Chapter Thirty-Seven
Avari
For a while, I stared at the letter, waiting for the familiar wave of nausea or anxiety. Nothing came. I kept staring, certain it would hit at any moment. Minutes slipped by as I traced the elegant cursive until eventually I forced myself to move.
I grabbed my favourite glass and poured some cold orange juice. Just as the pulp settled at the bottom, I downed half in one go.
Why didn’t this letter worry me? This calm wasn’t me.
I sipped some more.
Was this how normal people reacted to problems—level-headed, thinking instead of fighting off panic?
The pulp at the bottom of my glass splashed into the sink just as Willow entered the kitchen to rummage through the ready meals. She didn’t even acknowledge me. Our sisterly bond was thriving.
She grabbed a box, holding it so my name on the lid was clearly visible. Did she expect me to fight her over pasta? My imagination ran with it, and she shot me a cold look. I must have chuckled.
‘What’s funny?’ she asked, chucking her dinner in the microwave.
The smell of the food heating up was seriously tempting; I hoped there was more than one portion stashed among the veggie options. ‘Nothing. We got a letter.’
Willow whipped toward me. ‘We got a letter?’
‘Imagine my surprise. Though it’s obvious who it’s from,’ I said, removing it from my back pocket and passing it over.
Her widened turquoise eyes assessed it before she read the contents and sighed. ‘Lilian’s and mother’s handwriting are eerily similar. Tough to tell who wrote it.’
‘Which one’s more likely to call you a slut?’
‘Which one do you think is more likely to call you a prude?’ she retorted instantly.
My mind travelled to their gracious personalities. ‘Either, really.’
The microwave beeps echoed around us, yet Willow didn’t move. ‘Exactly. I don’t know how they would even deliver this letter here. It’s not like they know where we are, right?’
Weighing how much to share with this particular spawn of the devil was difficult. She was impossible to read, and I could never quite understand what drove her to act the way she did.
‘Mother’s been here.’ I held her gaze, waiting for it to land.
‘Excuse me?’ Her ruby-red lips parted. ‘Did you have her over for a tea party?’
The sight of her consternation satisfied a part of me I wasn’t proud of. ‘Why? Did you want to come?’
‘Does this seem like a laughing matter to you?’ Her voice sharpened. ‘What if they attack us here?’
It was difficult not to assume that her fear correlated to the massacre in the Ortensian castle. Was she suggesting mother was behind it? We already knew that anyway, but a confession could put my mind at ease.
The more I looked at her, the more I realised that perhaps for the first time in my life she might have been genuinely scared. ‘Unlikely. Jumping isn’t easy. You can only take a couple of people at most. We’re safe here.’
She blinked, momentarily unmoored. ‘Are we talking about acrobatics now?’
‘Shadow jumping. Mother jumped here some time ago to steal something and was overjoyed to find me. She tried to snatch me back, but father wouldn’t allow it.’
‘Mother has shadows?’ Willow’s disbelieving eyes wouldn’t stray from me. ‘Since when?’
This was beginning to sound like a lengthy conversation that I didn’t quite feel ready for. ‘She’s a blood witch. She’s been stealing mine for Gods know how long.’
Silence stretched.
Willow’s expression was void of any emotion. The tension between us felt suffocating until, at last, she sighed and eased up. ‘So you’re really like them? With shadows and all?’
‘Yes and no,’ I admitted, looking away. ‘The shadow part… is a struggle.’
My nemesis swallowed and fidgeted in her spot. Shadows appeared to make her uncomfortable, and nothing ever made me want to control my darkness more.
‘Because of what she did?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘They don’t seem to want to grow back. I don’t know if it’s even possible after depleting them so thoroughly.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and for a moment, her voice sounded almost… pained.
No. I had to be imagining things. The girl before me would never feel anything apart from contempt toward me.
‘Thanks,’ I said quickly, attempting to prolong the faux burst of civility. There were things I needed to know—and she wouldn’t give them freely. ‘Honestly, that woman is a fucking monster.’
My older sister kept watching me. Her gaze wandered more than ever before. What did she see? The hopeless child she bullied or a woman that would no longer allow it?
‘I think she hated you because of how much she wanted you,’ she said, rubbing her arm.
My thoughts scattered. ‘Stop chatting shit, Willow. She never wanted me.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Doubt shadowed her expression, like she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
‘Lilian’s conception was premeditated to achieve a strong heir; you couldn’t go wrong with Water royals, they’re a great fit for that if nothing else.
I am a child of passion, and you were a child of love. Or whatever she perceived as love.’
‘How do you know you’re a child of passion?’
Her face pinched. ‘She blurted it out once when she needed me to seduce an air prince for some twisted agenda.’
My breath stalled. ‘She… pimped you out?’ The words came out quieter than I meant them to.
Leaning on the fridge opposite me, she shrugged as if it meant nothing.
‘It’s not like I minded it that much at the time, especially since she wanted me to whip semi-decent ones around my finger,’ she said flatly but didn’t look at me.
‘Then she started coming up with more men for me to conquer. It was… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I haven’t done it in a while.’
The admission knocked the breath out of me. ‘I’m sorry, Willow.’
Nothing about her shifted. ‘For what?’
‘For judging.’ Admitting that was easier than owning up to my bigger sins. ‘And not believing you when you said mother antagonised you too.’
The stoic expression of hers didn’t reveal any emotion. ‘I… It’s fine, I don’t care.’
‘You’re allowed to have feelings, Willow.’
‘Obviously,’ she snorted and smiled, even if it wasn’t warm.
Time to change the subject; vulnerability was getting her agitated. ‘Why did you say I was a child of love? Did you meet her mate?’
Something in her expression shifted again. Whether I was shit at reading emotions or she was great at hiding them, for a second I could swear she looked almost compassionate. ‘He was a noble man. A faeling of Fire and Earth. Kind and handsome, you look a lot like him, actually.’
Hearing about him for the first time felt uncanny. ‘Do I?’
‘You have his upturned nose and dark brown hair,' she continued, eyes slightly absent as she reminisced.
I felt my nerves cranking up. ‘What happened to him?’
‘They fought a lot over the war,’ she said without blinking. ‘He loved the Fire Kingdom even though he lived in some small Earth town. The more she attacked on the Gem Fields the more distant he was growing.’
‘So she chose war over love.’ A dark laugh bubbled in my throat. ‘Shocker.’
‘The moment she realised his stuff was gone, she lost her shit and raged so much the sea responded and flooded the castle.’ The half-smile on her face showed me that she either enjoyed the flood or the fact that mother suffered.
Interesting.
‘She cheated on him with my father,’ I said and watched her reaction. The fact didn’t surprise her.
‘Lord of the Isles?’ she asked, crossing her arms. ‘How are they so sure you’re their family anyway? You look nothing like them.’
‘He can sense his children.' My voice got quieter since I knew it sounded ridiculous.
Willow’s nose crinkled. ‘Ew, creepy.’
Turning a little green, she looked ready to barf. I found it funny since Miriam said she tried to seduce him not too long ago. The second I reminded myself of that, I felt like barfing too.
But then who was I to judge a woman for trying to escape a place she was unwillingly bound to?
Imprisonment led to poor decisions, I knew that. A deep sigh vibrated through my chest as I thought about my new family. I finally felt like I belonged, but she wouldn’t understand it. Still, for reasons I didn’t quite understand, I attempted to explain.
‘I actually do have a speck of shadows,’ my voice dipped. ‘I just can’t do shit with them.’
Willow watched me move my hand as I tried to call upon it.
After a couple of seconds, I stopped embarrassing myself. ‘I still don’t know how I have my fire powers, though. Can a person have two fathers?’
‘Um, who knows…’ Willow said ominously, her voice raising high enough for me to notice. ‘You grew your fire before. You’ll probably grow these too in your newly developed thirst for self-improvement.’
‘Bitter much?’ I laughed, wondering what sparked the change in her attitude today. She wasn’t usually this talkative. Or helpful.
‘Purely observant.’ The meticulously manicured fingernails tapped the countertops in a steady rhythm. ‘How fucking long will it take to grow my powers back, by the way?’
I sighed. No point in lying. ‘A long time.’
Her gaze fell. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve lived here for just over a month now, and I’ve only started to feel that inkling of shadows recently.’
It could drive me insane. Even during their constricted stage, my fire was always compliant; so was witchcraft. This darkness seemed to have a mind of its own and toyed with me.
‘Fucking great.’ The hand she used to tap the counter gently now slammed it. ‘Keep that brother of yours away from me, by the way. He’s the worst part about staying here.’
Not me?
‘I don’t know if that’s possible. He’s feral,’ I chuckled, shrugging.
‘Help me leave then,’ she pleaded.
I didn’t understand her. ‘You think you’ll be safe out there after what our mother has done? Powerless?’
Willow whined softly, like an entitled princess. ‘I’m not powerless; I can feel them returning… it’s just slow. You seem awfully fine living in this cloudy, weirdly lit place.’
There she was. The bitch was back. ‘I like it here.’
Up and down, she looked me over before laughing. ‘There was always something wrong with you.’
I looked away while she kept her gaze on me. There was no easy way to ask what I needed to know. ‘I don’t want the Ortensian throne, Willow. What will you do if I let you take it?’
A sharp breath. ‘Lilian was trained to take over. I don’t know what I will be doing, but I’m sure I will do it hell of a lot better than our mother has.’
My heart thrashed in my chest. ‘Would you end the war?’ My voice didn’t waver, even if everything inside me did.
She nodded. ‘I don’t even know why we are at war.’
That made two of us.
And somehow it seemed worse.