I shivered. Can you imagine a five-year-old looking in the mirror and seeing black wings or horns and no one else could see it? Or craving blood? It would make you think you were insane.
She fiddled with her hands. “We quickly realized that wouldn’t work. And we noticed that only males were being born. Something about the genetics never favored females in the womb. We don’t know why.”
“What happened?” I needed to sit down or I was going to faint. Liam was a fucking halfling. He was part Fae. Did that make him my soulmate for real? I mean, it was plausible, right?
Holy fuck.
“The halfling children started to be born here and on Earth…” Her voice tightened with emotion. “It was okay for a little while and then … the halflings on Earth got sick. We learned that without the energy of Faerie or the crystals, they … died.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Halflings or not, they were our people. “How many?”
She looked confused.
“How many died?” I pressed her.
“Hundreds.”
Oh God.“But the ones that lived here? They were okay?”
Indra nodded. “For a time, but the Winter King, Cypress, had laid with a human and his child was one of the ones that died on Earth.”
I squirmed in my seat. We used to have a full court. King Cypress of Winter, and Queen Isana of Summer, were our main rulers and lived at opposite ends of Faerie. Then there was princess Daphne of Spring, my court, and Prince Teek of Fall. It kept checks and balances intact.
“He stole the crystals, didn’t he?” I just had a feeling.
She nodded. “King Cypress loved his human, and she couldn’t come live here, so he took one of the crystals and gave it to her, to keep their next child safe.”
My eyes widened. “Next child?”
Indra nodded. “They had another. And the king let word spread that you could keep your halfling child alive on Earth, if only you stole one of the crystals from the Tree of Life.”
Oh no.
“Queen Isana sensed a rebellion and immediately put out an invitation to all halflings and their human mothers to come live in Faerie,” Indra stated.
I sagged with relief. That was a really good idea. It would keep the crystals here and no more deaths. Indra fell quiet again; her breath hitched.
“Well, surely that fixed things!” I couldn’t bear to hear anymore but I had to.
Indra shook her head. “It did not. Unfortunately, the human mothers could not spend more than a week here without getting sick.”
Oh gods.
“They had to go back…” Indra didn’t need to finish. I knew.
“They stole the crystals to keep their children alive,” I stated. It didn’t sound so bad. I mean, it was bad, our whole fucking world crashed down, but I couldn’t really blame them. A mother would do anything to keep their child alive and not be separated from them. This was so far off base from what we learned in school it wasn’t even funny. Lies. We were told lies.
“That night, all twelve crystals were taken. Such greed, they didn’t even leave one, let alone half. The entire genocide of our people…” A sob lodged in her throat as she paused a moment to compose herself. “A billion Fae died that night, the water rose, the earth shook, and a fire lit all of Summer, while frost took over Winter. Our entire realm just … broke.”
My throat tightened with emotion as a tear rolled down my cheek. “How was this one part saved?” I gestured around me.
Indra grinned, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Your mother. She chased down one of the Fae and stole back one single crystal, which was enough at that time to hold this small space.”
Mom.In that moment I was so proud. My mom saved Faerie…
“Why don’t you tell people?”
She squirmed. “Some are old enough to remember. But I guess we all agreed it was a dark time and we didn’t want to relive our mistakes. We didn’t want future generations to live in fear or repeat what we did.”
