THE JOURNAL
31
- ALANIS -
T he king enters my room and I immediately feel self-conscious. I try to comb through my hair with my fingers, but it does little to help the knotted mess. In the end, I just tuck it behind my shoulders and hope he doesn’t look too closely.
The king settles into the chair next to my bed, looking me over intensely. “You are feeling well?” he asks, concern etching his face.
I nod. “A little sore and exhausted, even though I’ve been asleep for a while.”
He gives me a small smile, though his expression reveals nothing. “When they carried you and my son through the doors, I must say I was taken by surprise. I have seen Malakai injured before many times. You, though, were as still as death. For a second, I feared they were bringing back your body. My son has always been a troublemaker. A rebel of sorts. He enjoys causing a ruckus and going on grand adventures. I was worried for a while that he would never settle down, so when I could scent your faint bond, I was ecstatic.”
I smile warmly at him. “What was he like growing up?”
The king laughs. “He loved to play pranks on his little sister. Ayda would always have dolls laying around, so Malakai would ‘dollnap’ them—his words, not mine—and hold them for ransom. He made his poor sister pay him in food, favors, or money to get them back. Of course the money always came from me.” The king gives a roguish smile.
“I would hazard a guess that he might get his wild side from a certain Fae King.”
He places a hand on his chest as if offended. “Why, I’m not sure what you’re implying. I am king, I would never have a wild side.”
I laugh at his over-the-top expression.
“As a teen,” he continues, sobering, “he was quite a handful. Running off, sneaking out. Getting tattoos. The older he got, he jumped from woman to woman.” The king winces, as if just now realizing who he’s talking to. “I apologize.”
I gently touch his hand. “It’s fine. I obviously know he has a past. We both do, and I would never hold it against him.”
He grasps my hand. “You are good for him. You center him in a way I have never seen anyone do. I was so frightened of what would become of him if he lost you. I just wanted you to know that I have reached out to the matriarch. Mal believes she is the only way to get the answers you seek.”
Tears burn in my eyes. “I truly appreciate that.” I take a deep breath before uttering my next words. “Your Majesty…we found your sister on the Isle. She had been held captive for quite some time. I’m so sorry that there was nothing we could do for her. She seems to have been dead for about a year now.”
The king looks down, shock and sadness seeping from his every pore. “She has been missing for quite a while. I thought she had died ages ago. I won’t deny it’s tough knowing I could have saved her if I’d just looked harder or longer. It took me too long to put the pieces together, to know where the majority of the realm’s problems were stemming from.” He pats my hand, standing to leave. “You should know that I’m offering help for you as well, not just my son. You are good for him, and I can tell you care for each other a great deal, but I must say I am also quite fond of you. There are a few people around the city that sing your praises, especially Maryanna. I think you would make a wonderful queen someday.”
My mouth drops open as the king shuts the door softly behind him. Me, a queen? How the hell could I ever rule a realm?
The door opens and Malakai enters with Elion, Kailu, and Hannah close behind. The little black book he carries catches my attention, sending the king’s words from my mind. My eyes snap to Elion’s.
“How the hell…?” I trail off, at a loss for words.
Elion shakes his head. “I have no idea. The Banshee brought it to us.”
Confusion and intrigue war in my head. How did the Banshee come to possess my mother’s journal? How is the journal even still intact when it should be a pile of ash?
Malakai’s grim face drags my wandering thoughts. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
He opens the book to a marked page. “I figured out why your powers are or were blocked.”
I smile at him. “That’s a good thing, right?” My smile fades slowly when I notice anger flare in his eyes. “Tell me,” I plead quietly.
Mal walks towards me, gently kissing my head before taking a seat on the bed beside me. Then he starts to read my mother’s words, sending a jolt to my heart at how much I miss her and my father.
It happened again. Alanis got angry, and another pulse of her power unleashed. At first we had no explanation for the weird happenings. Never in a million years did we think it was her. Magic like hers is illegal here. Tiernan finally found information that led him to a man, who informed him that Alanis had to have witch blood if she was showing powers as strong as we said. Especially at her age. He gave my husband a book on the Shadow Vale Coven. Now we just need to figure out how to control or suppress these powers. I’m scared she will damn us all with them.
It hurts to breathe. I remember having fits, my father giving me a foul tasting medicine to help with them because they were exhausting, but not to the extent she is describing. I wrack my memory, but nothing comes to the forefront of my mind. I look at Elion and find his face is pale, his lips pursed.
“There’s more,” Malakai says in a gruff tone.
I’m not sure how much more I can handle. When we chose to bring a poor, abandoned baby into our family, I didn’t expect this. This world cannot handle her powers. They will hang us all if she is discovered. The man who approached Tiernan makes me nervous. He won’t share his name, but he says he has something that can control her powers, a potion that covens in other realms have used on witches and wizards who have gone too far, who have amassed too much power. He says it shouldn’t take much. Let her drink a sip or two a day until the powers subside.
Elion refuses to meet my eyes. “You knew?” I breathe. I thought the medicine I took was a secret between only me and my father.
He grits his teeth. “Not exactly. I knew they were giving you something to help with your extreme emotions. I also know that they were acting weird.”
Malakai ignores us both, flipping through pages. His jaw tenses. This must be the part that really gets to him.
The potion has worked, but Alanis is not the same girl she was before. She’s more subdued, and even seems depressed at times. I’ve been so worried her powers will slip through since she’s stopped taking the potion, so I have been secretly slipping it into her dinner every night. Tiernan doesn’t know. He was against the idea when I first brought it up. The unnamed man warned him against taking it when not necessary, but I feel it is. I have Elion to think about. I must protect him and everyone else.
At this point, I regret ever saving her. She might be the end to us all if the sentries ever discover what hides within her.
Tears drip from my eyes. My mother was scared of me. My mother regretted taking me in. She didn’t love me.
I breathe deep, sadness warring with disappointment creating a potent cocktail of heartbreak. The feeling is familiar. The emotions grow so intense that they become a living thing inside me, writhing and clawing at my mind to get out.
I try. I really do. But I can’t get it under control.
Ice shoots from my fingertips. Hannah and Elion jump out of the way, yelping.
Malakai pushes up from the chair, grabbing my tear-stained face. My body calms slightly. Wetness drops onto my head. Kailu comes to my side, grasping my hand in a tight hold.
I look at Malakai, finding white flecks litter his hair. I rear back, looking throughout the room. The ice has now calmed, and only fluffy white snow remains.
“ Is this my magic too? ” I ask.
Malakai wipes my tears away. “ Yes, firecracker. This is all you, and it is beautiful. ”
I release a breath. Acceptance. I’ve finally found a place where I’m accepted for who I am.
- KAILU -
I knew those entries would break her heart. She would have been mad if we hid them from her, so all I can say is that the woman is lucky she is dead.
I look at Alanis’s face, her nose pink from crying. Her magic is unlike anything I have ever seen before. When she pushed the Amorak back, it was with a hurricane force wind. Anger turned to wind.
Extreme sadness turned to ice, which we were already aware of. What was new was that, at my and Malakai’s touch, her emotions calmed and a gentle snow began to fall. What other powers could remain hidden inside her?
“Alanis,” I say, drawing her attention back to me. “I think you should train your powers. It will be easier to control if you know what to expect.”
The snow has stopped, the ice she created now melting. She gives me a nod. “I agree. If I’m to be useful, I need to know what I’m capable of and how to control it.”
Alanis falls asleep shortly thereafter, Malakai moving back to sit by her side, so while the others slip out, I catch Elion by the arm to hold him back a moment. “Do you have any idea who the mystery man was?”
Elion shakes his head. “But my father had a book in which he made note of how to contact anyone of importance. It might be in there.”
“Do you think it survived like your mother’s journal did?”
Elion gives a slight smirk. “I know it did. It’s sitting on my desk at our cottage in the Outskirts. I had it on me when the bombs dropped. My father had given it to me. Alanis and I were hunting for food, but I was also trying to find my uncle. My father thought the book might help me locate him.”
“Can you get it as soon as possible?”
He nods. “I’ll fetch it now.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as he slips from the room, I turn back to Alanis, asleep in her bed. Malakai looks as if he is seconds away from passing out, so I gently clutch his shoulder. “Mal, go get some sleep. I’ll stay with her tonight.”
He looks at me through tired but grateful eyes before tenderly placing a kiss on Alanis’s head. It’s strange seeing him this way. I would never have described my friend as gentle, but with her, he is. He stares at me a second longer, his eyes filled with a warmth I’m unaccustomed to seeing from him. He clutches me to his chest in a tight hug, my heart rate picking up.
“She’s all right,” he whispers.
Wrapping my arms around him tightly, I nod. “She is.”
He slips from the room and I kick off my boots and shuck my sword to take his place next to her. I crawl into the bed beside her and pull her into my embrace. Her little sigh sends butterflies into my chest, the feeling so similar to what I felt moments ago in Malakai’s arms. I close my eyes, listening to the sound of her steady breathing.
Her heartbeat lulls me to sleep.