“Where did he go?” Benny asked. “Is this some Fae magic?”
Chapter 36
Seda
“What do you mean by ‘Cahir disappeared’? Where is he?” Seda asked everyone around her.
“We were coming over to talk to him about what Ojore said, and he just disappeared!” Benny exclaimed.
Kalon stepped forward and sat by her side, and Seda watched him pick at a little white flower with a red center on the ground.
She thought back to her fight with Ojore. He mentioned that Cahir was Fae and that Ojore’s people were suffering as a result. Seda had known Cahir for years. She trusted Cahir. Why would he hide that from her?She didn’t even know what a Fae was.
It couldn’t be true. Cahir would never lie to me.
“Is what you said true, Ojore?”she asked him.
“Which part?” he asked, his voice rough and his hands twisting together.
“Everything!” she barked sharply, furrowing her eyebrows. All this time, Cahir, the person she trusted most in her life, had been lying to her about what he truly was. It couldn’t be true.
“The part about him being Fae? Yes. It took me a while to figure out who he was. And when I did, it really upset me,” he started, “but the hurtful things I said about you and about Elco,” he glanced at Elco and lowered his head. “Those parts I regret. Those parts weren’t true, and I’m truly sorry.”
The Fae from her mother’s bedtime story growing up? Magical Fae?
She heard his apology, and it meant something to her, but she was too focused on Cahir to care. She looked up to him and asked, “Who is he, Ojore?”
Ojore looked over in the distance at the smoking piles of ashen plants. “Cahir is really Ael Cutlass, King of the Fae.”
Her fragile glass walls shattered, and a painful whirlwind of emotions surged through her.She never truly knew Cahir.Who was this person she allowed in her life so closely?
She believed her mother’s tales about the Fae were mere myths. But could they truly be real? Or at least partially so? With magic coursing through her veins, Cahir didn’t appear too shocked when he discovered this.
How could he? Why would he lie? Where is he?
Her stomach dropped as betrayal consumed her thoughts. She thought they were a team; she believed they were friends; she had started to hope they weremore.
Bile curdled at the back of her throat. She allowed someone so close in her life, just to be lied to. She was trying to get pregnant… she wanted his children!
Her wrists began to glow as anger wrapped itself around her, and she gazed down at them, struggling against her labored breathing.
“None of that, moon-flutter,” Elco said from his position across from her. “We do not know why he lied. I’ve seen him care for you. He must have a reason.”
She looked at him and bared her teeth. “What reason could justify him lying to me for years, Elco? To share a home with me! To allow me to inseminate myself to produce his children!” Her nostrils flared. “Thank whatever fucking god is out there that never happened. Could you imagine?!” Her voice rose, and she threw her hands in the air, releasing the built-up tension from her fingertips.
Elco lowered his head.
“He was not allowed to tell you the truth, Seda,” Feich said to her.
Feich, who hardly ever speaks, had no room to say anything. “Who do you think you three are?” She pointed to the Corvids. “You said you followed me around for years, and younevershowed yourself until all this shit hit the fan! A little warning would have been nice. I don’t know, maybe if you couldn’t tell me, you guys and Cahir, I meanAel.” She rolled her eyes. “Could have written afucking letter!”
Ferona and Roya looked away from her, and Feich anxiously fiddled with his hands.
She stood up and marched around the area, ignoring the pain in her ankle. She wanted the pain for being so foolish. It was a better alternative to the agony eating away at her heart.
She tried to recall the clues she unintentionally overlooked. “When that stupid Rozzer tripped and he caught the sword with his bare-fucking-hands. I should have known something was strange then. And then he also offered to find Dad when he was taken. I knew he couldn’t make a difference, but heinsistedand went anyway. And then he returned!” She laughed loudly. “He was always gone for ‘meetings’. Then he ripped Michael’s heart out with his bare hands like he was made of paper!”
She turned to Ojore and commanded, “Tell me what you know about the Fae.”
