He ruffled her hair affectionately as she rejoined him. “This is for a different power. A special power.” He held out his hand and she took it, swinging from his arm.
“What is this power?”
“A special one for princesses of this realm.”
Images flashed through my mind, speeding through the rest of the day, until it slowed down and unfolded.
Violet was sitting on the ground, knees tucked under her chin, crying. “I can’t do it, Da. I don’t know what you want from me!”
Zachariah let out a frustrated sigh, and Violet cried harder. With effort, he spoke calmly. “It’s your first day, child. We’ll try again later.”
The mist swirled in, spinning me around, disorienting me, before resolving into an older Violet, just approaching the cusp of womanhood.
Gone was the childlike adoration of her father. In its stead was frustrated tension that I sympathized with. “I’m trying, Father!” she spoke through gritted teeth.
“Clearly not hard enough,” he fired back. There was nothing of the indulgent father in his hard features. This was the Zachariah I knew.
Violet launched into a standing position, fists clenched at her sides. “Nothing is good enough for you, is it?” Tossing her curls over her shoulder, she stormed from the room.
“Violet, I have not dismissed you.” His voice echoed behind her. “Violet, get back here!”
The scene changed, and I startled as Nana came into view, younger than I had ever seen her.
“Nothing I do is good enough, Mam! Nothing!” Violet was pacing, throwing her hands around.
“Violet, listen to me.” Nana calmed her enough to have her sit and held on tight to her hands. “Your father is obsessed with power. Always has been. Always will be. But you, my darling girl, you will always be enough. You are more than enough. You are perfect just the way you are.”
Violet looked up through tear-soaked eyelashes. “I don’t think I’m the Orlaith. I never have. I just know in my gut, it’s not me.”
Nana kissed her head. “Then it’s not you. Your father will survive his disappointment. He’s survived every other disappointment he’s brought on himself.” Nana wrapped her arm around Violet’s shoulders. “You, my darling, are perfect just the way you are.”
The mist obscured my vision, but I heard voices clearly.
“You’re pushing her too hard!” I knew that voice. Had heard it every day of my life in what I had thought was every situation. But I had never heard that sharpness, that anger from Nana.
“She must be ready!” Nowthattone of voice from Zachariah I knew well. Nothing ever changed with that man.
The mist shifted, and I found myself standing next to Violet, still a teenager.
She was crouched on the floor of a balcony, peering through the window at her parents and their shouting match.
“She is the Orlaith—” Zachariah started.
Nana cut him off. “And if she’s not? You are destroying your daughter. You’re destroying your family. And you don’t even know for certain that your reading of the prophecy is correct!”
Zachariah stumbled back. When he spoke, it was in a softer, almost hesitant tone, contrary to any other I’d ever heard from him. “If I’m wrong… if Violet isn’t the Orlaith… then we’re doomed. The Veil will fail. It’s already begun. Starfire will be in the grasp of the enemy. All of us will become demons like the rest. Ithasto be her. Shehasto be the one to access Starfire and protect us all.”
Nana moved toward him, a glimmer of love long suppressed showing in her eyes. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he recoiled away from her hand. Hurt flashed over her face before she locked it down.
The mist swirled and I had to shove my way forward through it, clawing at it to get out of my eyes.
Violet appeared to be the age I’d met her and was pacing back and forth in front of Garrett, who sat leaning forward in a chair, his elbows resting on his knees, chin in his hands. The position was so familiar to me, I felt my heart clench.
“You know of Starfire?” she was saying.
“I’ve heard mention,” he said warily.
“Of course you have. You know every secret,” she said under her breath before continuing at a normal volume. “It’s the key to all of this. Bound to me. Bound to her. And bound to him. But how to use it, what it truly is, hasbeen lost. And we need to buy time. All I can think of is erasing it. The memory of it. From past and present. Erase it so completely that the darkness itself doesn’t remember it exists.”
