A few tears dripped onto the paper as I brushed them off my cheeks and blinked rapidly to clear them.
Dear Father,
You might hear about something I did at school today, and I want you to know I didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe it’s worse that I didn’t. I have all the signs of going dark. Nightmares, hearing voices, a lack of happiness around things I used to love, power that I cannot control. I’m so sorry to leave you like this. I know it will break your heart, but I can’t stay and risk you getting hurt. Please know that out of everything in my life, I loved you the most, the man who took a chance on the cursed girl in the basket. I think I stayed sane this long because of you. I will always carry your kindness within me, even if I can no longer feel it.
Love always and forever,
Fallon
P.S. Please give the other note to Ariyon.
Then I wrote a second note to Ariyon, unable to stop the tears from spilling out onto the page.
Ariyon,
Where do I begin? How about with the first time you touched me, and it didn’t cause me pain? You gave me hope. I loved that someone could touch me without triggering my curse. It made me feel normal, something I had longed for my entire life. Then I got to know you, and no matter how much I tried to fight it, I fell for you. You try to act tough, but you have the biggest heart of anyone I know. I’m sorry it had to end like this. I truly didn’t think I was capable of going dark. Even now, when I search inside myself, there isn’t hatred or anger there like I thought there would be if I went dark. There’s a void, a numbness. I can’t feel anything. I don’t know which is worse.
Please tell Blair I am so sorry and that I didn’t mean to hurt her. Give Eden and Ayden my apologies and love. And know that you gave me more joy in our short time together than in all my life before you. You made all my dreams come true.
I’m going to go where I can’t hurt anyone anymore.
Love,
Fallon
By the time I had finished both letters, I had no more tears left to cry and no more feelings left inside me. I was a hollowshell, lost at sea, drowning as if tied to an anchor that was pulling me into the deepest depths of the ocean.
I left the letters on my father’s bed and, with Yanric perched on my shoulder, made my way to my room. I grabbed a few more things I knew I would want and shoved them into the bag. As I was about to leave, I stopped at the half-open drawer on my nightstand. At first, it was the bottled tincture that Emmeric gave me that caught my attention, the one that would suspend my curse for a few moments. Then I saw the folded note beside it, and I collapsed onto my bed.
It was time—time to read whatever Marissa had left me. She left it at my feet the night of the dance, right before she killed Ariyon. She told me to come find her, that there was more I needed to know or something of that sort. Reaching inside the drawer, I pulled out the note and opened it. As expected, a small map fell out onto my lap. I had wondered if it would be a map because of what she had said about finding her. I studied it. There was a red circle on the eastern part of the realm, between Willow Groove and Sterling Reach.
Turning away from the map, I flattened the letter, smoothing the creases of the vanilla-colored parchment. Marissa’s handwriting was neater than I thought it would be. Steeling myself, Yanric looking over my shoulder, I began to read.
Fallon,
Your entire history is a lie. The Bane family, once respectable members of the House of War and Bone, were experimented on with dark magic. Our natural magic was corrupted, and they turned us into what we are now, the House of Ash and Shadow, the most powerful magical beings in the entire realm.When we displayed these newfound, awe-inspiring powers, they began to regret their mistake and tried to purge us from existence. They took our homes, our money, and our status, all because they feared our power. They took our chance at the crown, something owed to us by birthright.
I paused, looking over at Yanric.‘I know all of this. I don’t care.’Marissa wanted revenge and the crown. I understood that, but I didn’t want those things. What was done was done, and there was no changing that.
Yanric went eerily still then, eyes widening.‘Keep reading,’he said.
My eyes flicked back to the page.
I expected them all to turn against me once I came into my power, but not him, not Clarke. I loved your father. He was the only fae I ever gave my trust to, and he betrayed me.
I gasped, my hands shaking as I read the wordsClarkeandyour fatherin the same sentence.
No. No way. It couldn’t be. But even as I tried to convince myself of that, memories of Clarke and how much he tried to help me and keep me alive every time the queen tried to hurt me sprang forth in my mind. With my heart pounding in my throat, I read the rest.
You, Fallon, were the only good thing to come out of that short-lived relationship, and on the day I birthed you, I thought I would trust him one last time. I sent a messenger to fetch Clarke so that he could meet you. I thought that a father would want to see his own daughter, cursed or not. When he arrived, he tricked me. He stole you and left you at the gates of that magicless town to live alone all these years, without proper training for your power. Had I known you were in Isariah this entire time, I would have come for you sooner.
I’ve enclosed a map that leads to our city. Please don’t share it with anyone. I would hate to have to hurt your friends or anyone else who comes poking around here uninvited. Come find me. I can show you how to truly use your magic.
Marissa
Clarke. Clarke stole me from Marissa and left me at the gates of Isariah? Shock flooded my system, but it was almost immediately flushed out by anger, and in that moment, it felt so good to feel anything at all that I latched on to it.
He left a defenseless, cursed child at the gates of a magicless town and then never checked on me!
