How many times had she healed my injuries? Taken the knees I scraped as a child upon herself and left me blemish-free?
The scar that remained on my face was a testament of her skill, the wound left by the cave beast when I’d been foolish as a teen and thought myself skilled enough to wander the tunnels on my own. It had gouged deep enough that I would have died without her magic, that the claw that had shredded my eye would have taken my sight at the very least.
She’d managed to sew my flesh together, to save my eye entirely, before her magic ran out, the Veil separating her from the full extent of it.
Imelda had slept for a week after, my worry forcing me to sit vigil at her bedside with the knowledge that it had been my fault, my own stupidity, that had taken nearly everything from her.
I’d never left the tunnels we called home again. Not until Caldris and Estrella came to collect me.
“But—” Imelda began to argue. I knew her well enough to understand that she had long since come to associate her worth with her ability to heal those around her, never once understanding that sometimes it was okay for her to weigh her own well-being against that of others. The way she fidgeted from one foot to the other was so unlike the calm and composed woman she presented to anyone else, leaning into the centuries of life she’d lived and what that meant.
Most of the humans in the tunnels had expected her to have all the answers, simply because she’d lived for so long. But her age didn’t suddenly erase her heartaches or her trauma.
If anything, it gave her more time to accumulate them, and for those wounds to fester.
“I will heal these even faster than you would. There is no reason for you to waste your magic on the likes of me any longer. But—” I paused, hating the feel of the magic stirring in my veins. It had taken everything in me to shove it down while Mab cut my skin, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I gave in to the heat of it that pooled like lava in my gut. I’d felt the first faint stirring of it when I’d collapsed to the snow in Alfheimr, my skin warming as the magic touched me. That twitchy, warm feeling hadn’t worsened over the days since.
But it was fucking exhausting.
“But?” Imelda asked, taking my hands and pulling me to stand. She guided me to the bath Pax had prepared, helping me shrug off the blanket that had become my makeshift robe. She tossed it back to the bed as I stepped into the bath, gritting my teeth through the heat as I lowered myself and the water stung my skin.
Imelda moved to her bag, grabbing herbs and the like for the water.
“But I need you to redo your wards on me,” I said, watching as her brow furrowed as she approached the bath once more. The wards had once been intended to keep Mab from sensing me and using that pull to find me, but now—
“But you are Fae now. There is no reason to hide you from the Fae when you have already been found,” she argued.
“I won’t allow myself to be used. I will not allow myself to have magic if that is what she wants from me. I don’t care what kind of magic flows through my veins, I need you to keep it quiet and hidden,” I said, raising my chin high with defiance.
I would be everything Mab did not want me to be.
“She won’t be pleased if you do not give her what she wants,min nghaalon,” she said, the familiar term of affection warming something inside me. It felt like home, reminding me of all the times she gave me a lesson and needed me to focus on her teachings and all I wanted to do was run and play with the other children.
My heart.
“I believe it has become my life’s mission to be her greatest disappointment. That is a challenge I think myself very capable of meeting,” I said, smiling through the bitterness of the words.
Imelda didn’t approve of my self-deprecating humor, frequently reminding me that I was meant for great things. But nothing couldchange the way a child felt when she wasn’t allowed to do the things the other kids were, when she was so protected and treated as if she were fragile that she could not leave the sanctuary belowground.
Knowing why didn’t lessen the sting.
I was far from greatness.
“She will hurt you again. Wanting to disappoint her out of spite is one thing, but at what cost to yourself? If you do not allow your magic to surface, then you can’t ever learn to use it either. There may come a day where that puts you at a great disadvantage,” Imelda warned, but as much as she wanted to protect me, I knew she would grant me this. When my desires aligned with what was best for all of Alfheimr and Nothrek combined, she could not argue against my decision.
She would grant me the right to make my own choices now, something that I’d been largely deprived of in my time with the Resistance.
“And I will heal all over again,” I said, watching her sigh as she pulled the knife she kept strapped to her waist free from its scabbard. She drew it across her palm, making a shallow cut, before returning her knife to its rightful place.
She held out her palm, allowing her blood to drip into the water. The magic of the Lunar Coven immediately filled the water, the feeling of it on my skin reminding me of the nights we’d spent traveling. Resting on snow-covered ground by the fire, with the light of the moon shining down on me, the chill was unmistakable to my skin, which felt naturally hot since we’d come to the shores of Alfheimr.
“La solis ne lunat,”Imelda said, her voice dropping lower as it moved into the trance of her magic. The moon inked on her forehead glowed in response to it, her lungs filling with air that seemed to surprise her.
It had been centuries since Imelda stepped foot in Alfheimr, since she too had the full extent of her magic at her fingertips. “Gods,” I shuddered, the water of my bath filling with a hazy wisp. It moved through the water like smoke, like clouds spreading over the surface of the moon, as her eyes drifted closed and she plunged her hands into the water.
The sleeves of her dress were drenched immediately, but Imelda continued unbothered, as she wrapped her hands around my ankles and gripped me.
“Dion y dennaig kvinna, dolja a hud argi seallgowg, nes an kellar alwei namn,”she said, cold spreading through my ankles and up my calves.
