Brayden nodded. “Wren came to us the night before Lena’s twentieth birthday. She was delirious and saying crazy things. She’d been attacked by the Fae Lords and was healing. She’d ingested some kind of hallucinogen or poison, and I took her words with a grain of salt.”
The Elder Fae reached up and pulled on his beard. “She must have gone to see you right after she visited with me. What else happened that night?”
Had these two men not seen each other in forty years? Maybe when you lived forever that was like one year.
Brayden shrugged. “Lena slept by Wren’s bedside all night. They hadn’t seen each other in two centuries, so I patched Wren’s wounds up and let them have alone time. By the time I got there in the morning, Wren was dead and Lena was…” Pure grief washed over his features. “She was gone too.”
Gone…
He meantdead. If I were Lena, then it meant there was a ticking time bomb inside of my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted that.
“They both died on Lena’s twentieth birthday?” I asked. “If I’m Wren, then how can Wren reincarnate too? Isn’t that just a curse that was put on Lena?” This family drama was way too hard to keep up with.
The Elder Fae nodded. “Normally yes, but part of Wren’s delirious plan was that she intended to take the curse on for herself. She said that was the only way to break it, to shift it to another with similar DNA. To trick the curse.”
Brayden went very still then. “How long have you known that?”
The Elder Fae looked at him. “Since she told me, but it sounded insane so I ignored it. Now I wonder…”
I could see Brayden’s mind chewing on this new information. “So you’re saying when Wren broke free from the Fae Lords, she came here and told you the information needed to save Lena?”
The Elder Fae took a sip of his tea and then looked at Brayden. “While she also blabbered on about seeing crying shadows and glitter rainbows, yes.”
Brayden winced. “She fell into a wispy writhe bush in her escape. I had to administer the anti-poison. She sounded insane to me too so I also ignored half of what she said.”
He put his head in his hands.
The Elder Fae’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “That makes more sense.”
Brayden rubbed his temples. “Why did she come see you first?”
The Elder Fae sighed. “She wanted a power amplifier stone that I had. Your father gave it to me when I was in service with him.”
Brayden stilled. “And you gave it to her?”
The Elder Fae sipped his tea. “You hardly deserve me.”
Brayden stepped closer. “Stop playing. Talk straight with me, old man. Do you think Wren broke Lena’s curse and restored her power?”
The Elder Fae took another sip of his tea, leveling Brayden with his gaze. “I think she was capable, especially with the stone, but a lot could have gone wrong.”
“Like what?” I asked, now fully invested in this soap opera.
The Elder Fae cast me a long look before resting his eyes back on Brayden. “Well, you’re saying Wren was badly injured when she saw you last, and it was the night of Lena’s birthday, which means the clock was ticking. Wren might have rushed the process without being fully healed and…” He clicked his tongue.
“And what?” Brayden and I both asked simultaneously.
The Elder Fae shrugged. “Too many options to account for but that’s one of them. I don’t even know what magic she had figured out. I thought it impossible to break Lena’s curse, but clearly she found something out while she was imprisoned.” He pointed to me.
“What does that mean?” I asked, crossing my arms.
He seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. I found myself wondering how he got imprisoned in the first place. Guilty of mind screwing his enemy? Because I was exhausted with this conversation already. We came here to get my powers capped and here we were knee-deep in some heavy topic.
“It means you could be Wren, reincarnated without your memories.”
“Then where’s my Lena! It’s been forty years. She never fails to find me.” Brayden sounded distraught and I felt for him.
The Elder Fae set his tea down and looked me over. “Two options. Either Lena is dead forever—”
