Chapter Four. Fallon #2
“It is adorable that you think I care about such trivialities. Political marriages happen all the time. Caldris will learn to share you and remember his place,” Mab said, dismissing the notion that acting outside of the mating bond would be agonizing.
For both Estrella and Caldris. There would be no pleasure in being bound to another man, only suffering and pain.
While Estrella likely wouldn’t have to share Etan’s bed in a political marriage, the separation and very notion of being bonded to another in any way went against the conventions of the Fae.
But Mab didn’t care, because she was just as likely to murder a mate out of spite. Love and mate bonds held no power over her.
Estrella smiled through the pain, and I knew she was confronted with the images of the carnage Caldris would unleash if anyone even attempted to claim her as his.
“I somehow doubt that,” she scoffed. She turned her head, her face twisted with sadness.
I knew she didn’t want to leave me to that fate, but that was the only path forward.
“It’s okay, Estrella,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. The thought of leaving her here, of abandoning her to this place that was so determined to break her, was enough to tear me in half.
She shook her head, pursing her lips to fight back tears of her own.
“Whoever displays the magic I wish to see first will stay here with me,” Mab said, interrupting our moment.
“And if neither of us do?” Estrella asked, prepared to simply refuse to make the choice. If neither of us chose, would we simply continue on as we already had been? How long could we keep going that way?
“Then I’ll marry the other one of you off to one of my other allies.
Perhaps a far crueler one than Etan. I have done you a kindness in selecting him.
He is not a cruel man and will not be a cruel husband.
He is distant and pragmatic, but will see that your needs are met.
I would tolerate nothing less for my daughter,” Mab said, turning to me with a knowing stare. “Even if she does not obey me.”
She knew beyond a shadow of the Veil that I would be the one she sent to this marriage.
She knew it would be Estrella who displayed her power and remained behind, hoping and waiting for the moment when she and Caldris could be free together.
She knew, and she was willing to sacrifice me to force Estrella’s hand and drive distance between us by putting us in charge of the decision.
After centuries of searching, I’d proven to be a waste of effort. A waste of time.
The Veil had been erected to keep us from Mab, to protect us from being raised in her image.
And for what?
I stepped forward, turning my back to Mab and placing myself between her and Estrella.
I took my friend’s hands in my own, stroking my thumb over the circle on the back of her hand.
I ran my touch over the Fae Mark, the reminder of the bond that mattered more than ours, summoning that connection to the surface to remind Estrella of everything I was willing to sacrifice myself for.
Etan would not ever love me because I was not his mate, and I could not possibly love a man who would willingly align himself with Mab. With every day that passed, it became more and more clear that there was no love for me, not the kind that Estrella had found with Caldris.
She deserved to have what she had already found and suffered for, and there was always a chance that Etan and I could come to our own arrangement.
Maybe he could allow me to have some form of freedom so long as I didn’t interfere with his plans.
Maybe my place as his wife would allow me to at least travel through Alfheimr, even if it didn’t offer freedom in the truest sense.
Whatever he offered, there was every chance it would be better than Tar Mesa.
My palm touched the white teardrop of our blood vow on her hand, and the pulse of magic spread through me at the same moment Estrella shivered.
“It’s okay,” I said, my hand trailing up the white marks on her forearm. My fingers tingled with warmth, as if my touch alone could bring forth the magic she fought to suppress and keep hidden from Mab.
She shook her head again, the denial rising on her lips. “I can’t,” she protested.
“You can,” I said, touching my forehead to hers.
I pressed forward, my eyes holding hers and willing her to see the truth.
Her bottom lip quivered, her desperation to protect me at war with her need to be with her mate.
All my life, people had been protecting me from danger—they’d been doing whatever it took to keep me tucked away and safe, guarding my light that was too good to be sacrificed to the darkness of this world.
All I could do was try to be worthy of that sacrifice.
It was too late to hide Estrella’s powers from Mab, but we could still hide mine, and I felt in my bones that was the path I was meant to take.
That was how I could be worthy.
Beyond Estrella’s need to protect me was a greater doubt, though, and I read it in every line of Estrella’s face.
In the tension at her temples, the crinkling at the corner of her mouth as she forced a frown that was unnatural to her pretty face.
Her fear—of what Mab would do with her magic.
Her fear of what she herself was capable of.
“It is you. The most terrifying part of you, but it’s also the most beautiful. All you have to do is let it out.”
“It’s not that simple,” Estrella said, resisting the urge to make eye contact with Mab. Even our words came too close to revealing the truth, Estrella’s painful efforts to keep her secrets safe useless in the face of a woman who would do anything to learn them.
I turned her away from Mab and guided her out of the throne room.
Mab and Etan followed behind us, and I knew we were both aware of the fact that we were only able to exit the palace of Tar Mesa because she allowed it.
That the guards standing at the entrance would have impaled us on sight if she so much as breathed a word of discontent.
Instead, the Queen of Air and Darkness seemed satisfied to allow the situation to play out, watching with only a mild curiosity.
“She cannot use you for evil if you do not allow it. Knowledge is power, but do you really think anything she does is stronger than you?” I asked, my voice a low murmur to keep the moment private between us.
“You have lived in fear of what you are. You have suffered the pain of suppressing yourself to protect the world. When will you learn that you are not our destruction, Estrella? You are our savior.”
Estrella’s knees buckled as we stepped outside, the moons shining high in the sky above us. My bare arms warmed from them as I took a step back with a nod. I released Estrella, and she turned to watch Mab and Etan as they waited for her decision.
“I’m not strong enough for this,” she said.
“Then lean on the people who love you. Take what you need from us,” I said, raising a hand.
She stared down at the threads she saw in everything, the ways she interpreted the world that the rest of us could not.
Nodding, she allowed her eyes to drift closed as she sank into herself, into the well of power that I felt rise up to meet her.
Goose bumps rose along my arms in response to the feel of it on my skin, forcing me to hold my ground.
I couldn’t risk Estrella seeing me back away from her, couldn’t risk her thinking I was afraid of her.
Mab studied Estrella intently as she wrapped something between her fingers, curling it around her flesh as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She stared up at the sky with wide eyes, as if she saw the world for the very first time.
Estrella closed her palm, pressing her fingers into it slowly.
I followed her gaze to the sky, watching as one of the moons winked out of existence as if it had never been there at all.
She reached up with her other hand as Mab gasped, the shock in her voice bringing a smile of pure joy to my face as I stared up at that one lone moon.
Estrella gathered more threads into that hand, snuffing out the light and plunging the night sky into darkness.
The other moon vanished, the stars disappearing along with it, until a dark like I’d never known surrounded me.
The complete absence of light was suffocating, making my breaths come harsher and more quickly. Only the light of fires hanging from the doorway of the palace illuminated the ground before it, and I pointed my stare at them and fixated on that single source of light.
“Impossible,” Mab whispered, taking a step toward Estrella.
Estrella turned to face her, unflinching when the Queen of Air and Darkness cupped her cheeks and stared down at her. There was a cross between horror and awe in that stare, and she ran her thumb through the tears on Estrella’s cheeks in a mockery of gentleness that felt all wrong coming from her.
“And yet here I am,” Estrella murmured, drawing back from Mab. She released the threads, tossing her hands into the sky so that the moons reclaimed their rightful place. “Did that give you the answers you were so desperate for?”
“You can see the threads of fate,” Mab said, her voice filled with awe as she stared down at Estrella’s hands. “That is how you summon.”
Shock coursed through me with the realization that Mab knew what she shouldn’t, that she’d recognized the way Estrella touched the world. “You see them, too?” Estrella asked, swallowing so loudly I heard it.
“I see … shadows of them. Whispers on the wind occasionally, but I can never grasp them. I’m not—” Mab paused, clearing her throat as the closest thing I’d ever seen to emotion clogged it.
“You’re not what?” Estrella asked. She was so close to answers that I took an unwilling step toward her, pausing only so I would not interrupt the moment. I wouldn’t be the one to keep her from the answers she needed desperately.
Mab clenched her jaw, and I could already imagine the strategy working through her head. The plans she was making for how she could use this knowledge, and Estrella, to her greatest advantage.
“A Primordial,” Mab answered finally, knocking the breath from my lungs.
Estrella was a Primordial?