Sapphires and Desires (The Gem Fairy Series Book 1) (16 page)

I don’t reply, unsure of what to say.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask him finally.

“Because I’m sure you’ve only heard bad things about me, I’m not a bad person. I’ve done bad things but no more than any other of the kings has. I’m a person too. I don’t want you to think of me as this evil man.” He says and I see truth in his eyes.

“I haven’t heard anything about you. I didn’t know you existed until you showed up at Lenaya’s. But why should I believe anything that you tell me?” I ask him and he looks hurt. “I mean I believed and trusted Damon and it turns out he might have killed me…multiple times….my family…my parents. Everything he told me, and it was convincing, might all be a big fat lie. You can’t expect me to just believe you.” I expand.

“I know. Which is why I brought this.” He says and pulls a long chain from his pocket.” Put it on.” He motions and hands it to me.

I do.

“Tell me a lie.” He says.

“Uh my favorite color is…purple. I mean…purple. What the fu-“I start but he cuts me off with a laugh. My favorite color
is
purple. That’s not a lie. I was trying to say green.

“It’s a truth charm. You cannot lie while touching it. If Damon was so truthful he should’ve worn one for you.” He sighs. “It’s not like they’re a hard thing to find. He uses them all the time to find traitors in his Kingdom.”

He removes it from my neck and wraps it around his own.

We come to a clearing in the woods and I can finally see light in the distance. The first since leaving Lenaya’s.

“Ask me anything.” He says enthusiastically.

I have no choice but to trust this necklace as I don’t feel the familiar brush of glamour influencing me. The necklace somehow worked which I am not one bit surprised at with all the crap I’ve seen in the last few days a magic necklace isn’t about to surprise me. Especially since I’ve already gotten a memory from a magic opal. Insanity at its finest.

“Were you telling the truth about Damon at Lenaya’s house? Did he really kill me all those times? Kill my parents? My family?” I ask getting the most important question out of the way.

“Yes.” He replies without expanding.

“He stole my memory of you?” I ask him.

“Not directly. He hired the King of the Emerald, David Barthelow to do it.”

“How did you find out?” I ask.

“I went to David Barthelow’s on other business, to get back an item he stole from me, one of my servants, a Brownie. While I was there my Brownie told me that he’d accidently stumbled onto a contract made between Damon and David. The contract explained that in exchange for taking your memories of me as well as the bad memories of Damon, Damon would make David his right hand man when he took over the Kingdoms. His contract also said that David was to ward you from Jadorn and condemned him to silence about the matter, he wasn’t to tell a soul.” Damon explains. “I later found this contract myself in Barthelow’s home and killed him after I got him to tell me where your memories were. He admitted that he’d made a necklace full of only the memories that Damon wanted you to have and gave it to Damon to give you when you got your magic back.”

My heart shatters. So he
was
lying then? The whole time I’d believed his lies.

“How did you know that I was alive? Surely you thought I was dead after my parents were killed,” I ask him next.

“You and I, are souls are bound by marriage. I felt it every time you died and every time you were born but I couldn’t find you. Damon warded you from me. Plus, until I broke into David’s house a week ago, I thought that you left me willingly all those years ago and went back to Damon. I didn’t understand why, but I had no reason to believe that the king of the Emerald Court snuck into my Kingdom unnoticed and stole your memories of me.” He admits. “From the beginning I made sure you understood that you were free to leave me if you wished. I knew how much work I caused, how much pain I caused you, even if you loved me, I couldn’t understand
how
you could love a man like me. I’ve done
terrible
things. But you always saw through that. Saw the good in me, no one has ever seen the good in me.”

“Lenaya told me that you and Damon used to be close friends, is that true?” I ask him.

“Yes. We were friends before Damon tasted power. When he was promoted to prince I first saw that he was turning into a different man but it wasn’t until he was crowned king that I truly understood how bad the power was affecting him. It was never enough, he always needed more. That’s when you started pull away from him. You and I talked about it many times while he was on business. You worried about him. You and I were always friends even though I was always getting myself in trouble and you never approved. Then one day I kissed you and you, you kissed me back. I’d always had a bit of a crush on you but it wasn’t until you started coming to me to talk about Damon that I fell in love with you. A couple days later, you went down into the Kingdom’s dungeon to fetch weapon for one of the guards while Damon was out and found your aunt and three year old nephew dead down there. At first I don’t know if you believed that he did it. It wasn’t until you later when you watched him hold down your grandfather, who’d come to visit you, while Jadorn stabbed him. You watched through a window as Jadorn cut off his head with a sword in the courtyard as Damon held him up. Then you came to terms, you told me what happened and I didn’t question what you saw. That’s when you discovered that Jadorn was staying at the Sapphire Court right under your nose conspiring with Damon. How he never killed you while he was there is a mystery to me. Damon must’ve made a deal with him not to kill you although he very well knew that you were a spirit user and would come back. We were going to leave before Damon found you and go to your parents’ Kingdom but one of the Brownies heard us talking and told Damon. He exiled me before we could leave. You came with me to the Opal Court much to his surprise. Between you and me, both being royalty we managed to take the reins of the Opal Court and get it up off its feet again. It took nearly a year and by that time we were ready to be married. After our wedding you disappeared. I thought that the wedding had given you doubts about Damon and you had went back to him. A bit later I heard that the Ruby Court had been invaded and that you, your mother, and father were missing. I knew then that Jadorn planned to kill you so he’d have no threats against him and assumed that you went into hiding, like you did. I had my thoughts about Damon. I’d heard that Damon was this big hero and had helped your family escape. I thought that maybe we missed something. Maybe there was a reason he’d helped kill your grandfather. The first time you died I went nuts thinking you were gone. Knowing you were a spirit fae I knew you’d come back but also knew that it depended on your parents’ lives being intact. When you came back I was incredibly happy, but then you died again, and again and again and so forth. And I couldn’t ever find you to see what was going on. Exiled, I couldn’t just trot into the Sapphire Court and ask Damon what the hell was going on. I never stopped looking for you. I just wanted to know what was going on and whether or not your family needed help. Then the news came that your parents were gone and they’d had no child with them. But I was sure I’d felt you reborn and was sure that I hadn’t felt you die. I waited for something to happen but it was quiet for a while. Then I went to David’s and you know the rest.” He finishes and removes the necklace, shoving it in his pocket once again.

So that was it? The truth? I sigh and I’m not sure if it’s with relief or frustration. Now we are standing on the front porch of a cabin much like Lenaya’s only smaller. Blahyne opens the door and motions for me to go inside.

“What is this place?” I ask him. I wonder how the hell he knew how to find it. How do you navigate through forest that all looks the same?

“This house is a friend of mine’s she’s letting us stay here tonight although she’s not home. What is this?” He asks quickly while bringing my right hand up to his face and examining the ring Damon gave me.

“Oh, Damon said that it’s so he knows where I am and he can find me if I need help.” I tell him.

“Hmm.” He murmurs. “Interesting. This is not a locator charm. In fact it’s not a charm at all. It’s a diffuser.”

“Uh what?” I ask him, lost.

“It sucks up your power into this little gem so that you cannot access it very well. You aren’t able to control any of your magic are you? Have you been getting headaches?” He wonders.

“Yeah a few.” I say thinking back to a couple bad migraines I’d had the last while.

“I’m going to release your magic, this may sting a little.” He says and murmurs something in another language, presumably whatever language the fae speak. The ring disappears and my body feels like its being electrocuted for a moment. Then the pain disappears and all that’s left is a slight tingle across my skin.

“How do you feel?” He asks urgently still clutching my hand.

“Tingly…” I say slowly while blinking rapidly trying to make the world stop spinning.

He releases a breath he must’ve been holding in. “Good, that’s good. That means I did it right.” He laughs and releases my hand.

“So I suppose the whole world knows I’m alive now.” I state suddenly and think I surprise Blahyne.

“Why?” He wonders, confused.

“Because Damon he said was warding my magic so no one could sense me. Surely he released that glamour and surely removing that ring only made it worse.” I describe to him.

“You don’t think that I’d let you walk round with your power unshielded do you? Because I wouldn’t. It’s blocked.” He assures me. “Has been since nearly a minute after Damon stopped blocking it.”

“Oh.” I say, surprised.

He walks over to a drawer in a tiny white cabinet about the size of a bed side table and pulls it open. He carefully removes a set of three large emeralds.

“These are full of your memories. If you touch these you’ll get them back.” He instructs and hands them to me. “All of them. Even the ones Damon wanted you to have.”

I hesitate.

“You do want them don’t you? You want to remember who you are, who I am, find out the whole story, remember why you have to kill your uncle, and whatever else there is to know?” He asks skeptically as I stare at the sparkling jewels.

“If I touch them, I won’t be
me
anymore.” I explain. “I don’t want to be a part of this world.”

“It’s too late, you’re already a part of it, and you have been for a long long time. I think you know what you have to do. And yes, you will be
you
because even though you don’t remember your past, you are still you. I would know.” He insists.

I take a deep breath and say goodbye to me. If I am going to stop my uncle from starting a war against the other Kingdom and killing tons of people then I have to have my memories back. Not only so that I know what’s going on but so that I can control my power. The sooner I get my uncle out of the picture the sooner I get back to my old life. One question sits in my mind though, if I take my memories back, will I want to return to my old life? Will I want to go back? It comes down to what is most important. What I want and what is most important. It’s really no choice at all. Millions of lives or my selfish happiness? He’s right about one thing for sure, I will always put others before myself.

I take a deep breath and touch the first Emerald. The familiar headache that overtook me earlier overtakes me again and I fall to floor in pain, and overrun with images, memories.

Chapter 9

I wake up writhing in pain, Blahyne at my side, making me drink something warm and smelly, its irlate tea. How do I know that? The memories, it worked.

“Two more, Laytah.” He says gruffly and poses the box of emeralds back in front of me. I touch the second one mechanically and grunt in pain as my head feel like it’s getting cut open by a serrated saw.

It’s a long time before I wake up from the second blast of memories. This time when I wake up its dark, pitch black. “Blahyne?” I ask through a raspy throat. A light turns on across the large open room and he walks over to me, a book in his hand.

“One more.” He promises. “Drink some of this before you’re out for another day.” He shoves a cup to my face and I drink it down quickly, thirsty. I’m so exhausted that I can barely think. “You should eat this.” He says grabbing a plate from the floor beside the couch I’m lying on. I shake my head. I just want to get this pain over with. I reach over to the box of emeralds and touch the last one.

When I wake up it seems like it’s been years since I was last awake.

I take in my surroundings, it’s dark but somehow I can see through the darkness. Blahyne is nowhere to be seen.

I sit up with aching muscles and wince brushing the pain off. I can’t think about anything besides the utter rage that is built up inside of me. Rage towards my uncle and towards Damon Kingsley.

I get up off of the couch in which I am laying and storm out of the small cabin I am in. I’m sure it’s Lenora’s cabin, the woman who turned Blahyne and his daughter.

I fix myself on Blahyne’s essence, his power, and I follow it. He has it warded but I can still slightly feel it since I know it so well. I follow it through the forest to a small river where I see him sitting on the bank, a fishing rod in his hand. I walk up to him silently, holding back my excitement.