“Well, now you know where they live so is that enough of a show of trust, Nuria?” Marissa says, pulling me down the stone steps, towards the fire. “Oleander means well… she’s just a little brutish sometimes,” she says as we sit down on a log. She fusses with my hair, flipping it over my shoulder and smoothing down my fly-aways while making littletut tut tutsounds with her tongue. “You’ve let yourself go a bit feral big sister.” I meet her eye and she gives me a little wink,just kidding!she chimes down the connection of our mind.
“I’m still getting used to that. I guess it could come in handy, eh?” I say, taking a moment to study her face, seeing the same little sister but feeling that she has changed so much from the sister I knew in Easthelm.
“Mar, I feel like you are a completely different person. What happened?” She just rolls her eyes and levels her sassy stare at me whilst blowing out a sigh.
“Easthelm is a bitch-eat-bitch world Nuri. I did what I had to, to survive. Not all of usmere mortalscan just not give a shit like you.”She thinks I don’t give a shit? “I felt as if I had been living in Mom’s shadow my whole life. I’m sorry, I know this is harsh but you are the adopted daughter… no one had any expectations on you from the get go. Everyone saw me as a mini Mom and expected so much from me. Dad expected so much of me…” The sass has been wiped off of her face and is replaced with something softer, more vulnerable.
A whole new understanding dawns on me about our childhood. She had never felt she fit in either… but just mastered her mask better than I. I knowingly nod at her then look overher shoulder, watching Oleander stride up to us after having conversed with a group of gnomes near the kitchen. She seems to be something of a respected figure amongst the rebels and I wonder how old she was when she joined their ranks, when Pyralis tried to marry her off.
“We may continue our discussion if you wish.” Oleander sits down, keeping some space between us. She gazes into the fire, leaning her elbows on her knees. The flames dance and leap in her presence, as if they had missed her while she was gone and are dancing for her return, like a puppy who was left at home all day.
“Where did you take Embrys?” I enquire, trying not to sound too interested. “How much of our conversation did you hear?” I turn to look at her. She keeps watching the fire and I can’t help but stare at her wild beauty. Her cascading hair is fire incarnate and it is changing colour in the flickering light of the flames.
“He has been taken for questioning by Fenrick, our senior Metamorph. I heard enough to know it was not The King’s minions that took you, as I had once thought, which is why our rescue missions were fruitless. We were searching in the wrong place. Why my father wanted to apprehend you in the first place is what I am unsure about,” she says, peeling her eyes away from the fire and looking at me. “I alsosawenough, Nuria…” Fire dances in her irises.
At the utterance of my name the flames dim and skitter as if the coldness in her tone might threaten to douse them. As she meets my eye I am met with the flash of an image of Embrys on top of me and our mouths nearly touching. I clear my throat, dropping our eye contact, feeling my cheeks flush.
“I’m not sure what youthinkyou saw but whatever it was, it meant nothing.” I raise my eyebrows, “I needed information from him, I still do, but he bested me,” I say, but I don’t know why I feel the need to explain the moment Embrys and I shared.It’s not like Oleander and I mean anything to each other. She did use me after all, but I see what I think is a flash of envy cross her face as she furrows her brows and glances down at my mouth for a split second.Interesting…
“And let me get this straight, we don’t know exactly why The King wants me and we don’t know why Pyralis wants me but…why did you guys want me?” I ask, tilting my head to the side in question.
Marissa butts in, pulling my shoulder a bit so I will look her way. “They wanted to save you and recruit you into the Order of the Sylvans, Nuri. The Wolf King is a tyrant that is dividing the fae into classes. This new religion makes the Elemental fae out to be superior but they…we, were all made by The Divine Mother as her children. Equal in rights but all with our own unique talents,” Marissa says, lifting her chin, sounding as if she is reciting the facts from a textbook. I look at her, one eyebrow raised, in shock at her sudden interest in the rights of living beings and the wellbeing of the Earth.Definitely a different Marissa.
“Well, I see they have brainwashed you…” I narrow my eyes at Oleander. “Seriously Oleander, she is a sixteen year oldhumanand our parents probably think we are dead!” I turn to my sister, “Marissa, what about Mom and Dad?” I ask, knitting my brows together as the thought of their broken hearts and panic resurfaces yet again. Marissa winces and looks down at her hands.
Oleander chimes in. “She is grown enough to make her own choices. I was younger than she when I left home,” her eyes brazenly flare. “She has also shared that she witnessed her mate being murdered in front of her eyes. No one should have to experience that. She needed to fight back, seek retribution, and this is her way of doing so. A noble cause I might add.” Oleander nods at Marissa and Marissa beams at the compliment. “Yourrealm would not make sense to her right now,” Oleander says, looking back at me with slightly more sympathetic eyes. I can understand her point, returning to Easthelm after finding out this fairy tale realm exists would feel strange and I know Marissa is just as fierce with a sword as I am. But the thought of her getting injured or worse is just more than I can handle at the moment.
I blow out a breath through pursed lips. “First of all, ew, I sincerely hope Benji was not yourmate,” I grimace at having to say the word.“Benji was alive when last I saw him, bleeding a crazy amount from his chest, yes, but still alive! Second, she will have to return sometime and the longer you are here the higher chance you will get caught and hurt. What if you get taken as leverage to get to me? I couldn’t live with myself if something were to happen to you, Mar!” I plead, only noticing now that more fae and creatures have joined us at the fire and are intently listening to our conversation.
“We will protect her!” a gnome calls out and is met with calls of agreement from various fae around the fire.
An older looking fae woman with cat eyes and a swishing, grey tabby tail interjects, “she is never on the front lines anyway. Our more skilled and senior members stage the coups.” She leans in to see me around Oleander’s shoulder.
“What coup? How can a ragtag band of fae do anything against a king that supposedly has accumulated a massive following?”
A fae male that has white stripes in his hair pipes up from across the fire, “we have been freeing our enslaved family members if youmustknow!” I cringe at my blunder.
Of course they are, just as the gromlins said, the Elemental fae are taking slaves.
“Ok, well now we are reunited so we can just return to the human realm, correct? There is no reason for us to be hereanymore, we can just forget all about this place and go back to… normal,” I say, but as I say it, it feels wrong. Easthelm never felt right to me and the thrill of my escape from Pyralis’ estate is the most alive I have ever felt, but looking around at all of these fae fighting for their families leaves me thinking of mine with more than a twinge of guilt.
What would I even be going back to? Mom and Dad should be enough, family should always be enough, right?I already know my answer. I left a perfectly fine relationship with Benjibecauseof my answer.
Oleander studies her hands for a moment before looking at me, “Nuria, I am afraid it is not that simple. Our spies inside the Palace have told us The King has been calling in the Seers to aid him in opening The Gates. There is some word of a prophecy he has discovered in the ancient tomes within the Palace that is the key to reversing the curse. He means to infiltrate the human realm. We don’t know why he wanted you but for some reason you are integral to this. From what we have been told, he does not have any Etherealists in his army so we assume that is why he seeks you. The ability to bend the minds of one’s foes is formidable and feared. They were once greatly respected amongst the Houses. The Seers can feel the tethers of the Ether, although vaguely and loosely, as they are of the same Elemental house. They would have been able to tell whether an Etherealist heir lives. We cannot let you try to return, you would surely be caught. There may already be traps in place for you,” Oleander explains, looking apologetically at Marissa and I.Does that mean we are stuck here?
My fists clench, nails digging into my skin. “I don’t even know what an Etherealist can do! What, my random visions and the little blips I get into other people’s minds is really something that is valued? I can’tmeld minds. It just seems useless and confusing to me!” I throw my hands up in frustration, “I thoughtThe King was not aware of my arrival into this realm? It was all Pyralis’ doing was it not? How could he know I am here? And what is this prophecy?” I ask and receive Oleander’s same sympathetic look from before.Annoying.
“Someone tipped him off, likely someone that my father employs. It makes sense that The King would have planted a spy at the residence of the only head of an Elemental house that didn’t deny him when he overthrew The Owl.”
I wonder who that spy might be, doing an inventory of all the faces I saw in my time at the estate.How would they have known who I am?
Oleander continues, “as for the prophecy, this remains hidden even from our most adept spies. The King has supposedly been shutting himself in his study and requesting only the presence of the Seers.”
I remember the lords mentioning something about that at the dinner,I recall whilst chewing the inside of my cheek.
I wonder if my mother was the only one before my birth who mastered the ether, other than the Seers.“Why are there so few Etherealists if they were so respected, as you said?”
“The Owl had lineage in the House of Ether. After he died, no one from the House of Ether would swear fealty to The Wolf. So he hunted them all down in his rage. I suppose he is regretting that now if he indeed needs your gifts for some purpose.” Oleander shrugs, looking at me with weary eyes. Marissa gives my shoulder a squeeze as I am sure she sees the hurt flit across my face. I can’t help the sinking feeling in my gut at knowing that I don’t have any living relatives in this realm because of this bastard of a king.
