I would have done the same for my own child.
She told me she knew Kaelric would never be able to wield her. She’d spared him the pain of rejection, though the cost had been my future, the one I’d dreamed about since I was young: becoming an Elite.
Now, with her brother running beside me and the memory of that letter about her strange birth story pounding in my head, I couldn’t stop the questions. Found abandoned on a train. Taken in by wolfkin parents.How did that even happen?
‘Val?’I reached for her cautiously.
She said nothing. The silence stretched so long that worry pooled in my stomach.
‘Val, are you there?’
‘Oh, so we are talking again?’she snapped.‘You won’t melt me down for this?’
I winced.
I deserved that.
‘I’m sorry I threatened that. You convinced me to do something I later regretted. I…’My throat tightened.‘I loved your son. And what you asked of me made me lose him. It cost my family magic, too.’
Sadness washed through me. Not my own, but hers.
‘I know. I am very sorry for how Kaelric reacted, but it was the only way to liberate my people, his people. I asked such a great thing of you only because you loved him.’
Her words settled over me while Godric walked ahead, nose low, checking the shadows. The sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the trees in gold. A town appeared between the branches, roofs barely visible over the undergrowth.
‘You still think we can? Liberate them?’
Life in Hildreth had been so peaceful. Sometimes it was hard to believe the stories whispered around cookfires. Rumors of a mad king. Half wolfkin, half Elite. A tyrant who preyed on his own. War. A stolen crown.
‘Yes. We will be limited by your human vessel. But yes.’
My human vessel. My body. Too weak to hold her full power.
Speaking of that…
I wet my lips, nervous to ask.
‘You were human, and you married the alpha of the wolfkin and had children with him. How? Kaelric said it’s not possible, and if we try, he dies.’
‘He is right. It is not.’
Her answer came quick and blunt.
I frowned, shifting on the saddle as my lower back ached.‘Then how did you have children with King Morvain?’
Silence.
‘Val?’
For the first time, I felt fear within her. Not fear of telling me, but fear of the story itself.
‘I rose to lead Drake’s army when I was just a year older than you are now. I was already in love with him, but I hid it, knowing we could never be together.’
That ache in her voice made my chest tighten.
‘Little did I know, he already knew we were mates. But I was human, so he ignored it, confused.’
That part sounded too familiar.
