Chapter 28 #2
My head began to pound. What she was saying couldn’t possibly be true. To be told my uncle would die, then to lose the Stone, then to be told that Gwenery and Timith weren’t my relatives and never had been, that they’d been lying to me for my entire life . . .
I shook my head rapidly, my movements so fast I could barely see. “No. No. No.”
My aunt gripped my hands harder, her faint Nolus lineage strength holding me in a death grip.
“I’m so sorry, Prim. We never wanted to lie to you.
I swear on all the gods and goddesses that was the last thing we ever wanted, but we could never tell you.
” Tears burned in her eyes. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we love you.
We love you so much. You’re our darling girl, and you always will be, no matter what. ”
My breaths grew so short I could barely breathe.
Kole growled across from me. “This is too much.” His words grew low and filled with tension. “This is too much for her in one day.”
“She deserves to know!” my aunt snapped.
Gwenery’s grip loosened, and she ran her hands soothingly over mine.
Soft yet strong. Capable yet firm. She’d always been that to me, a comforting hug.
Yet she’d also taught me resilience and had believed that I could always figure out a way to accomplish things on my own, like I’d done with the Stone.
She’d taught me that I had strength within me.
Kindness. Compassion. That I would always choose to do the right thing. That I would choose light over dark.
She and my uncle had intrinsically instilled that in me.
They’d taught me so much. Loved me unconditionally. I’d found the Stone because I’d believed in myself, and that belief had stemmed from her and from Timith’s endless love, patience, encouragement, and teaching. He’d raised me to be who I was today. They both had.
Yet, my entire childhood had been a lie.
“Who are my parents, if we’re not related?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Gwen’s lips downturned, and slowly, she shook her head.
“You can’t tell me?”
“No.” She huffed out a breath, her words forlorn. “They’ve asked us not to. In time, they will tell you on their own. There’s so much more to your story, Primelle, but I’m not allowed to share it.”
“My parents are alive?”
Her lips pursed, so I looked to Jamie, even though I felt Kole watching me, his gaze so intense it burned as brightly as the Stone in his grasp.
“Do you know who my parents are?” I asked the warrior.
Jamie shrugged. “I do, but I can’t release that information either.”
He knew, which likely meant Kole knew too.
I glanced at the dark-haired warrior. Kole’s focus on me intensified, and his knuckles turned white around the Stone.
“You know who they are?”
His jaw locked, his mask slipping, but he didn’t reply.
“Did you know the entire time?”
He looked down, and the guilt in his aura exploded.
I sucked in a breath. Fresh tears blurred my sight. Just when I thought my heart couldn’t break any more, it ruptured anew in a gushing wound. And to think I’d told him the story of how my parents had died. And all along, he’d known that story was a lie.
Betrayal cut into me so deeply it felt as though I’d been stabbed.
“You need to come with us, Prim,” Kole said hoarsely, his aura like a rising tidal wave. “You’re not safe here anymore, not if your true identity has been leaked. Whoever Verin’s working for, they know where you are.”
My true identity. Whatever that was. And whoever they were.
Tears shone so thickly in my eyes when I finally met his gaze that I could barely see him. But I locked down my emotions. Locked them down as tight as they would go. “Were you following me the entire time I was hunting the Stone?”
Kole’s attention dropped to his feet, but not before another flash of devastation filtered through his mask.
My breath rushed out of me. “And when we met for the first time in Whiteolf, when you stopped Abel, was that a coincidence, or did you plan that too?”
His throat bobbed in a swallow, the only evidence that he’d even heard me. “I was already following you by that point and saw that you needed me to intervene.”
Silence filled the room, so thick I could cut it. I finally licked my lips and managed to get out, “I see, so everything was fabricated.”
“Not everything.” His voice shook. “Not everything, Prim.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed in his direction, but I no longer knew if I could believe Kole or not. I didn’t know who or what was real anymore. Least of all Kole.
Aunt Gwenery reached for me, but I fell back in my seat. Numbness crept through me as it sank in that nothing with Kole had been by chance, and all of our encounters along the road had likely been planned.
Memories flashed back to me rapid fire of every single crossing we’d had. Kole hadn’t been patrolling the Wood or tasked with stopping creatures like the one he’d killed outside of Inisville. He’d been assigned to me. For what reason, I still didn’t know.
Regardless, in all of the time we’d spent together, he’d let me believe that he was merely along for the ride, and that our encounters were entirely coincidental, and that I could join him if I wanted to for the last leg of my journey—
My breath sucked in, and I narrowed my gaze at him. “Did you steal my carpet in Inisville?”
He shifted in his seat and finally met my eye. All luster left his expression. He looked resigned. Dead. And in that unspoken response, I knew. I felt it.
“You did,” I said stiffly. “You stole it so I would be forced to return home or join you. Everything you ever said or did with me was a lie.”
“Prim . . .” Kole’s voice was rough. Hoarse.
Jamie stood. “It’s time to go, Primelle. For your safety, you need to come with us.”
“Now?” My aunt shot to her feet. “But her uncle—”
“He’s not her uncle,” Jamie replied.
Kole growled quietly. “Jamie, watch it.”
Despite Kole’s warning, Jamie just shrugged. But hearing that . . .
Pain exploded in my chest, so much so that I grabbed my collar. I could barely breathe. Everything in me broke.
Not my uncle.
But he was. To me, Timith still was my beloved family member, even if we weren’t related.
But Jamie was right in one aspect. Apparently, Timith wasn’t my blood uncle.
He never had been, but he still felt like a father to me, and I still loved him.
Loved him fiercely no matter what he and Gwen had done.
He might have raised me under false pretenses, but he’d genuinely loved me just as I loved him, and now, because of whatever was going on, of who I truly was, Timith was going to die.
Gwen pulled me to my feet, and I knew that if I wasn’t going to use my magic to command anyone, that I couldn’t fight this. It was either that I turned into the fairy that I swore to myself and my aunt and uncle that I would never become, or I accepted whatever they had in store for me.
I looked toward the stairwell, toward where my uncle lay.
“I’m sorry I failed you, Timith,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” My legs once again felt like they could give out at any second, and a surge of magic shimmered inside me at the thought of Uncle Timith’s death being so imminent.
If death was even what waited for him.
Jamie blurred to my side, and it wasn’t until something cold clasped over one of my wrists and a huge rush of magic coasted over me that I realized what he’d done.
My jaw dropped as I gazed down at the single blue glowing cuff encircling my left wrist. Jamie had shackled me with one of their magic-suppressing restraints.
My heart abruptly thundered, and Kole took a step toward me, but I stared at Jamie. “Why?”
It was the only word I could get out.
“This is for your protection, believe it or not,” he said.
Gwen hissed. “Take that off her right now. Primelle isn’t like that. She would never hurt other fae.”
But Jamie shook his head. “Perhaps not, but I’m following orders. The cuff stays.”
Gwen’s aura rose fiercely, and her fingers curled into her palms until her hands had balled tightly at her sides. “You never said you would arrest her.”
“She’s not being arrested.” Kole’s voice was wooden. “We’re only taking her to protect her.”
“That cuff speaks otherwise,” my aunt shot back.
My lips parted, and my stomach again fell down, down, down. But I didn’t enlighten the warriors to the fact that their cuff didn’t work on me. Didn’t enlighten them to the fact that my magic could still be called forth in a second’s notice.
But it wasn’t like it mattered anyway. I wouldn’t use my magic to command them. I wouldn’t become the fairy that I promised my uncle I would never be.
If I were to do anything to honor his memory, I would honor that.
I gazed upward at the warrior whom I’d stupidly been smitten with. But that was before, before I knew everything was a lie. “Where are you taking me?”
Kole’s throat bobbed, and his eyes blazed. “Somewhere safe.”
And even though I had no idea where that was, something in his words rang true, which meant I had a feeling Kole would continue being my assigned Imperial Warrior, but I had no idea what was to come.
Thank you so much for reading Stone of Legends.