Chapter 18
SEAN
“Should we be worried about that?” Sean asked Cathaire, nodding toward Anna and David leaving the training area together.
The Blademaster let out a soft chuckle. “You’ve met her. What do you think?”
Sean busied himself with removing the leather bracers while Isobel chatted with Autumn nearby.
“If what they say about his magic is true, then I think he has the ability to make someone do anything he wants, and I don’t like the idea of her alone with him.
She’s a nice person. She doesn’t deserve to be manipulated. ”
Cathaire hummed. “Anna is a smart woman. I trust her judgment. And he’s being watched, you know. If he steps out of line, the Seelie Queen won’t stand for it.”
“So I’ve been told.” Sean looked up again, only to find that David had disappeared with Anna among the crowds. “Doesn’t it bother you? Him getting close to her?”
Cathaire was watching—or rather, scowling at—a couple of devas spar nearby, but his puzzled expression turned toward Sean. He made a Sign that Sean interpreted as confusion. “Why would it bother me?”
“Aren’t you two—” Sean made some weird motion with his hands that made Cathaire laugh.
“What? Lovers? Mates?”
Not the words Sean would’ve used, but okay. “Something like that.”
“We are not,” Cathaire said, still laughing. “She’s a member of my tribe, and she’s been my Apprentice for years. We’re…friends, I suppose you could say.” He made another Sign.
“Oh.” Sean was a little taken aback. They’d seemed so familiar with each other. “My mistake.”
“It’s the Pixie Effect,” Cathaire said, Signing again. “It’s what makes it seem as if we’re all closer than we are.”
Sean raised a brow, mimicking the Sign. “The Pixie Effect?”
The man cupped Sean’s neck, sparking a friendly vibe down his spine. “That. The network.”
Sean’s bewilderment translated straight to his face.
Cathaire only shook his head. “A lesson for another time. My true mate awaits.”
A pixie woman stepped into the clearing. She had long black curls and a blue dress that dragged the forest floor. Flowers made a crown in her hair. She bowed deeply. “Blessed be, Ashanta.”
Cathaire stood close but didn’t touch her as he made the introductions. “Caden Sidera, this is my Leyla. My Leyla, meet the heir of Sidera.”
She extended a hand, and he grasped her wrist in the pixie fashion, now unsurprised by the small shock as their skin made contact—the Pixie Effect. Her kiss on his temple was a mere graze. “’Tis an honor. I shall not keep you, but I thank you for being kind to my Cathaire.”
Was she expecting him to be cruel? Sean switched to his charming smile. “He makes it easy.”
With a twinkle in her eye, she bowed again. Isobel sidled up to Sean’s side, kissing him quickly to ease away any bruises. A holler from the clearing’s edge drew their attention, and Sean startled at the mass of pixies congregating there.
“Blessed be the Savior!” one shouted to a chorus of cheers. Their smiling faces coaxed Sean to join, but still overwhelmed from the onslaught of the previous evening, he hesitated.
“Oi!” Cathaire yelled. “Leave him be, you bunch of vultures. He’s a man, not a statue to ogle!”
They booed.
Sean shot them a What can I do? shrug, like he had no choice but to remain by the Blademaster’s side. Good-natured ribbing and jeers followed, but the crowd dissipated.
All but one.
A taller pixie with black hair shorn on the sides and one long braid trailing down his back met Sean’s eyes. The guy was huge, with such thick muscles packed onto his long limbs that Sean wondered how a blow from him might feel.
Life-ending, probably.
The man bowed, tapping two fingers on his temple.
“That is Bowenn,” Cathaire said behind Sean. “He is the Warrior Chieftain of the Selgovae clan. He has kept charge of the Exorcism since the end of the Follower war.”
Sean offered the pixie a return bow, and he turned to leave. “Why not Kywyn?”
Cathaire hesitated. “Your father is an excellent warrior…”
“But?”
“But perhaps he did not fully inherit his grandfather’s affinity to lead.”
A soft chuckle drew Sean’s and Cathaire’s attention to Kywyn, who had snuck up on them from behind. “Not all Sideras are born for Sovereignty, or so it would seem.”
Cathaire shook his head. “You are a man who thinks before he acts. You would make a fine leader, had you any desire for it.”
Sean rose a brow. Did Kywyn not want his title? “Does desire matter? Because—”
“No,” Isobel interrupted, butting into the conversation. “It holds no sway.”
Kywyn winced. Just barely. Just enough that Sean took notice. Maybe he also found the lack of agency, the weight of destiny, the whole fucking thing to be wildly far-fetched.
Cathaire breezed past it all. “Tomorrow I accompany Anna to the fighting rings. You will train with Lady Isobel and Autumn in utilizing Luster.”
Sean nodded.
“Until tomorrow,” Cathaire said, giving one last Sign. Goodbye. He and Leyla took their leave.
“Sean,” Kywyn said. “I was hoping we could take a walk.” He turned to Bel. “If that’s all right.”
“Oh, I suppose.” She smiled and left a burning kiss on Sean’s temple. She and Autumn steered toward the Tree while Sean and Kywyn turned in the opposite direction.
They walked in silence at first, Kywyn content to stroll among the trees.
The sweat from training slowly dried, leaving Sean chilled, and his muscles ached in the best of ways.
He took a moment to merely breathe it all in.
The unease hadn’t dissipated, nor had the doubts, but Sean couldn’t deny that this place called to him in a way nowhere ever had.
The difficult answers to his lifelong questions, the burden laid on his shoulders yesterday, it all threatened to crumble him to pieces, but the magical forest filled a longing deep inside, a notable awareness of having found something he didn’t know he missed.
Home, something whispered deep in his soul. Belonging.
He didn’t want to be a Sovereign or a Savior, but he also didn’t want to leave.
With his newfound father at his side, Sean walked the worn paths through the giant trees, letting the peace of the forest surround them.
Eventually they traveled far enough that the trunk of the giant Tree turned hazy behind the rainbows and sparkles in the air.
Meeting Kywyn’s deep blue eyes—the same as his own—Sean slowed to a stop.
“I’m sure you have questions,” his father said.
Sean laughed, sharper than he intended. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“That’s understandable.” Kywyn rubbed his unlined face.
Savior. Sovereign. Sendings.
It all coalesced into a mass of unresolved anxiety. His heart competed with his lungs for space. He was too full yet utterly empty. His voice came out ragged. “Just why?”
Kywyn’s gaze dropped to the ground.
“Why did you let me grow up completely unaware of who I am?”
“It wasn’t my choice. I wanted so badly to come for you. The Council wouldn’t let me.”
Sean sank against a tree, waiting for more information, but none came. Eventually his heart slowed, and he sighed. “My mother set me up for failure.”
Kywyn’s eyebrows drew together. “She was a slave to fear.”
The thought of his mother tightened a well-worn band around Sean’s soul. “I’m going to need more than that.”
“We were young when we met.” Kywyn exhaled a slow breath.
“Probably younger than you are now. She tried to fight it. She wanted no part of my destiny. The stories scared her, and she didn’t want to bond with someone she might lose.
I told her I wasn’t the one, that I was just a steward in the line.
Once she finally believed me, that’s when she began to fear for our future child. ”
“Why?” Sean asked.
“We don’t reproduce easily. Most of us are graced with only one child, if any at all. Lana knew if she chose me to father her only child, she risked that child becoming Lhynion’s heir. She was so scared of it that she left.”
“She…left?”
“Yes. Long before you were born. She left me. She tried to bear the child she wanted by someone else.”
Sean’s eyebrows shot up. “Seems a little dramatic.”
Kywyn chuckled. “It wasn’t a good time for me. Or for her. But she was desperate.”
“So what happened?”
“She came back. I loved her. She loved me. We’re pixies. She tried to stay away, but eventually she gave up.”
Sean opened his mouth to ask why being a pixie had anything to do with that, but Kywyn continued before he could.
“Autumn came first. She’s a decade older than you.
When she was born, we knew. Her hair was just like Rhiannon’s, and her skin burned with happiness the way Rhiannon’s was rumored to,” he said.
“Lana panicked, and I was terrified to lose her again. I told her we could still have time. We’re all separated by so many years.
Except by then, Isobel’s mother was already expecting. ”
“Where is her mother?”
“She passed. An accident—a fall.”
“And her father?”
Kywyn glanced to the side, then the treetops. “I don’t know who he is. Isobel’s mother was…” He moved his hand in circles, searching.
“Promiscuous?”
He nodded. “Once Lana realized Ketzia—sorry, Isobel’s mother—was pregnant, she…” He shook his head. “I’m not sure who had the more dramatic reaction, Lana or David’s mother.”
“What did David’s mom do?”
“Elenya fled to the mortal world. She tried to hide. I think she attempted to sterilize herself.”
Sean blinked, scrutinizing the details of his father’s face. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Rather than bear Galadaine’s progeny, she wanted to end the line of Manae completely.”
A disbelieving huff escaped Sean as he attempted to fathom being that scared of his own unborn child.
“But the Luster always finds a way. She bore her child in secret, gave him to Xandra to raise in the mortal world where he couldn’t be found, and left.”
Queasiness squeezed at Sean’s gut. “Do any of you have any idea what kind of life he lived there? His father turned him into a—a murderer.”