I was worthy of goodness and right.
The words galloped through me, picking up speed.
Of kindness and trust.
Of the love of this woman I was fated to adore for this lifetime and beyond.
Yes.
Magic welled around me, a pulsing mass, a swirl of a mad dance I joined, spinning fast enough to make the cavern walls blur.
I came to a stop, panting in the darkness.
The core of Weldsbane Court called out to me in a sharp cry, the words piercing my skin. My heart. My soul.
“Are you?” it asked in a voice cratered with time unending. “Truly.Areyou?”
“I am,” I croaked.
“Tell us then.”
“I. Am. Worthy,” I bellowed, the words echoing around me. They came back to hit me hard. I had to center my feet to maintain my ground.
A guttural cry scraped through the room, that of a monster who could no longer grab what didn’t belong to him.
The core of my court’s power, as beautiful as a sunset, as pure as a child’s soul, as exquisite as the love I felt for Tempest, slammed into me.
And I swallowed it down.
47
TEMPEST
As the door slipped closed behind me without making a sound, I moved forward into the darkness. My rough breathing echoed in the thin, dry air, and my heartbeat thrummed a steady beat in my ears.
A small glow erupted ahead of me, and I moved toward it, stopping when I reached the polished stone spire almost topped with a small glass dome. Lights flickered within the dome’s depths, as if every star in the sky had been captured and trapped inside.
See. Decide.
The words echoed in the room—in my mind.
I leaned close enough my breath misted across the top of the glass, but I saw nothing but the stars and a world beyond my reach.
Lifting my hands, I held my splayed palms over the domebefore I lowered them to cup it much like a loving parent might hold the face of a precious child.
The dome sucked me in.
“Take her,” a woman cried, tugging a small girl—me—out from behind her skirts and pushing me forward. “Hide her. Please.”
Whimpering, I looked up at my mother. “Mama? I’m scared.”
She stroked the top of my head and across my nape. “It’s alright, Brenna. I promise you’ll be safe.”
Brenna. Me. A memory, then.
“I know where to take her,” Aunt Vera said firmly.
“Will she be safe? Tell me, please,” my mother said.
