“She’ll burn herself out back into stasis if she keeps raging like that,” the Shadow King said, observing his daughter's burning form with his head tilted to the side slightly.
He was watching his daughter with such a deep curiosity that it was almost comical.
“Your Majesty, you just told her that the man she loves is the captive of her greatest enemy,” Bryn said, grunting through the effort to control her sister's emotions from burning them all. “There is nothing that will stop her from retrieving him now, not even herself.”
Just as suddenly as her temper had flared, her flames abruptly extinguished. On hands and knees, Maude breathed heavily through the waves of fire that still cascaded over her skin. She moved to step off the bed again, but before she could get very far, her knees gave out from their lack of use. Liv caught her this time, the harmless golden flames coasting over the air shield she had erected as she helped her sister sit on the edge of the bed.
“We have to go after him,” Maude panted through her teeth, hands on knees to keep her propped up. “We can’t leave him there.”
“No one is leaving him there,” Liv said, stepping back to give her some space.
“You already have!” Maude seethed as she shot to her feet again. This time, her legs did not collapse beneath her weight even as they shook—like she was staying upright through pure stubbornness.
Stiffening from the harsh words, Liv hardened her features before turning from the room and leaving. Something in Bryn's chest made her want to follow the Elven to soothe the frown lines from her face, but she forced herself to remain at her sister's side.
“Maude, we couldn’t exactly leave you here,” Bryn said, sharpening her tone. “You have been out of it for almost three weeks.”
Her knees buckled at that. She refused to go down, legs shaking harder with the effort to remain standing.
“Minn måne, you need to sit down. You can’t be pushing yourself so soon,” the Shadow King interjected, his tone placating. Humor glinted in his eyes though as he watched Maude turn toward him, her fire sparking at her fingers again.
Bryn realized she hadn’t even gotten to that piece of information either: her true heritage and that Maude was about to throttle her actual father. She jumped in front of Maude, blocking her path.
“There’s something else you need to know, Maude,” Bryn said quickly.
Maude let out a humorless chuckle before she croaked, “What more could there possibly be?”
Bryn hesitated, looking over her shoulder to the Shadow King. To Aeric.
He nodded and stepped around her. Maude eyed him warily.
“She speaks truly, Maude Sylvisdóttir,” Aeric said, his voice tinged with sadness and a bit of wonder.
Maude swallowed hard, her flames dying out.
Aeric took another step closer to Maude, one bronze hand reaching out to lay gently on Maude’s shoulder. Bryn felt that she should step out and leave them alone for this moment. A bigger part of her worried about how her sister would react: so far, she hadn’t handled any of the news well other than the fact that she had died in her arms.
Thatwas a conversation for another time.
Bryn instead peeled away quietly, leaving Maude’s line of vision to give them the illusion of privacy. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t ready to let Maude out of her sight again so soon. Already, she could hear Maude’s breathing pick up as if she were afraid of what the Shadow King would say.
“Your name is Maude Vilulf, daughter of Sylvi and Aeric and the Heir of Shadows,” Aeric said slowly, each word drawing out as time seemed to slow around the room. Shadows crept in through the windows until only a small bubble of light remained with the three of them inside. “You are my daughter.”
Bryn rushed forward as the shadows hovering in the corners snapped in around Maude.
Darkness overwhelmed Maude as she succumbed to the shock that swelled inside of her. The open windows had been swirling with the shadows that had followed her throughout her life, ready to pounce when she needed them. The high-pitched sound of wind whirling around her was the only thing she could hear until the soft touch on her shoulder brought her back to the present.
It was too much. All of it— the reincarnation, the Valkyries, her death, Herrick, the Bone Dagger, their failure, her mother's secrets piling one on top of the other until the stack threatened to crash over her and drown her in the truth mixed into her lies. It was too much.
Warm hands lightly cradled her face like she was the most precious thing in the world to them. They gave her something to hold onto as she spiraled even as it left Maude reeling from the foreign emotion. She had never dealt with a soft touch and stable emotion before Herrick and didn’t know what to make of it now. As quickly as they had appeared, they slipped away. Only the warmth of the touch on her skin reminded her that she had not imagined the gesture.
She focused on the only thing that she could hold on to.
Herrick.
He was a prisoner to her father.
No,not her father. If he had raised her, wasn't he still her father? Maude shook her head; it didn't matter. Herrick was captive.
