“Reverist abilities are quite rare nowadays.” Firose shrugged. “Rare enough to be worth my interest.”
My mother looked up at Firose with tear-soaked cheeks. “You should have what you ask. I’ll swear it in blood. My husband—he’s ill and needs me now, but my child shall serve the debt.”
Firose crouched before her and handed my mother a dagger. “Very well then.”
Adalasia made a small cut in her palm and let the blood drop to the grass below their feet. “I swear to forfeit my firstborn child and her power to the owner of the orchard I have stolen from.” Adalasia sobbed.
Firose smiled. “Congratulations, Mrs. Bennett…you are expecting.”
My mother’s mouth hung open, her eyes were bloodshot and her tear-soaked cheeks turned red.
“Ah, you did not know yet.”
Firose stood. Then she laughed down at my mother like it was all a wicked game to her. The whole ordeal—doling out a punishment so cruel for such a minor crime.
I began to step away from them as my mother bawled. Firose looked right at me as though seeing me there. My heart pounded.A vision, it’s a vision...she can’t see you.
But Firose’s face contorted into a look so blood-chilling that I was convinced otherwise. She didn’t look like my Sister any longer. For a flash, she wore the face of another—male, cruel, with a power that reached out to me like an all-consuming wave of oil.
Out, out.I needed to get out of there, away from those fateful fruits and the horror of my mother’s bargain with Firose or whatever this being was.
My return to consciousness was abrupt. It felt like pieces of me getting stitched back together. With a gasp, my hands scrambled to find hold of something real. The first thing they found was the front of Fen’s shirt. He sat with his legs splayed out in front of him in the grass and was cradling me across his lap, supporting my head from lobbing backward.
Emmerick knelt beside us and let out a relieved sigh. “Peace Prevail, woman…we thought you were dead. You were so cold.”
I regained focus, letting my attention settle on Fen’s face. Panic, fear and relief washed over his features and outweighed any feigned indifference he had shown me that morning. Van paced nearby;hadIdrawn him out?The beast approached and laid his head between his front feet at my boots, wide-eyed and awaiting direction. His tail wagged gently.
“Asterie.” Fen’s voice was soft and pulled me back to this reality—where my mother was dead and this orchard stood amongst ruins. My head buried into Fen’s shoulder, and tears poured onto his cloak. My breath heaved out unevenly as the emotions choked away my ability to intake air. I sobbed and relaxed into the warmth of his body.
The sorceress, from the legend—she was real. She wasFirose.
It was a real story. My mother’s story. My story. The Sisterhood hadn’t rescued me…they’dtakenme. Firose had a claim on me, on my power.
Fen stiffened at first, but then his arms wrapped around my shoulders and drew me closer to him. Neither of them spoke until my sobs subsided.
“Where did you go?” Fenris whispered gently into my hair, still holding me to him. It somehow felt more intimate than the night prior—with my expelling tears like rain and unable to compose myself.
Through my tear-blurred vision, I could see Emmerick over Fen’s shoulder, his brow creased in concern.
“She was here…my birth mother. She worked here.” I knew it sounded crazy.
“This estate would have been abandoned four hundred years ago. Your mother wouldn’t have been alive yet.” Fen reasoned gently into my hair before letting his lips rest there. The beat of his heart was a rhythmic reminder that I was not alone.
“She was not working for your family. She worked for Firose. Firose owned the orchard—my mother, she made a bargain with her.” The words were hard to get out. “For me, she agreed to give me up, and my power.”
Fen stiffened, causing me to pull back and look at him as he turned ghostly white. Emmerick’s face contorted with confusion.
“What do you mean?” The worry in Fen’s tone shook me.
I explained everything my vision had shown me. His face grew paler with every word.
“What exactly does the legend say?” My question was aimed at Emmerick. “What do people think happened to me?”
The Constable cleared his throat. “Your story was one my mother told me often…” He looked out into the orchard and wove the old tale. Most of it I knew.
A sorceress made a bargain with a woman who stole from a plum orchard. She bargained for a life of servitude from the woman’s firstborn child. To avoid her debt, the woman jumped off a roof in Ikanten with her child in her arms. The Star Origin opened the heavens and saved the child. The babe’s father claimed the child was cursed, so the same night, he set her on a raft and let her drift out as an offering to the sea. But the sea carried the babe to Eros, where the people celebrated her. She was a child saved by stars and protected by the moonlit tides.
Emmerick continued, “The High Enchantresses took pity on the child and took her into the towers, where she was raised to become the fifth and Central Enchantress of the Corridors. Sister of the Stars. Born of starlight itself to serve Henosis. The public has never beheld the face of the child of starlight again. Until now, of course.”
