My face went slack. “Surely…that was an accident.”
He swallowed hard. “She then became a ward of the crown, put under my parents’ care, and when I questioned her about it, she had absolutely no remorse. Said she was better off alone.”
I swallowed hard; I knew that feeling, a feeling I was having now by pushing Eden away. I had remorse but I wanted to be alone. Was that the first sign of going dark?
“So, she just got worse?” I asked. My mind was blown by the fact that Master Clarke’s family became her caretakers. Were his parents still living? Or did she kill them too? I was afraid to ask.
He nodded. “Even though I was still a student myself, I was the most powerful telekinetic in school. The administration thought if I could tutor her…” His voice trailed off.
And here he was doing it again with me. A newfound respect for Master Clarke formed deep inside of me.
He went on. “The master teachers and I tried everything we could to teach her to control her magic. So that when she was angry, she could release energy in other ways, but nothing worked.” He shook his head.
“Ariyon and Ayden’s father was king at the time, a young king in his early twenties, and he kept his eye on her. We struggled to school her, but we were managing. The kids were cruel, she had a snake familiar and dark magic, and she wasn’t like the others.”
“Being different isn’t easy,” I told him, my heart softening a bit towards Marissa. I knew what that was like. Being made fun of sucked but I wasn’t going to kill anyone over it.
He nodded.
“So, what happened?” I wanted to know everything about her now. I needed to know what went wrong so that I could avoid it.
He looked suddenly stricken, the blood washing from his face. “She fell in love.”
That got me sitting upright. “With who?”
“We don’t know. Only that when she fell pregnant with you at age nineteen, she was the happiest I had ever seen her. This woman normally never smiled, she never cared about anyone but herself and her familiar. She ate lunch alone; she was cruel to people and animals. I’m sorry, Fallon, but she washorribleat times. She was mad at the world and blamed The Gilded City for all of her problems.”
I swallowed a sob and realized in that moment I had never for one second thought about who my birth father was. I had my dad, so I didn’t care, but in this moment, I realized that if I was conceived, it meant my mother had to have lain with someone.
“Well?” I pressed him. He couldn’t leave the story there.
“She never made it through her full fourth year here. By second semester she was six months pregnant with you…whoever had made her feel so alive, so loved, broke up with her. She burned down most of the school in a rage, it’s why the bricks are black. She killed one hundred and seventeen students with that fire. Nearly half the school. Including Master Knight’s family. Solana was there, and that’s when she cursed the Queen with a lifetime of barrenness.”
Bile crept up my throat, threatening to upend my breakfast. Over a hundred people? Marissa killed the ancestors of nearly all the students I now went to school with…No wonderthey hated me. No wonder it was a condition that my Bane lineage be public. People had to know to be careful around me. And in that moment, I was scared of myself.
“She disappeared for a while then. When she came back, her stomach was deflated, you had been born and she called the Nightlings into the city to attack the king. She thought she could take over and rule. She wanted power, fame.”
Guilt wormed its way into my heart then, I couldn’t help but feel some sort of responsibility for what she’d done. “She killed Ariyon and Ayden’s father that night, didn’t she?”
It was just like Ayden told me.
He nodded. “And their mother, the queen. Then Solana, King Madden’s sister, broke into the room and killed Marissa but not before your birth mother threw a final curse for our entire generation. If any of us are to kill you, the next heir to the Gilded City throne will fall dead themselves.”
Ariyon.
I felt numb, my limbs felt barely attached to my body as the heaviness of what he just said seeped into me. “So even if everyone hates me, and I go dark, I’ll live forever until I die of old age?” I’d almost rather be killed if I went mad from the evil magic taking over me.
He inclined his head in affirmation. “In a magic cell that Queen Solana is currently building. But I won’t let that happen.” He reached for my gloved hand and gave it a light tap.
“Maybe you can’t stop it.” I felt hollow inside, like if you cut me open there wouldn’t be blood and bones, there would just be emptiness, ash and shadows.
“Maybe we can,” he said, and I looked up at him to see a sliver of hope in his eyes. He was younger than my father, but he reminded me of him. Always trending towards the bright side of things.
“Fallon, you are not Marissa. You smile, you care, you’re protective of those you love. You love! You have friends. I see more light in your eyes than I see in my own when I look in the mirror. I will not give up on you,” he told me fiercely and a lump formed in my throat.
I’d judged Master Clarke all wrong that first day. His harsh words in that jail cell were because he cared so deeply about the outcome of my life. Because he’d failed my mother and now, he wanted to do right by me.
“Thank you,” I managed.
