“I am half-darkling. Half-ice.” His emerald eyes shut, his words almost breaking as he speaks. As if he wants to deny what he truly is.
I open and close my mouth repeatedly, stuck on the words. Frozen in thought. “Wh… what does any of that mean?”
He rubs his hands behind his neck, tilting his head side to side. “My mother was half darkling, she was born from the strongest, yet darkest, magic possible. But also, she was the Queen of the Darklands. The strongest wielder of darkness there ever was…” He tugs his bottom lips between his teeth.“Florian doesn’t even know she was the Queen, he only believes she was an orphan from the Darklands and Father fell in love with her. That’s all he knows, and all he can ever know.”
I drop to a sudden whisper. “Why are you so ashamed of who you are?”
“Because the darklings want all of the Realms for themselves. They crave the magic in the stones and want all the Royals dead so they can take over. The magic that the darklings can wield is like no other magic I have ever seen. No other curse I have ever seen. Only the Deskyiara bloodline was strong enough to destroy them.” He takes a deep inhale. “Which is why they killed the bloodline off.”
He trembles, pushing his fingers against his head. “If the Queen knew my mother was part darkling, what the hell do you think they would do to me! They would kill me for sure. A bastard from the Ice King and The Queen of the Darklands that had darkling blood coursing through her?” he scuffs, a sarcastic laugh escaping his lips. “Yeah, I’m the perfect son now, aren’t I? The perfect villain in their eyes.”
“You are no villain.”
“You have no idea what I am, Serene.”
“I believe I do,” I breathe out. “When you stop hiding behind this wall you put up for everyone, I see so much inside you. I wish you could see it too.”
He hovers over me, closing his eyes as he inhales. “How I wish I could see it too.”
“I don’t fear you, Koen. You being half darkling doesn’t mean anything.”
“You are wrong.” His eyes glisten. “It means everything. I should be dead for it.”
“Yet, you are alive. It must be for a reason.”
My mind flickers rampant with the memories, watching Koen, Florian, and I as young teens—the feeling overpowers me. I fumble backwards, pressing my fingers on my head, and I tremble. The pain, the flashes of light, the sick possibility of this place being my home, is too overwhelming. If this is true, my father, the one who raised me, lied to me my whole life.
I wince, clenching my jaw tightly as he reaches out to touch me, but lets his hand fall in the water just as fast.
“Do I need to get you out of the water?” His voice shakes. “Are you in pain?”
“No.” My lips part. “But I do need to ask you something, and I need you not to think I have lost my damn mind.”
He crosses his arms, letting his thick brows pull together. “Go on.”
My trembling hands fall down my cheeks, to my neck. “Have we met before?” His body pulls backwards. “Not at the field of ash, I mean before that… a long time ago?”
“No. Why?”
“Would you come with me to these stones to see if you see what I see?”
He chuckles amusingly. “We are back at it with these stones now?”
“Not the stones that brought me here.” I take my wet hair, twisting it over my shoulders. “The stones in the Queen’s archive, I touched them and I saw…us.”
“You saw us?” His brows lift. “Now what were we doing?” His lips tug into a playful smirk. “Were we doing anything fun?”
“We were not…” My eyes roll, twisting the last strands of my hair to squeeze out the water. “You also weren’t hitting me over the head with broken branches, leaving me in dungeons…”
I drag out the words, watching his pearly-white teeth beam against his sun-kissed skin I just could melt into. He takes his fingertips, dancing them along the surface of the bright water, glancing between his movements and my own.
“Seems as if I was boring,” he taunts.
“You could never be boring, but…” I catch his attention once more. “You said you loved me.”
“Ahhh…” He licks his bottom lip, taking a daring step towards me, knowing if his chest collides with me, he could burn within seconds. His eyes lock onto mine before dropping his voice to a sudden whisper. “Did you say it back?”
“That's what you are concerned about?”
