That meant, if her story were true, I’d spelled myself before becoming aware of my pregnancy. Tabitha had not been the catalyst for our memory loss, for the glamour that I’d created.
HOW DID ANY OF THIS MAKE SENSE?
“Explain to me how I’m the Great Queen?” I said, still trying to wrap my brain around it. “I was hiding on Earth the entire time?”
The other me nodded. “Yes, and this is going to be a difficult story for me to tell you, but we must return to the worlds and set the right path in motion once more.”
Great, more ominous and cryptic talk.
“We left Faerie to save the worlds. We spelled the fae to forget who we were, since we knew we’d never set foot on our world again. But now that you’ve returned to Faerie, what I was attempting to stop will have returned in full force. We’re lucky that you remembered enough to return to this Origin Sphere, which was the only place safe enough to store the memories.”
“I didn’t remember,” I said drily. “It was just an unfortunate series of events that led me here. A fae cut the Great Queen’s line, which almost killed me. We had to venture into the Deep to try and restore it, only for a shadow guardian to drag me down to die. I landed on the golden cord, and it brought me here.”
She blinked. “They cut the line? Why?”
“To appoint a new queen,” I said. “Faerie has been weakening for years, and they’re done with it.”
The projected me laughed. “Appoint a queen? Are they kidding themselves? We were not born, but created from the energy of the Origin. We cannot be replaced, and we cannot truly die.”
Great, that wasn’t freaky or anything.
She paused as if rerouting the information and deciding how to proceed from here. “Firstly, you need to restore the line between the Deep and Faerie above. That will give you back all of your power and memories. I can’t do that from here, but I can explain enough to help you on your way.”
Okay, well get the fuck to it.
Was I always this long-winded?
There was a degree of self-hatred hovering within, now that I knew I was the one to blame for everything that had happened. Especially since I still had no idea why I’d made the choices I did.
“We were created as a conduit between this Origin and Faerie,” the other me said. “We are, for all intents and purposes, an Origin god.” She paused heavily, and I knew those last words would probably mean something to a beingwith fucking memories.
When I didn’t comment, other me continued: “There are fifty of us, one for each of the worlds. Some in the Solaris System, and some in other systems.”
If a dead mind could be blown, mine would be in pieces. “I’m barely capable of being a basic-ass shifter and now you tell me I’m a god.”
What in all the fuckery…?
Other me nodded. “You are, and not just any god. I have used my limited energy to investigate your memories, and I see you are friends with some other godlike creatures. They’re what we would refer to as tier two gods, the level below the Origins.”
Great, I was going to win Shadow’s annual dick-measuring contest.Perfect.
“If I’m so powerful, why did I run away and hide on Earth like a little bitch?”
Her expression grew darker, and the energy inside the sphere was colder too. “A very long time ago, one of the Origins lost sight of their place. Dalmia, from the world of Traylor. He wanted the Origin of more than just his world, he wanted the Origin of all the worlds. During one of our annual meetings of power, we tried to reason with him, to stop him from carving out more than his slice of the energy grid.” She sighed. “We thought he was listening, only it turned out each of us were deceived. While we were there, Dalmia placed a spell on all Origin gods. A dark energy that we took back with us to our worlds.”
She shook her head, as if this hurt, even though she was just a memory.
“Darkness and light exist together. Origin gods are testament to that, but he threw us all off balance.”
She paused again, and I was desperate to know what happened next. “The darkness hurt Faerie?” I pushed.
I got a slow nod in return. “It did. It tainted the source of our original power. Our energy. As soon as I saw the darkness seeping into the gold, I hurried back to the Origin. One by one, the other gods also returned, each with the same story. It didn’t take us long to figure out that this was Dalmia’s darkness seeping into each of our worlds.
“It was a spell, that if completed, would give him total control over every ounce of original energy. He would have no equal, no balance, no blockade against destroying it all.”
Each sentence hit me like a blow, and even without memories I could no longer deny the truth of these events. “What happened after that?” I asked her.
I still couldn’t quite figure out why I’d left Faerie and rejected our mate. Because clearly this time I’d done the rejecting by sending out a glamour strong enough to erase anything to do with Len and our bond, including our daughter.
