of the runes.
I’m a raw nerve. Every inch of my flesh prickles as if at any moment I’ll begin fraying apart. The echoes of my memories continue to scream between my ears. Endless thoughts and emotions run rampant as her silver eyes meet mine.
And then, a strange peace flushes through me. Pieces once torn apart come back together. I sink back on my heels, shoulders easing as I face my mother.
Her head tilts to the other side, shifting her strands over her shoulders.
“Your hair is white.” Why are those the first words from my mouth? Insignificant, but it’s the first thing to come to mind.
Her gaze falls to my hair. A few braids are sprinkled through the tangled strands, and I know I must be a mess. But she doesn’t say as much even if she thinks it. My fingers twine with the blue, but she says nothing.
“I just assumed it would be blue,” I say, dropping the lock of hair and wringing my fingers together.
“What’s your name?” she asks, assessing me.
Her voice is strangely familiar. Like a song I’ve heard a hundred times. But no matter how many times I’ve heard that song, I don’t know the words.
“Elorie Vale,” I answer, not taking my eyes off her. “What’s yours?”
Her gaze drifts over my shoulder. “It’s been centuries since I’ve answered that question.”
“My father didn’t ask?”
“He did.” A cool airiness sends her voice floating as if it were its very own presence. “You can call me Idunn.”
“Idunn.” An unusual name.
Before coming here, Callum and I scoured the limited prison records in the village to see if any particular Fae stood out as having the possibility of being my mother. Nothing stuck out at the time, and from what I recall, the name Idunn was not on any page I read.
“How long have you been here?”
A curious smile crawls her cheeks. “Time is not of importance in this place.”
“It is when you’ll suffer the Beating if you’re here too long.”
“The Beating?” Genuine confusion fills her eyes.
“It’s what happens to Fae without magic to nourish them. Their heartbeats quicken until they die.”
She huffs a laugh, shaking her head, like the thought is utterly ridiculous. “Ah, yes, I’ve heard the whispers.”
The whispers?
The Beating is the reason Fae are brought to Alyssium and locked in the prison.
And even if the Crown might have buried the fate of prisoners from the kingdom, it became common knowledge after the Collision first started claiming Fae near the Well almost three hundred years ago.
For Idunn to be unfamiliar with the term, she would have had to have been in here longer than that, which isn’t possible, or she would have suffered the Beating centuries ago.
Unless celestial Fae aren’t bound to those same mortal limits?
My gaze moves to the runes containing her. Clearly certain rules still apply to us all.
Idunn moves, her white gown dripping like moonlight over her body. Unlike Wilder, who I found beaten and battered, cut and hurt from years within the prison, her skin is unmarred. Her dress is grander than anything worn at the parties in the Ley Court.
She paces to the far corner of the cell, gazing out as if there is more to see than darkness. With how the prison toyed with my memories as I walked inside, maybe for her, there is.
I climb to my feet, drawing her attention. From a distance, shadows cast over her face, marking the brightness of her freckles. I brush my fingertips over mine.
“Why do our freckles glow?”
“Why do the stars?” Idunn asks in return.
“Because they’re burning.”
“Are you not?” Her gaze skims me, unimpressed.
“Do you mean my magic?”
Idunn looks away, not answering my question.
“I can’t use my magic here.” I approach the conversation from another angle. “Alyssium doesn’t have any.”
“As if that matters.” She lifts a hand, palm up, until an orb of white light forms above it.
We’re surrounded by obsidian on an island with no magic, and somehow, she summons it as if it is nothing.
“That’s impossible. You shouldn’t be able to do that here.”
“Why not? You did. I heard the whispers. The girl who raised the dead.”
“You knew that was me?”
She clamps her fingers into a fist, the orb vanishing. “Only my magic could do as much in a place without.”
“So we have the same magic?” Hope swells inside me.
“We do,” she confirms, her eyes narrowing. “But you do not know how to wield it.”
“I’m figuring it out.”
“Celestial magic is not like that of this realm. The only limit to our magic is us. The only containment is us.”
I don’t agree when I’ve found a number of limits to mine, especially now. But I don’t bother arguing.
“Our magic—” Idunn cuts herself off, her head whipping to the other side of the cell.
I step back, ready for something to break through the shadows, but nothing comes.
Idunn pinches the bridge of her nose, her freckles flaring as she shakes her head. Her jaw tightens, and when she drops her hand and her gaze meets mine, her eyes are brighter than ever.
“It was not him,” she snaps, turning her back to me again. “Of course it wasn’t. Not yet. Not yet.” Her nails dig into her hair, which moves like a curtain. “It was not him, but that is not my fault. I did not change it.”
I don’t know how long she’s been locked within these walls, but clearly long enough for it to have broken her mind.
Maybe coming here was a terrible idea. I’m seeking answers from a female who doesn’t even understand the extent of the Beating.
Even if she could help me understand my magic, how can she give guidance on fixing a realm she doesn’t realize is broken?
I move back a step, and Idunn erases the space between us. “Wait.”
In a heartbeat, she moves from the back of her cell to the front. For a moment, I think she’ll break free of the runes completely, but she’s stopped by them. They’re luminescent where she’s closest.
“I was not always like this.” Her hands relax at her sides as if she’s calming herself.
Idunn glances to where there is no ceiling.
No end. She stares as if she’s watching the clouds change or the stars flicker.
Her gaze drifts as if she sees beyond this prison to somewhere else.
“The Crown refused to see that I was not only this.”
I take a cautious step closer. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you not?” she counters, her gaze finding mine. “They saw what you did, who you woke—an aether wielder—did they not? They saw the boundless power you wielded?”
I nod, swallowing hard.
The smile that climbs her cheeks lacks any joy. “Yet they put a crown on your head, while they put me in chains.”
“It didn’t happen like that.”
She huffs out a laugh. “Humans and their literal interpretations. They saw what you were capable of, and they deemed you worthy, while they buried me away for being just as strong.”
“You’re saying they put you here because you’re too powerful?”
“They did not understand.” She turns again but doesn’t walk away; she simply refuses to look at me. “After all I did for them, this is how they repay me.”
She wraps her arms around herself, mumbling.
I take a step forward when maybe I should be running away. But whoever this Fae is, whatever she’s done, doesn’t change that she’s my mother.
My toes brush the edge of the runes, and she looks down at the spot that glows. “I’m sorry if they didn’t understand you. I’m sorry they locked you in here. There was a time I wasn’t understood either. But thankfully I had my father to protect me.”
“Your father.” Her nose scrunches.
“Laef,” I say gently, trying to remind her.
“The guard. Yes, I remember. I simply fail to see his relevance.”
The ice in her tone is a punch to my stomach. “You must have cared about him. You spent time with him. You… created me.”
“He told you about me?”
I frown. “No. He didn’t tell me who you really were. I didn’t find out until after.”
“After?”
“He died.” I clear my throat, choking back my emotion. “I never got the chance to ask him these questions.”
“Hmm.” Idunn’s steely eyes scour me, not appearing the least bit heartbroken over the news of my father’s death. After a long pause, she huffs. “Your father did not understand me. So no, I don’t see his relevance.”
Dropping my chin, I take a breath, defeat rushing through me. What did I expect to find here? What have I risked? My father kept my mother a secret for a reason, and I’m only now beginning to understand it.
“You’re disappointed that I do not care about him.” Idunn’s chin lifts when I look at her. “He was just a human, Elorie. He is not us.”
“You find no value in those who aren’t Fae?”
Her head angles. “I find no value in much of what you’ve asked me. Yet I’ve answered your questions.”
“Why did I bother?” I grumble, starting to turn away.
But she moves in a flash that shakes the ground. “Wait.”
“For what? You to disregard something else I care about? First, you disrespect my father, then all humans. It’s my turn next, right?”
“No, you are very important, Elorie Vale. And you need me, do you not? That’s why you came here.”
“I don’t need anything from you,” I lie.
Her grin proves I’m not fooling anyone. But before I can storm off, the ground shakes, and I nearly stumble into the cell. My foot skids to the edge of the runes, a fraction away from grazing them as I quickly take a step back.
Another quake rattles the prison, but it’s unlike when the prison moves on its own. This is a jolt from somewhere else.
Idunn smiles, glancing up as if she sees something. But when I follow her gaze, there is nothing there.
“Is something wrong with the prison?”
“No, no, no, no, no.” Her eyes brighten, her smile widening as she mumbles the words. “That is not within.”
Idunn closes her eyes and takes a deep inhale. Holding the scent in her lungs as her smile grows.
“No, that is not from within at all.” Her eyes blink open. “What have you wrought, daughter of the stars?”