Shadowborn (26 page)

Alogason ushered the other two along after them. When I raised my foot to follow, Laerni stepped in front of me in that fluid motion that made me wonder if she touched the ground when she moved.

“We must speak about the Unseelie king.” Her long fingers brushed my temple and my chest above my heart. “You wear your grief like a black shroud. A mere taste of your thoughts makes my soul weep.”

I backed away, forcing giant gulps of air so I wouldn’t run out. “We don’t have time for games. If you knew Cas was coming, and about what’s happening with Liam, you know about what happened at the hospital, and to that little …” My throat closed off on the last. “And my people and I have to go to the Black City tonight.”

“You will exit our realm in the exact moment you entered it. I swear it on the moon spirits who watch over us.” A gentle sweep of her fingers drew my gaze up to the glowing orbs in the sky.

“You can control time?” My focus raised a little to reach Laerni’s Amazonian height. Her mauve skin and white hair made her appear ethereal in the silver light. “What are moon spirits?”

She smiled and offered her slender hand. “Conversations for another time when we meet in friendship and not the necessities of war, I think.”

Nervous, I slipped my fingers against her smooth ones. “You’re not going to let me change the subject, are you?”

“No, Lila Gray. A level of peace must be achieved within you if you are to understand what needs to be done.” Instead of leading me to the tree where everyone else went, Laerni directed me to a smaller one on the far side of the light fountain.

“I wish you didn’t talk in riddles. It makes my head hurt and drives me bat-shit craz—.” I winced at my curse, but she twittered a laugh instead of chiding me for it. “Sorry.”

“It’s easy to see why your men love you so deeply.” She squeezed my fingers in a friendly way while I tried not to make a scoffing sound. “And easier still to see how your people will love you if you let them.”

We stopped at the door, and she faced me. “I see you’ve begun that journey.”

Fighting an urge to flee, I stared at the ground while I dug a hole in the dirt with the toe of my sneaker. Too bad it wasn’t big enough for me to crawl into and disappear. “I’m trying.”

“And the fear that, for years, had consumed your inner sanctuary has shrunk.” Her finger slid under my chin and lifted my gaze to meet hers. I squirmed under her scrutiny. “You have faced your enemy, but the bond remains. Have you accepted him as your mate, then?”

“No!” A few shoves at her arms freed me from her touch. I wrapped my arms around my head to stop it from exploding under the pressure. “He’s not the same. But you knew that, didn’t you? You knew he was part of this somehow, that he could help me.”

She answered with a nondescript smile and opened the door to the tree. “Let us be comfortable while we talk, shall we?”

I wouldn’t be comfortable again until Alastair was nothing but a black splotch on the grass, the Old Ones were dealt with, and the damned wedding ceremony was so far in my rear view mirror I had to squint to see it. “Fine, but I’m not leaving here until you give me some straight answers.”

Upon entering the darkness, tiny, blue lights burst to life along the walls inside of the tree. I squinted, but they remained elusive. “Where is everyone else?”

“They are comfortable, I assure you.” Laerni swept into the room like a spring breeze.

“Are those fireflies?”

A flick of her hand had a fire roaring in the hearth in front of a plush sofa in shades of brown. “Those are the moon pixies. Children of the spirits. They are a distant cousin of our kind.”

“Cousin? Galati called us cousin when we got here. Does that mean …” I shook my head, unable to complete the thought.

“We share ancestry, the fae and elves.” Her hand on my arm startled me from my mental wandering. “Are you well, Lila Gray?”

“Yeah.” I shook it off and let her lead me to the sofa. “I just feel so lost trying to lead a people I know nothing about, only tidbits I pick up now and then.”

“Then I propose we strike a bargain.” That smile again.

My eyes narrowed as I tried to decipher what went on in that mysterious mind of hers, but came up with nothing useful. “What kind of bargain?”

“You answer one of my questions, honestly, and I’ll tell you something about the fae.”

My saliva dried up as I contemplated that. I knew what she would ask, how I intended to resolve my feelings for Liam, but still … even when I asked the Seelie about our past, the stories were never the same. Had they forgotten what they were as one people?

As usual, my curiosity got the better of me. “Deal … if I can ask specific questions about the fae.”

“Agreed.” A snap of her fingers brought two young elves with dark green hair from the shadows, each holding a platter in one hand. The first had a pitcher of blue liquid and two crystal glasses, and the second offered a bowl overflowing with some sort of fruit that looked like a red daddy-long-legs spider.
Gross
. Even though I spent years eating bugs, I never touched spiders. Hungry or not, I’d be passing on the arachnid fruit. Laerni could be insulted all she liked.

She spoke words I didn’t understand to the first young one who lowered the tray. With the jug in one hand, Laerni poured a glass of the drink and handed it to me, pouring another for herself afterward. The other elf set the spider fruit on a table in front of us and disappeared into the shadows cast by the moon pixies.

I waited while she sipped her drink, I waited. Laerni motioned that I should taste mine. In case it contained some hallucinogenic freak-out drug, I brought it to my lips and pretended. My act must have placated her, because she smiled wider.

“I’ll go first.” Her glass pressed against her cheek in an oddly sensual manner. “How are you coping with Liam Kane’s decision?”

His decision?
I scowled and jabbed my finger at her to punctuate each word. “He didn’t choose this. If he doesn’t secure his place on the throne with an heir, his people are going to kill him.”
Eventually.
My arms folded over my stomach, though it did nothing to stop my inner tides from sloshing within.

“You speak the words, but you, yourself, do not believe them.”

“Oh, hell.” I jumped up and stood in front of the fire. “If I’d known this was going to be some sort of shrink session, I’d never have come here. Isn’t it my turn to ask a question?”

“Denial. Until you sort out how you truly feel, your abilities cannot be fully realized.”

“I’m not denying anything.” I tossed up my hand and brought it down to grip the wooden mantle. “Liam’s taking a queen to make a baby with her. End of story, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I accept it because I have to, because he’ll die if he doesn’t. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“But you have received similar challenges from your own Court, have you not?” Her voice remained calm and soothing, irritating me even more.

“Yeah, so what?”

“You have not taken a consort, nor are you with child.”

A groan burned in my throat as I turned to face her again. “Would you please come out and say what you’re getting at?”

“You’re angry with him because you don’t think he’s strong enough to stand up to his people the way you do. Part of you thinks he wants this other fae to have his children, that he won’t want you after he’s been intimate with her. You’re so in love with him that losing that love is what you fear most over everything else that threatens you. Even death.”

Like a ramrod to the diaphragm, her words knocked the air from my lungs. When the sickness in my stomach subsided, I glared at her. “I’m done with this.”

So yeah, I was afraid of losing him, why wouldn’t I be?
What did she learn by shoving that in my face? I didn’t feel any better about it, only worse, and talking about it certainly didn’t lighten the load on my head the way she seemed to think it should.

Despite my sprint to the door, she beat me there with ease and without so much as moving a strand of her snowy hair out of place. “Ask,” she said. “If I know the answer, it’s yours.”

It took a few moments to calm myself enough to consider her offer. What could I ask? Thousands of questions scrolled across my thoughts. Although I should have been asking about the Magi, the itch to know more about fae history dominated all else.

Afraid she might try to touch me again, I backed away. “I want to know why the Seelie and Unseelie look different now, when they used to be one nation. Did they evolve somehow after they separated?”

A dip of her head came with the sparkle in her purple eyes. It made me think I’d done something to impress her. “A logical place to begin, Lila Gray. Please”—She gestured to the sofa—“sit with me again.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I complied, though I shuffled toward the opposite end.

“Do you know what the fae are made of?” Laerni picked up her drink from the table and resumed her dainty sips, both hands wrapped around the glass.

I twisted a loose thread on my sweater while I squinted at her. “Made of? You’re not talking sugar and spice and all that fairy tale crap, right?”

A twinkling laugh spilled from her wide mouth like a peal of bells. “In humans, I would say metaphorically speaking, but the fae are … more literally made of that which I speak. You battle both within yourself, even more so since your bond to the former king.”

Oh.
Duh.
“You’re talking about Light.”

“And its opposite. The fae are beings of darkness and light, and at one time, they embraced both, a perfect balance between the two.”

My lip curled up in distaste. “Perfect balance? No way. If I lose concentration or get angry I turn into a psycho. There’s no good in that.”

She flashed an indulgent smile. “If you’ll allow me to finish, you’ll better understand your people and yourself.”

I tucked my hair behind my ears, drew up my knees and wrapped my arms around them. Nothing she could tell me would make my ‘darkness’ any easier to deal with, but anticipation still buzzed through me at the knowledge she offered. “Okay, fine. So the war upset that perfect balance, then?”

“It was the catalyst, yes. Differences of opinion led some to cling more to their darkness.”

“The evil, you mean,” I muttered under my breath.

“Darkness does not equate to evil, Lila Gray. This is most important for you to grasp as it is the cause of your inner battle. Darkness comes from a different part of the soul, the place where passion and love are born, along with anger and hatred. It comes from the place in you where all of the strong emotions exist. Not evil. Only a potent power that requires understanding, and for the bearer to fully embrace it.”

Finding nothing useful to say to that, I nodded and gestured for her to continue.

“I’m sure you can guess those who embraced darkness followed Liam Kane’s mother to the Black City after she stole it from the Sluagh Lord. Surrounded by perpetual night, the pigment of their eyes faded over time just as it happens to cave-dwelling creatures through the world’s evolutionary history. Paler eyes allow in more light, thus improving their night vision. The opposite is true for the Seelie surrounded by perpetual day.”

My brain chewed on that for a while. It actually made perfect sense. “That doesn’t explain Liam’s eyes. His are like mine, even though he lives in the Black City.”

“Can you not guess why he is different?”

I blinked at her as I contemplated that. “Because he didn’t embrace his darkness as much as the others?”

She nodded and gave me that smile of approval again. “Yes, and his internal Light was enough to keep his eyes from fading.”

“So where—”

“I believe it’s my turn, is it not?” Laerni cocked a well-groomed brow at me, amusement tweaking her features and adding glitter to her eyes.

The stone thudded to the bottom of my stomach again. Possible questions sped through my mind, but strangely none scared me enough to back away from learning more. “Fine, a deal’s a deal.”

“Liam Kane is not the only fae who’s made his way into your heart, yet you deny your feelings for Mannix.”

Shitballs
. Questions about Nix hadn’t occurred to me. My gaze fell to where my finger drew circles on the cushion beneath me. “He’s the captain of my guard and nothing more.”

“The worst sort of untruths are the ones we tell ourselves. You’ve considered sharing your life with him, even though the moments are fleeting. Why do you hold him at bay?”

“Because I love Liam. That’s why!” I toned down my growl to a gritty snark. “To admit I love someone else too, even if it’s not exactly in the same way, feels like a betrayal to me.”
And he’ll never look at me the same once he knows who my father is. It’s only a matter of time.

She nodded as if she’d been listening to my afterthought. “I’m happy that you are aware of the reason, even if I find it … curious.”

Great
. “Let me guess, the elves are down with the ‘love thy neighbor’ attitude too, right?”

At her giggle, I groaned and threw up my hand. “Why are we wasting time with this? We need to talk about Alastair and how I’m supposed to kill his ass.” Her light mood evaporated, leaving her face a serious mask. “This is not time wasted, Lila Gray. I am helping you tear down your barriers so that you may open your mind for this task. Any hesitation, any resistance to the power you must consume to destroy one such as Alastair, and you will fail. And those you love will fall before your eyes.”

Juliet’s screams filled my head and rattled my bones. Images of Liam’s body crumpling to the ground while Alastair sucked out his soul ate my vision and forced me off the sofa, chest heaving. “I won’t. I won’t fail them. I …
can’t
!”

Laerni rose beside me and rubbed soothing circles on my back. Her voice took on a deep, motherly tone. “Then accept all that you feel. This does not mean you need to confess it, only let down your resistance to it. Admit to yourself that you care for Mannix and that he will ultimately reject you because of your heritage. Accept that your family perished to protect you, and nothing you could have done would have prevented it. Do not shut out the pain. Let yourself feel it for once. Allow the grief over Liam’s marriage to run its course so you can let it go.”