Long before that, when I first saw them…
Those terrifying eyes weren’t conjured by my imagination. They belonged to a person all along.
I know who this fae female is.
Her lips curl into a smile that doesn’t reach her sinister eyes. The last remnants of the water slide from her hair, revealing long blue-black strands the exact shade as mine. “Astrid,” she croons, her voice like a hiss.
I can’t bring myself to move. Can do nothing but stare at the fae who birthed me.
“It’s me, Astrid,” the fae says. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m your mother.”
39
ASTRID
I’m stunned silent. Frozen. I stare at the fae who is my mother, seeking anything I could possibly recognize from my brief time in her care. We look nothing alike, save for the hue of our hair. She’s beautiful, just like Father said she was, with smooth blue skin and full lips. She wears a thin dress that appears to be woven from blue-green pond moss. It’s sleeveless, draping over each breast before it connects beneath her belly button in a long, trailing skirt that clings to her sinuous curves. What Father failed to mention, however, is how frightening her particular quality of beauty is. Violence lurks just beneath the surface of her skin, her hair, her lips. I see it in the curl of her fingers, in the slight hunch of her slender shoulders, in the narrowing of her chartreuse eyes.
I suppress a shudder, the sight of those hauntingly familiar irises sending bile rising into my throat. With my magic still humming within me in the wake of my meeting with the kelpie, it needs no encouragement from me to surge outward and wrap around me. An impression locks into place—one of desperation, bloodlust, and a vast hollow emptiness. Are these what she considers her worst qualities? Or her best? Whatever this impression is, it had to have formed the first time we held each other’s eyes.
Back when I was a baby.
Back before she left me abandoned on the lakeshore.
Unlike the threadbare impression I formed on Torben, this one hasn’t been weakened by time. By change or growth. Whatever this impression is, it’s just as valid as it was the day my magic created it.
A time or two I’ve let myself wonder what it might be like to be reunited with my mother. To see her again. Perhaps she’d have a reason for having left me the way she did. Perhaps none of the violent rumors of the sprite who haunted Dewberry Lake were true.
But as I stare at the female before me, I come to the same conclusion I always have before. That Father knew this woman better than anyone. He loved her. Made a baby with her. And he found her so dangerous that he saved me from her and never looked back.
This creature—mother or no—is lethal.
She continues to grin at me with that forced smile and spreads her arms out wide. “Come to me, Astrid.” The gesture is meant to be welcoming, but the thought of meeting her in an embrace sends every hair on my body standing on end.
I glance from her to the kelpie at her side, calculating my chances of survival if I run. There’s still somewhere I need to get to. The threat to Torben’s life remains.
I swallow hard, burying as much of my fear as I can. “Why am I here? I’m in the middle of something very important.”
She lowers her arms, releasing her welcoming gesture, and strokes the kelpie’s mane instead. “I asked Vartul to bring you to me, alive and unharmed.”
“Why?”
She scoffs. “What do you meanwhy? I’m your mother, Astrid. I gave you your name. I birthed you from the depths of my lake. What other reason do I need?”
“You’ve never been a mother to me,” I say, voice quavering. “I don’t even know your name. Father said you never told him.”
“My name is Myrasa.”
“Well, Myrasa, I would say it’s lovely to meet you, but that would be a lie, and I’d rather not flatter you with false niceties.”
Anger flashes through her eyes before she steels her expression beneath a deadly calm. “You have a sharp tongue, don’t you?”
“Someone very important to me is in trouble,” I say, “and your intervention may have already cost him his life. If it’s no different to you, I’ll be going.”
I shift my stance, preparing to walk away. I hardly move an inch before the kelpie darts behind me. He sidles one way, then another, demonstrating his ability to block any route back into the woods.
I burn Myrasa with a glare. “Let me leave.”
She lifts a thin blue-black brow. “You just met the mother you’ve been separated from for almost nineteen years, and this is your response?”
