He nods, offering her a small smile in return. Not willing to admit that it was terror and not joy he felt when he’d seen the child cradled in Vos’s arms.
“What was the price for the child’s life?” he asks.
She turns toward the balcony, unable to meet his eyes, when she says, “Terr.”
His brow pinches as he tries to discern her meaning.
“Shivayis in the child now,” she says, her voice quavering.
“Muri h—”
“I know.” Her eyes well with tears. “How many will die for the life of just one child? But how could I not?”
She turns toward him, a tear falling to stain the pillow below her cheek. “She would have hated me. Just as I hate myself for letting our own child—”
“Stop,” he demands softly, wiping the salty trail from her cheek. “Don’t ever say that again.”
He brushes his lips against her forehead, whispering, “You are a bright light in all the darkness of this world. Your warm heart, a remnant of something I’d have forgotten long ago if you hadn’t been by my side.” He sweeps his fingers across her cheeks. “Let go of your regret,mi’ajna. There is no room in our lives for it.”
She meets his lips with her own, a promise to let go of the past. One they both know she will never be able to keep, for neither time nor abundant joy can heal the wound in her heart.
CHAPTER 31
THE A’KORI PALACE
Present Day
“It wasn’t until the sundering that the Vatruke turned against the fea.” Faidra braids a few small strands of hair absentmindedly as she spins the tale.
“You mean the feyn,” I correct.
Her brow pinches quizzically, as if I’ve just said something ridiculous. “I mean the fea,” she says, “That is what started the first war.”
“But,” I say hesitantly, “the fea never fought in the wars. The first war was fought between mortals and feyn.”
Faidra only scoffs at the declaration, and I do my best not to glare at the girl. I am done expecting their histories to line up with those I was taught as a child, but what she says doesn’t make any sense.
“Many mortals died in the first war, as they did in the second,” Media says, “But did you never stop to ask yourself, why? After breaking the world in the sundering, after diminishing their own power to prevent more bloodshed, why would the feyn turn on the very humans they left to protect?”
I had not. Not once had I considered it. And though the stories of our history differ widely between the continents, a deep part of me knows that what she says is true.
The gifts of the feyn, despite the fact that I have seen very little in my time in A’kori, are powerful beyond what I imagined. I can’t make myself believe that a veil exits in Terr in which a gifted could not easily snuff out the life of a mortal. The abundant power that the feyn possessed before the sundering is something I cannot begin to fathom.
I am still trying to puzzle it out when Faidra rolls her eyes, clearly doubtful my mind can accomplish such a feat.
“When the feyn came to the aid of the fea,” she begins, “the Vatruke stood behind mortal men. They offered up your race as fodder, knowing that the feyn who had already gone through such great lengths to protect your people would rather yield than slaughter them.”
My head spins as she weaves the tale.
“It was so easy for the Vatruke to convince the mortals that the feyn had at last come to destroy them. The war hardly began before it was over. The Vatruke having won the moment they retreated to Brax.”
“Why would their retreat change anything? Why wouldn’t the feyn follow after them?” I ask.
Faidra shakes her head, “Brax is all but inaccessible by sea. The feyn had two choices. Flee, or end the life of every mortal that stood between the northern shore and the Braxian forests.”
“And the second war?” I ask, curious how she can possibly excuse the war I was born into. Even mortal memories, short as they are, recall the feyn as they burned the coastal villages.
It is Media that answers. “It took generations for the feyn to repair the rift made by the first war. Slowly, trade resumed between the continents, tenuous alliances were made, even some friendships. But the Vatruke would only allow it to continue for so long. When they saw the hearts of mortal men softening toward the feyn, they knew they had to intervene or risk our armies making their way past the southern borders and into Brax. With the support of the Drakai, they raided villages, burned homes, and took orphaned children to raise in service of your king.”
