The Secret Trinity: Reign (Fae-Witch Trilogy, Book 3) (22 page)

He brushed back my hair to see me
,
but I put my face in my hands unable to look at him.  He didn’t understand why I was truly upset.  I knew my vision of Liam would come true just as my Mother’s had
of me.  If Queen Danu’s vision wa
s that
I save our kind, and my vision was
of my soul being taken, I c
ould
only think
of one way this would end.  An
Aira
Queen wou
l
d
sacrifice once more for her Kingdom.  I was finally letting it sink
in
that this was my true path and that I would have to break the promise I made to Clay.  In order to save our kind
,
I had to accept the loss of my soul.  I guess for some time, buried inside me
,
I had prayed for my life and hoped for a
nother choice, but that had
passed
now
.  I would only have my Soul Keeper for a short time.  I should be thankful it was any time at all, I guess.  This was my fate.

“What’s going on?”  Jeremy asked
,
flying over the railing of the open loft where I still sat huddled in Clay’s lap.  Following Jeremy was an eruption of feet stampeding up the staircase while eyes darted around in panic.

“Clay, don’t do that to me!  You ran up here so fast, I thought she’d be dead or something.”  Kayla said, clutching at her side as she caught her breath.  Grant and Morgan followed and everyone looked around waiting for an explanatio
n.

“I think we’re at an impasse with these spells for today.  Can we get a night cap at your place
,
Mo
rgan?  I’d like to talk to Adam,
” I said, rolling off
of
Clay’s lap, gathering the spilled contents of my bag
,
whil
e clutching tight to the
Aira
d
i
a
ry.

“Sure...”  Morgan trailed off, questioning, eyeing the book and my trinity pendant stil
l magnetized to the cover as I set it gently in my bag.

“I’ll go tell Fiona we’re calling it a night and grab
Bree
to meet you over there, if that’s cool?”  Jeremy asked, and everyone absentmindedly nodded
,
eyeing my bag as he flew back over the railing to the ground level.

I held my hands out and Clay grabbed one, Morgan the other, until the five of us stood in a circle together.  I
teleported us into the kitchen and saw Adam fly to the ceiling,
but not before dropping a cart
on of milk by the open fridge.

“You need to pick your entrances better.  One of these days you’re going to give so
meone a heart attack by mistake,
” Adam said, grabbing his chest as he slow
ly lowered back to the ground.

“Sorry, I was hoping you’d be in the living room so that didn’t happen.”  I said,
pointing at the spilled milk.

“You’re done earlier than I thought,”
Adam said, feeling the unknown
tension.  I dropped my bag on the kitchen table and pulled out the book still opened by my necklace
and his jaw fell to the floor.

“I feel like a daft moron.
Of course, it’s so obvious now,
” Adam said, looking at the trinity key and taking the book from my hands.  Morgan began to gather drinks, and Clay grabbed the paper towels to clean up the milk while Adam thumbed through the book, finally la
nding on our Mother’s entries.

“So... I guess my name was Paul before.  I ran a lot of scenarios in my head, and I have to s
ay that this wasn’t one of them,”
Adam said, shaking his head wit
h surprise, and I smiled.  I kne
w it was made for the
Aira
Queen’s eyes only, but I didn’t care, times had changed.  These people were my family and they helped me become Queen.  Adam read the last passage and took it a lot better than I had.  Maybe it was because it didn’t involve him directly, but I could sense his pain below the surface.  He hadn’t even known his real name, and the future of his only remaining family was unclear.  I think he just had a much thicker skin than me, and I was envious of him right now, wishing for a split second that we could have switched our upbringings.  You
’d
have
to have a thick skin if you gre
w up with the
Famorii
, but then I shuddered at the thought, tha
nkful for my adoptive parents.

I heard a knock at the door, and we all padded into the living room to find that Jeremy and
Bree
had let themselves in.  They flew over here fast.  I’m sure Jeremy was dying to finally know what was inside the trinity book.  Everyone found a spot on the living room floor surrounding the coffee table
,
and Adam passed the book over to Kayla.  I slowly sipped on my drink waiting patiently for the book to make
a full circle, while
Clay rubbed my should
ers trying to ease my tension.

Bree
was the last to read my Mother’s letter and she closed the book with care sliding it to the center of the coffee table.  We all sat there silently for a long time,
staring at the pendant on top.

“King Bryan had said once that my Mother knew I was the Trinity
Fae
because she could feel my power growing inside her, but I didn’t realize he meant that she
really
knew,
” I said soft
ly letting it hang in the air.

“According to that letter
, it seems that King Bryan know
s a lot more than just that.  Clay
,
will you speak with him?”  Adam asked looking hopeful.  There was nothing more frustrating than feeling as if someone knew more about your future then you did and yet
they refused
tell
you.

“I know my Father.  If he has not told me by now, he was never planni
ng on telling me and never will,”
Clay said bitterly
,
and I to
o
had already drawn that conclusion.  I hid my inner smile becau
se Clay was much more like his F
ather than he realized. 
Urgh
, why do all
Fae
have
to be so
cryptic.
  I foun
d it
to be
our most annoying quality.  We
didn’t know that much more than we di
d an hour ago
,
but I already had to keep my fate a secret and I didn’t want to keep this one too.  To think of our Kingdom hundreds of years ago, and the
Aira
Queens, each sitting down to pen their private thoughts in the hope that it would help the next Queen, her daughter, to be stronger and wiser.  It was...humbling.  I looked up from the book at Adam sitting across the coffee table, his forehead scrunched
,
his
eyes distant in thought.

“What are you thinking?”  I asked q
uietly, and he looked up at me.

“Oh, it’
s nothing,
”
Adam said, shaking his head.

“No, tell m
e.”  I was anxious to know now.

“Maggie wrote that sometimes s
he wanted to forget King Bryan. 
I
didn’t understand why she didn’t use
a memory loss spell
.  It’
s fairly simple.  I guess I was wondering what would
have happened if she tried that,”
Adam said shrugging, and then his eyes lit up when
he realized what he just said.

Everyone at once raised
their eyebrows as our stares at the book grew wide, and a
light bulb went off in the room when our energy heightened into overdrive, throwing the idea around in our heads.  When I couldn’t remember mine and Clay’s
sealment
, our energy didn’t intertwine as it does now.  Although I still felt drawn to him, I didn’t
see
him as I should have, and we wouldn’t have been able to have a Binding Ceremony even if we wanted to because it wouldn’t take.  The most basic principle of being able to be bound was the intertwining of your energy at the moment of your
sealment
.   I turned my head sharply to look at Clay, and he nodded at me thinking it could wor
k.  The one who cast the spell was the only one who could
break it.  That
had been the biggest challe
nge through all of this.  We had
been so fixated on Liam and breaking his
sealment
spells
,
that we didn’t see there was another simple
r solution -- a
dding another spell not to break his, but weaken it so they could break on their own.  All the p
risoners had to do was forget.

If we could use
a spell on the prisoners to make them
forgot the
ir
sealment
s
with Liam, even for a few seconds, it would change their energy long enough to break
the Black Magic Bindings he had
with them.  Without that, he wouldn’t be able to draw from their energy and fu
el his evil power.  When he died
, because the
sealments
weren’t real, the spells would die with him and the p
risoners wouldn’t wither away.

I jumped up from my spot.
“How do we test it?”  I said, skirting around the real question of which
Fae
-mate couple in this room was willing to have a quick Binding Ceremony
with Fiona.  It wasn’t much to
ask, only joining completely with your Soul Keeper so if they died, you would
die
at the same time.  I would bind with Clay in a second, but knowing my fate, it was out of the question.  I didn’t want him to know that there was really only one option.  I innocently eyed Grant and Morgan
,
who looked at each other and smiled.

“Um, there’s something we’ve
been meaning to tell everyone,” Grant said, smiling hugely.

“Dude, you didn’t,” Clay said, patti
ng his friend on the shoulder.

“Didn’t what?  What’s going on?”  I asked, eyeing Kayla suspiciously now because she
was beginning to squirm and
was picking at
the paint on the coffee table.

“Morgan and I are already bound,” Grant said, and they both p
ulled simple gold rings out of
th
eir pockets, slipping them on.

“What?!”
  The rest of us
screeched in total disbelief.

“But you need an energy catalyst to be bound, and Fiona is the only one authorized
,” Jeremy said stunned,
because he knew all when it came to royal protocol.  Plus, we all would have
certainly
remembered the announcement, the thrones being taken out, and the celebration after.  I heard a Binding Ceremony was bigger than
a Greek wedding.  All of
Draí
ochta
would be
shut down for it.  Yeah, I’m sure I would remember
my
best friend conjoining souls with her
Fae
-mate!  I put my hands on my hip
s
and
looked at
Kayla
who was staring
at the ceiling.  I coul
d see it all over her face.

“Kayla, you realize Fiona could banish you from the Witch Council for this, right?”

“Why are you looking at me?  They’re the ones who dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night and begged me to help them.  You should be b
laming them,” Kayla said innocently.

“That’s so sweet.  Grant, I didn’t know you were such a romantic,”
Bre
e
chimed in to tease her boss.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.  I should have been there,” I said,
the hurt showing in my voice.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us a lot of things,” Morgan shot back
,
and I shrank.  I used to tell Morgan and Kayla everything, b
ut lately so much had changed.  All of us had
changed in different ways.  I hadn’t been good about keeping our connection, remembering
my roots, just three girls
laughing and swimming in the river, wh
o swore to be friends forever.

“You’re right.  I have not been the greatest friend since we got here and even before that
,
but I still woul
d have liked to have been there,”
I said sadly, and Clay grabbed my hand pulling me back down to sit with him, wr
apping an arm around my waist.