Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
My chest feels too tight. “Natan, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
Natan’s staring ahead and doesn’t spare me a glance. His jaw is hard, his usual softness nowhere to be found. “It was.”
“It’s difficult to explain,” Kendrick says, “the extent of their evil. Do you see why I want you to have every possible advantage when you go after Erith?”
“I’m not exaggerating when I say I haven’t had any signs of magical powers. I don’t think they’re there.” Though Mordeus believed they were, and that was before anyone knew I was a descendant of Mab. If he was right, I never felt even a flicker of that power. Though maybe I lost it when I traded my fae life for my ring.
“Natan has worked with magic users who are blocked and helped unblock them,” Kendrick says. “I think he could do that for you.”
I frown. “Why would you think I’m blocked?”
“Because, like you keep saying, you have no magic. Only that doesn’t make sense. You’re the descendant of one of the most powerful faeries to ever walk this realm. Her blood runs in your veins. The magic must be there. So I think we should have Natan help you find it.”
“What if I’m not interested in finding it?” I ask.
Kendrick puts down his knife and studies me. “I know what the oracle showed me, Jasalyn. I had a vision of you killing Erith, but I won’t send you into that fight if I think your only advantage is prophecy. Fate isn’t static, and Erith is too dangerous.”
“So you’re worried the oracle lied to you?”
He shakes his head. “Oracles don’t lie, but the future isn’t set in stone. We make choices, and our paths change. The oracle can’t show us everything, so we must prepare ourselves as best we can.”
I consider this. “You said she gave you a vision of me killing Erith. As in, she never said my name.”
“That’s right,” Kendrick says.
“Then how do you know it will be me and not Felicity while she’s in my form?”
Skylar chuckles. “This one’s smarter than Felicity.”
“Felicity believes what she needs to,” Kendrick says, frowning at his whittled stick.
“It doesn’t matter.” This comes from Remme. “Whether it’s you or Felicity in your skin, we’re doing everything in our power to move toward that end. It’s time for the Seven to fall—and bringing down Erith is step one.”
“May I ask what’s so awful about having magic?” Skylar asks. She walks around the fire and lowers herself onto the ground beside me, folding her legs under her. “Do you fear the responsibility of having that kind of power or do you truly hate the fae so much that you cannot stomach the idea of being one of them?”
I’m quiet for a long time, and I consider refusing to answer at all, but there’s a patience in her silence—in all their silences—that soothes me and makes me feel . . . understood? Accepted.
They want to understand and will accept my answer, whatever it is.
“I don’t fear power, but I don’t know what to do with it either,” I finally say. “My sister was the one who dreamed of being powerful, who would imagine herself saving the less fortunate and punishing the cruel.”
“You didn’t want that?” Skylar asks, cocking her head to the side.
“I wanted it, but I never saw myself leading the charge.”
“Maybe because you were always in her shadow, you never bothered to notice that you had your own light to give the world,” Remme says, and it’s such a tender and thoughtful sentiment coming from him that I feel my throat go thick with emotion.
“Maybe,” I whisper.
“And what about the other part?” Skylar asks.
“I don’t hate the fae.”
He and Skylar exchange a look.
“What’s that about? I don’t. I have met many faeries who have earned my hatred, but I’m not so blindly prejudiced that I believe all their kind are evil. My own sister is fae.”
Natan’s eyes soften with his kind smile. “You see your sister as the exception.” His words are gentle but firm. “Prejudice prevails beyond exceptions. Has for millennia.”
I open my mouth and then close it again before dropping my gaze to my hands. “My sister’s inner circle is respectable as well, but I will admit that faeries have to prove themselves to me. I can’t trust them easily. And if I had to choose . . . yes, I wish my sister and I had never been thrust into this world and into these roles. I want our lives back as they were in Elora—without all this magic and . . .” Fear. I was never so afraid in Elora, but I don’t say that out loud. I don’t like to admit the weakness.
When I lift my head, Kendrick’s watching me, his beautiful blue eyes sad.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”