I hissed, “Yes.”
His emerald eyes narrowed slightly. “You are wrong. This proves what I said before. You are too young to go with me.”
I never argued with Father. Not only did his blood run through my veins...he was also my king. This time, though, there was no way to hold back my words, not with the one light in my life now burned out and lying dead at my feet.
I tipped my chin up even higher and lowered my voice to show how deadly serious I was. “Try to stop me. I know our land just as well as you. You won’t be able to keep me here.”
Our stare lasted forever, neither of us backing down.
I showed him I was the heir to the throne.
He shoved back thathe was the king.
I almost faltered and dipped my head in submission.
But I held strong. Iwasright.
My resolve never faltered.
A golden light began to waver near my grandmother’s body, hovering just over her elven corpse. Both our gazes snapped to the odd phenomenon, abruptly ending our confrontation. Crashing waves of golden light slithered up and down her body. It pulled and dragged at her corpse, clutching her form so fiercely her too-thin frame bowed off the ground in the growing glow.
Father jumped to his feet in one fluid movement, and then he was quickly shoving me behind him and holding me there with both his hands on my hips in a grip tight enough to leave bruises. I attempted to peek around his right shoulder, my hands grasping his tunic in clenched fists against his back, but he put one foot back and then another, cautiously backing us away from the unknown.
“W-what is that?” I stuttered.
“Shh. Be quiet,” Father whispered sharply.
Step by slow step, we and Penelope and Javon traveled farther away from the golden light currently seeping into my grandmother’s body, her corpse contorting in unnatural angles a foot off the ground, floating in the air and shimmering unnaturally.
I kept one eye looking past his shoulder to keep watch, although my father was observing plenty for us, his hold on me absolute.
Then the unbelievable happened.
The golden light exploded in a dazzling burst.
My grandmother’s corpse dropped to the ground.
Right above her body, a facsimile of my grandmother stood, slightly transparent, her form faintly swaying in the small breeze, various parts of her moving at frightening angles.
Father stopped cold, halting our progress. His clenching grasp on my hips released and his hands hung limply by his sides. The king mumbled in awe, “Oh my Fae.”
My blink was slow. “I don’t understand.”
Grandmother’s lips curved up at the edges, and her gaze moved from my father to me. “Do not fear me, my dearheart. My shell may be dead, but my Fae-spark is very much alive.”
I released the hold I had on my father’s tunic and tentatively stepped out from behind my father since he wasn’t afraid of whatever this was before us. My mouth bobbed up and down until I could finally gasp. “Buthow?”
Father waved his right hand to hush me, his shocked attention unyielding on his mother. “This has happened before in history. It’s extremely rare, but it has happened. Maybe three times since the Fae created us.”
I moved an inch closer to my father, our sides brushing, as I eyed the spirit warily. “Grandmother never taught me anything of the sort.”
The spirit patted the air with her translucent hands. “Calm down, Trixie. Your father is right, although, it had previously only been two times in history, not three. I will not harm you.”
My emerald eyes narrowed on her. The tears of her death were still wet on my face. Father may understand this, but I did not.
“I promise,” she soothed, her silver eyes holding only honesty. “It’s why I didn’t say goodbye to you. I knew I would be back. And just as I would never harm my two sons, I would never hurt you. My appearance may have changed, but not my heart.”
I pressed harder against my father’s side and whispered under my breath, “What the Fae fuck is she?”
