“Took part?” Mother stared at me, aghast. “Why would you do such a thing? I’ve been training you to be a healer, Adara, not a warrior—”
“—because I can’t use my water magic, right?” I spat, cutting her off. “Or at least that’s what you’ve been telling me my whole life, and I foolishly believed it. But there’s something else, isn’t there, Mother? Some secret you’ve been keeping that explains therealreason you won’t let me leave the village, and why you insist on training me in an art you know I have no love for.”
What little color was left in Mother’s face drained away, and she grasped the back of the nearest chair for support. Her gaze went to my neck, where the amulet chain had once been. “The necklace,” she whispered. “You took it off. That’s how you know.”
“Know what?” I cried, slamming my fist against the top of the small wooden table we shared our meals at. The fire in the wood stove surged in response, and Mother screamed, jumping out of the way before her skirts caught fire. “Know that I have fire magic? Is that what this is? Is that why the stove nearly exploded just now?”
“Adara, you need to calm down.” Mother spoke in an even tone, but there was a desperate look in her eyes as she grasped my hands. “Please, tell me what happened today. Why did you take the necklace off, and what did General Slaugh see, exactly?”
I didn’t want to calm down. I wanted to rant and rage and vent my fury at this entire situation, at the lies and secrets I sensed bubbling to the surface. But the sight of the stove flickering behind Mother gave me pause—it had clearly responded to my emotions, and the fire I’d used earlier, that I’d nearly incinerated Dune with, had also been a product of my anger.
So I took a deep breath, sat down, and told Mother exactly what happened.
“You foolish, foolish child.” Mother said when I’d finished. She had long since ceased sitting in the chair—she’d begun pacing when I got to the part about General Slaugh calling me into the ring. “Going to the tryouts, drawing the attention of the general, taking off your protection amulet—everything that could have possibly gone wrong—”
“Stop calling it a protection amulet!” I snapped, cutting Mother off. She stopped pacing and turned to stare at me, astonishment on her beautiful face. “Dune said that it was a primal stone. What does that mean? Was this even really a gift from my father? What other secrets have you been keeping?” My voice rose with each question, and sparks began to shoot from my fingertips. “You keep blaming me for everything that happened today, but you’re the one who’s been keeping me in the dark this entire time! What kind of mother does that?”
The words whipped out of me before I could stop myself, and my stomach dropped as tears filled my mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right.” Mother’s expression crumpled, and her shoulders sagged. “I’ve been trying so hard to shield you, to protect you from the truth, but I should have known I couldn’t keep it from you forever. This is my fault. I—”
A loud knock sounded at the door, and Mother immediately stopped speaking. “Go out through the apothecary entrance,” she hissed, moving toward the front door. “I’ll take care of General Slaugh.”
“Absolutely not!” I jumped to my feet, my dagger already in hand. “I’m not leaving you to face the general alone, not when it’s me he wants!”
“Adara, please.” Mother grabbed my arm and began shoving me toward the shop door. “I don’t have time to explain now, but you cannot, underanycircumstances, allow the general to capture you.”
“But—”
The front door flew open with a loud bang, and Mother and I froze. General Slaugh marched inside, his single eye narrowed, his mutilated lips pressed together. It struck me then that his eye was the exact same shade as Mother’s, but I didn’t have time to think that through further as my attention caught on the male following behind the general.
“There she is.” Dune pointed at me, a smirk on his face. There was a sick light shining in his eyes that made my stomach twist. How had I ever thought he was handsome, when he was so horrid on the inside? “Told you we’d find her, General.”
But the general wasn’t paying any attention to Dune’s words. In fact, he wasn’t paying any attention to me either. He’d stopped in his tracks, his gaze fixed on one person and one person only.
My mother.
“Gelsyne?” His face went slack with shock, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “I thought you were dead.”
Gelsyne?I glanced at my mother, expecting to see the same confusion I felt mirrored in her eyes. But she only squared her shoulders, a determined look on her face as she confronted the general.
“Gelsyne is dead,” she said firmly, placing her body in front of mine as if to shield me from General Slaugh’s gaze. “I’m Chaya, the village healer, and you’re trespassing in my home. Please take your leave. It’s late, and my daughter and I require rest.”
General Slaugh scoffed, his gaze landing on me. “Your daughter? I find that hard to believe.” He took another step toward me, his single emerald eye scanning me from top to bottom with intense interest. “A water fae with the ability to wield fire,” he murmured. “So the prophecy is real, after all.”
“Prophecy?” I tried to step around my mother, but she flung out her arm, blocking me. “What are you talking about?”
The general laughed again. “Oh this is too good,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve kept her in the dark, haven’t you Gelsyne? That’s how you’ve managed to keep her hidden so long, even though the king has been searching for her. He’s been scouring the newborns in both Lochanlee and the Beanntan Deigh for the past twenty years, testing each one of them for fire magic. It never occurred to him to search Domhain for her.”
“That’s because King Aolis has scrambled harpy eggs for a brain,” Gelsyne snapped. “Go back and tell your king you’ve failed, cousin. I’ll never let you take Adara, not so long as there’s breath in my body.”
“Then we’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?”
Slaugh’s form rippled, and the air surrounding him grew hazy. His armor melted into his skin as his muscles swelled and his shape changed, legs shortening, arms lengthening, black and silver hair sprouting as he changed into a hulking silverback gorilla. Roaring, he crossed the room in one bounding leap, then grabbed my mother by the torso and slammed her into the wall. Her head cracked against the stone, and she cried out in pain as those huge fingers tightened around her ribcage.
“Mother!” I rushed to her aid, but Dune stepped into my path, his own sword raised.
“Not so fast,” he tsked. “You’re coming with us.”
