Behind me, I felt Jameson shift, but when I stole a glance at him, he merely stifled a yawn, looking as though he found the entire ordeal annoying.
By the Goddess Danu, did anything ever rattle him?
“She really is as beautiful as the rumors say.”
I turned my focus back to the female. She was close enough now that the stench of sulfur hit me—thick and cloying like rotten eggs. Instinctively, I stopped breathing.
“You weren't invited, Merith!” my father roared, surging from his throne. “Leave this hall before I have the guards throw you into the dungeons!”
She clicked her tongue, the condescending sound one might use to scold a petulant child.
“Oh, Alasdair, you’re always so dramatic.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Do you truly believe your guards are enough to stop me?”
The guards exchanged uneasy glances, their resolve wavering until a single stern look from Kristan’s father snapped them into a wall of steel.
Merith raised her hand, her smile sharpening.
“I only came to deliver a wedding gift,” she said, her gaze pinning me with an intensity that made my stomach coil. “Something I chose with the utmost care for your darling daughter.”
“Don’t touch her!” my mother cried, leaping to her feet and rushing toward me like a hurricane.
But with a flick of Merith’s wrist, she froze mid-stride, a stasis spell locking her in place like a haunting marble statue, her face etched with shock.
“Mother!”
Rage surged through me at the sight. I raised my hands, and the earth obeyed. Vines thick with thorns erupted from the floor, snaking around Merith’s ankles.
“Release my mother!”
The enchantress laughed, and with a snap of her fingers, the vines burned to ash. My magic recoiled, my heart hammering.
“You have An Talamh—how marvelous!” she breathed, her voice filled with the twisted wonder of a child with a new toy. “The Goddess blesses so few with the gift of the Earth.” She tilted her head, studying me with an unsettling gaze. “If memory serves, your grandmother has the same ability, didn’t she?” Hersmile widened, sharpening into something cruel. “Only she was better than you at using it. Much better.”
The words stung, targeting my weakest point. Since childhood, my magic had been a source of worry and frustration. I was heir to the legendary power of earth manipulation, yet I had never been able to use it fully.
I never understood why.
My parents had taken me to dozens of healers, priests, sages, and witches. They all said the same thing: there was nothing wrong with me; it was only an emotional blockage that would bloom in time. But the years had bled into decades, and all I ever managed were these weak manifestations.
The vines I’d summoned moments ago proved it—fragile, unstable, burned away in a blink by Merith.
But even with that knowledge—even knowing how stunted my magic truly was—I wouldn’t let this creature touch a single hair on my mother’s head. I straightened, ignoring the tremor that threatened to betray my voice, and allowed fury to drown out my fear.
“Who do you think you are?” I shot back, injecting every ounce of arrogance I could muster into my voice. I lifted my chin, dragging my gaze up and down her frame as if assessing something of questionable quality. “You interrupted a private ceremony, disrespected our sovereign, and insulted our people. How dare you judge me like you are my superior?”
If a pin dropped, everyone would have heard it.
Her predatory smile widened. “Who am I? Oh, my dear, I’m better than almost everyone, and you have far too much courage for someone so weak.”
I hated that word, but I refused to show her.
“Today, I’ll teach you a lesson,” she continued, her voice slipping into a hypnotic, almost seductive cadence. “A lesson your father should have learned centuries ago.”
She turned her gaze to him. My father—the man who had faced monsters without flinching, survived bloody wars, and endured betrayals that would have broken lesser souls—trembled.
“She has nothing to do with this!” he shouted, but the sound lacked its usual authority.
My chest tightened. To see my father, the sovereign of Ceilte, my anchor, shaking like a leaf before her was far more terrifying than the acrid sulfur filling the air.
