I needed air.
It was Nik’s voice at my back now, calling out my name, but I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t stop until my feet were tired and I didn’t know where I was.
I blinked back my tears and realized I stood in the remains of an old bookshop somewhere in Siraleth, the rubble surrounding me. I glanced up to the sky as thunder cracked overhead, and I bit my lip as I tried to push my storm magic back down. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I didn’t know how to process these emotions without them swallowing me alive.
My mother was alive.
She was alive.
Why hadn’t she told me earlier?
Nik gave me my space, respecting that I needed time alone to process. He kept a safe distance, watching over me from a crested hill in the distance.
His eyes were on me always, but I felt soalone.
I desperately wanted Tess, but I didn’t know where she was.
I had never known my mother. This is the woman who stashed me with a human family in the mortal realm until my storm magic awakened. She had spell bound me, hoping I would never find out I was a witch at all.
She had left me with strangers, never knowing my birth family. Never knowing my true lineage. Never knowing I was a witch of the Kotova bloodline, and that I was the key to ending the war in Istmere.
And she had never come back for me.
Betrayal was fresh in my gut when I finally sank to my knees, a cloud of dust rising around me. The sun was setting over the horizon as Nik picked his way down the hill, careful not to loosen any of the rocks on the ledge. He found me on my hands and knees, pulling me into a tight embrace.
“I’m so sorry, Diana. I’m so sorry.” His hand stroked my hair in a soothing motion as he held me tight, his other swirling across my back.
A humorless laugh bubbled to my lips as I recognized the harsh contrast between this and the last time I had been betrayed. Nik was the one comforting me now, and I fell into him. I clung to his shirt with my fists, leaving streaks of wet tears across it.
And he held me that way until I finally stopped.
At some point all the tears had escaped me, and I was left dry and numb, kneeling in the rubble of Siraleth.
Nik wordlessly picked me up, carrying me back to the cottage underground in his arms. The last thing I wanted to see was Annelise and Zion right now, but there was nowhere else to go. He tucked me wordlessly into my bed and immediately went for Tess.
He must have explained to her what had happened, because she quietly crawled into bed with me and wrapped herself around me. She held me tightly and rubbed circles on my back until I was able to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.
She was with me when I woke, still wrapped around me, her chocolate brown hair cascading across the pillow.
I still felt numb.
I had cried myself empty last night, and I knew that the numbness would soon retreat in favor ofanger.
And I welcomed it.
I would rather feel anger than nothing at all.
I couldn’t wrap my head around Annelise having been with us this entire time, hiding her identity. To what end? Would she never have revealed herself if we hadn’t needed the bloodline to complete the binding spell? Would she have gone on as ‘Liss,’ the member of the council who had helped rescue me from Akra—forever?
I didn’t know why she hadn’t told me who she was in the first place. I understood needing to keep her identity a secret when she snuck into The Stone Palace right under Donika’s nose, but after that? And Zion knew her true identity this entire time. Isaac, too. It was clear Nik, Tess, and Puck were as in the dark as I was. She had done a remarkable job of keeping her identity a secret with the help of the glamour potions.
My entire life she had still been alive…and she had never come back for me.
She let me think that the mortal family she placed me with was my blood, and she never looked back. She had sent me there to keep me safe, but why hadn’t she returned?
