Page 136

“Why me?” the words slipped out in a voice so uncontrollably hoarse and quiet that Amara immediately looked up from her folder as if she had misheard. “Why do they all think I’m the mother of the chosen one when, within the calculated timeframe of the Lucillian Stellar Calendar, other Quatura could conceive a child too?”

Amara lacked neither intellectual intelligence nor worldly education. So why didn’t she even question what these people were doing to me? What they were demanding of me? The actions of this Quatura resembled sheer arbitrariness.

Amara needed a moment to find her words before she leaned back in her chair, still sitting upright, and looked at me intently.

“You’re not just any Quatura, Julie. You unite two very strong bloodlines.”

“The Westcodes are neither a founding family nor do they have a history worth mentioning,” I argued.

Amara smiled slightly, even though there was nothing to smile about.

“No one thinks of the Westcodes when they see you.”

What was she implying?

“Silver-white hair. Aventurine eyes. An almost fragile, sharp bone structure.”

She stood up, gathered a few of her folders, and stowed them in one of the dark brown Victorian dressers next to her antique desk.

“The Seagraves.”

I blinked, recognizing the name from the town’s history, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it had to do with me.

“Your grandfather was the last Seagrave before he disappeared.”

It was as if someone had pulled a veil from my eyes. As if I could now see more clearly. See that there was an aspect of my heritage I hadn’t even given a serious thought to yet.

Alaister had been a male Quatura, which meant that his father, too, had been a male Quatura. And male Quatura weren’t just found anywhere. They belonged to powerful bloodlines. Bloodlines like that of the Seagraves.

Not much was known about the Seagraves, except that they had been a very private yet extremely influential family during the founding era. They were said to have established the Councils.

“No one talks about Alaister’s father, let alone Alaister himself.”

Amara stared into the void.

“Because the dead should remain buried.”

And there it was again. The reason why I knew so little about the things that affected me.

“What do you know about my grandfather?” I tried a different approach, because, as far as I knew, this man wasn’t a taboo subject down here, even though I had never heard anyone talk about him.

“He was a quiet man with no facial expressions. A member of the Councils before he vanished without a trace.”

Without a trace.

How could a male Quatura disappear without a trace?

My thoughts wandered to Quentin, and I began to bite my lower lip, because I didn’t want to think about him in this place, nor did I want to think about him at all.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed aside all the questions he had stirred up in me since revealing his identity.

Not down here.

“His name was Sylvan. He was named after one of the founding fathers of this town. The Seagraves were the only Water Quatura family whose descendants were capable of transforming completely into Ocean Quatura.”

Something that was no longer possible…

The ability of Water Quatura to transform from human form to water form had declined drastically among the Water Quatura over the past few centuries. None of the descendants of the Water Quatura families currently living in Blairville were capable of transforming anymore. The only traces of their once-feared predatory nature were scales and fangs that formed as soon as their skin came into contact with excessive amounts of water or seawater, and even then, only in a few cases. Water powers were the last remnants of their nature. And no one knew what had caused this decline.