A gentle breeze tugged at my hair and pulled some of the fiery anger from my body, taking it on a journey across the Sidhe mountains. I wondered how much bitterness and pain was trapped amongst those glistening peaks.
Something in the air shifted, turning stagnant. The sensation caused my shoulders to stiffen, for there was only one who harbored such an effect that even the air dulled around him. Suddenly, stolen was my sliver of freedom.
“How did you know someone approached?” Clause asked when he came up beside me. “Your entire body tensed as soon as I stepped out onto the terrace.”
“It’s impossible not to notice when you are near,” I commented.
“Is it your conjuring?” He asked, as if he did not know.
I turned to him then in surprise. “Are you serious?”
Confusion touched his features. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I would have laughed if I was not in such a foul mood. “I think it’syourconjuring.”
“Mine?” His brows drew together as he stared at me, waiting for more of an explanation.
Was he truly serious? “There is this stagnant presence around you. Like nothing can move freely close to you. Your control is so consuming that it even stops the wind.”
He looked down in thought. “Interesting. I never knew this extended out to those close to me. I always thought it just affected me.” He then turned to me, observing my face. “It bothers you?”
I released a breath. “It’s suffocating.” My skin crawled because of it whenever near him.
His hand wrapped around the railing. “I apologize.” He looked over his city. “I have been like this for so long, I don’t even need to try to maintain it anymore. It is just second nature.”
The presence began lessening. It was as though the hand holding me underwater finally eased up, allowing me to surface. Allowing me to breathe and feel the air once more.
A breeze cut through the stagnant sensation, obliterating it. Clause’s eyes slid shut just as a gust ruffled through his hair. He drew in a slow, steady breath. “I forgot how sweet fresh air could smell.” His words were soft, like an afterthought to himself.
When his eyes re-opened, his attention found mine. “Is this better?”
“Much. Thank you.” And I truly was thankful. If I had to spend time around him, then at least with the shackles he had on the surrounding air gone, it was more bearable. “What caused you to create that stagnant space in the first place?”
His gaze left mine, again looking over the mountains. “Afuneral. It was freezing, the wind bitter that day. It sliced through me with such ease.” He blinked, the moment lasting just long enough that it was clear whatever that day was to him, it was a painful memory. “So, I stopped it. I stopped everything, at least as much as I could. Since then, I haven’t felt the brush of the breeze on my cheek.” He turned those dangerously silver eyes to me. “Until now. I had forgotten how nice it could feel.”
It was very recently that I myself had the displeasure of attending a particularly cold funeral. My throat ached at the thought of Landin. At the fact that I stood here, staring at the man who had stolen him from me.
I considered asking Clause whose funeral he was referring to, but decided against it, instead choosing to ask about something else. “Was there truth to what Malavika said?”
He sighed. “I didn’t wish to discuss such things tonight.” His response was answer enough. Hebelievedthose things.
“She would never have done that.” I shook my head. “My mother would have protected all of her children. She broke after every stillbirth. She couldn’t have possibly been responsible.”
“Just because someone kills, does not mean they cannot also mourn the loss.” Clause replied, his gray eyes not once straying from me.
Desperation tightened around me, fueled by the wish to not believe any of his words. And yet, I wanted to know. “Why would she ever do something like that?”
“As I said, the Spirit of light and dark gifted you with conjuring. Your mother had gifts too, from the dark Spirit. She could sense future things, but only for herself. A mild flicker of a gift, like a light just before it goes out by the blow of a breath. And with a child in the womb, she could sense their futures too.The males would have grown up to be a threat to the world, so she protected it by eliminating them.”
I stepped away from him, as though his words shoved me. “No. She wouldn’t. Children are not born evil. She would have guided them, taught them. I would have had siblings.” It was an effort to keep my eyes from lining with tears. What he was insinuating could not have been true, and yet I felt myself responding as though I believed these lies about my mother.
The moonlight danced in his eyes, somehow making them colder, causing him to appear even more dangerous. “This is why you need to better protect your heart.”
“What?”
His hand rested lightly on the railing, angling his body towards me. “You see others and welcome them into your heart freely as long as they don’t appear a threat. Yet, they are. Anyone who you hold power over is a threat, even the weakest of them. They are not your equal. They can and will betray you, even if they love you. For they may even think what they do is for your own good, but ultimately it is for their own selfish desires they act against you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
