“Thirteen years.”
“What?” Acantha asked.
“It’s been thirteen years, not ten, since the curse,” I corrected. Thirteen years since I’d inadvertently killed a fae who used her dying words to separate Sirun from the rest of Hemlit and turn me into a drekkan.
“Still, my point remains. What if they worked with Radira and it’s just taken them a few years to get in here?” She cast a furtive glance in the direction of the fae’s room. “I’m not even sure our sound barrier is keeping her out of this meeting.”
“She hasn’t used any magic,” Mylo said. “I’m wondering if being only half fae limits her powers.”
Acantha shook her head. “We’ve known half fae before. They were terribly powerful. I think she wants us to believe she…” My mind drifted. Acantha had always been paranoid, and my parents’ early deaths hadn’t helped. And while she had been very helpful in setting up more security since then, I couldn’t focus on her nerves.
Not when my fae prisoneroccupied so many of my thoughts.
Four hours later, I set my pen down and closed my ink jar. Since I had not been able to focus earlier, I made a list of all my distracting thoughts. I intended to burn the parchment to help purge them from my mind so I could focus on more important topics.
Instead, I read over it:
The fae’s name is Callista.
Times I felt her fear through the mistek bond:
1- When she was in the dungeon
2- When she defied me in the anteroom
3- When Lady Carmine threatened her
4- When she stood on the balcony
I can feel when she lies through the mistek bond.
She hasn’t lied.
Can she trick the bond when she lies?
Were the stories of the evils of fae nature that Acantha told me true, or were they the result of her paranoid mind?
Did Callista have any purpose in coming here besides a spontaneous decision to save her brother?
This last one was the most disconcerting. It was a question I couldn’t know the answer to, but that answer determined… everything.
All my other thoughts dissipated when I considered the final question, and sequences of logic fell into place. This was the reason thoughts of the fae plagued my mind! I slammed my hands against the desk as I realized the source of my distraction. How had it taken me nearly a whole week to know why she troubled me?!
I should have realized it on the first day. I organized my life andkingdom around two guiding principles: safety for my people and honorable justice. If Callista had truly come here with no other purpose than protecting her brother, then confining her and limiting her activities was a violation of my honor and any justice that might exist in elven or human lands. If this was her only purpose, then my people’s safety was not threatened—and that safety could not justify the violation of my values.
I stood up and paced to the window, staring at the dark sky but seeing nothing. My mind drifted to the last time I saw my parents, dying from an unexplained poisoning. Acantha believed it was the work of fae, but we had no proof.
No proof!
I slammed my hand against the window pane, wishing the clatter of the wood or the sting in my flesh could numb the anger I still felt, fourteen years later. Or solve the moral dilemma I now faced—should I continue to confine the fae on the other side of the wall to mitigate a potential threat that may not exist from her or should I give her more freedom, risking the dangers that Acantha had warned me about for over a decade?
Did my parents’ murderer still hunt me? And was that murderer tied to Callista?
I stalked across my room and stared at the wall I shared with her. Did she even realize our rooms were connected? Did she hate me for taking away her freedom? For binding her to me?
If I only had some proof, one way or the other! I could stomach keeping her contained if it was necessary, but I hated the thought of caging someone who only wanted to help her brother—even if he had trespassed and attacked my roses. But how was I to know if she was less harmless than her brother or Radira or my parents’ unknown murderer?
I leaned my forehead on the wall and pressed my palm silentlyagainst the wooden barrier. Heat rose from my anxiety into my hands. She thought it was difficult to live in a place where everyone thought she hated them, did she? Maybe it was difficult to live in a place where everyone expected you to keep them safe, but complained when you were too harsh. I pulled my magic deeper into myself and hit the wall with my hand.
