Page 75 of Knowing Trust

He nodded and I felt a bit better.

But then I wanted answers, glancing between Onas and Iolas.

It was Taeral who answered though. “Royal magic cancels out. There are magics you cannot use on each other. It’s to keep from being overthrown by each other and causing instability. That’s the theory.”

“Wait, wait, I have about a billion issues and flaws with that especially since this asshole just used magic that would have killed me,” I drawled.

“We don’t know it would have,” Taeral sighed. “It was magic to kill, but against another Vale, it might have only been enough to incapacitate you.”

“It’s true,” Iolas agreed. “But there is a way for the queen, the ordained queen, to get around that if…” He shared a look with Onas.

“Saving Faerie,” Onas sighed.

“Oh well, that’s fucking vague,” I grumbled.

“Yes, but it’s meant—Elora used to say it was allowed if the queen didn’t strike first. So I was to protect Faerie—acting as the shield as you have said yourself.”

“Meaning we can’t be the aggressor world domination stuff,” I grumbled. “Okay, now back to my other issue.” I gestured between Neldor and myself. “I get it, we have like a hundred generations since we have a real ancestor, but we do. I’ve used a lot of magic to beat him up and—”

“Yes, you’re way too far apart on any family tree that it counts for anything,” Iolas muttered. “Which was why everyone constantly suggested on both sides to just take out the queen.” He rolled his eyes to say it was stupid.

“And the gods warned my mother not to,” I said, deciding to let that out of the bag, Lageos backing me up.

“Our queen was told the same,” Taeral confirmed. “I’m glad she listened.” He snorted. “Until she completely lost herself and tried to kill us all.”

Yeah, just that. But we had to focus right then.

“So you’re saying that Mom put some sort of magic into that thing that can disable us canceling each other out?” I asked Iolas, thinking how weird that sounded.

“It would make sense why he didn’t go right for trying to take you out at Artemis but wanted Meira’s magic in the vault,” Lageos muttered.

Yeah, but it seemed so… Hinky?

“A bit convenient,” Neldor grumbled after Iolas confirmed it.

I gave him a look that we were on the same page there.

“Convenient?” one of the dark commanders drawled. “Your mother cared so much about you and protecting you that she built some sort of magical item I’ve never even heard about, and I’m old enough to be an elder, because of a vision and worry to be fair over a probably distant and bastard Vale she didn’t want to bother.

“The bastard probably lost his mind when Faerie was closed for so long and he couldn’t cleanse and turned to demons. Which—how did he even know Queen Meira put something at Artemis? You said you couldn’t sense the magic until you were in that vault. So he wouldn’t either and—”

“That might be the flawed assumption,” I hedged. “I could probably have sensed it now that I had my wings. So say he came to check me out after I was on supe TV maybe not knowing about me or—whatever. Yeah, lost his mind not being able to cleanse in Faerie. Sensed it and wanted it.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter!” Lageos roared looking wild and too all over the place. “How do we use it and kill the threat to you? That’s all I need to know, Tamsin. All we need to do. Enough of this back and forth. We kill the cockroach before anyone else gets hurt. We should have already, but there was so much else that… I thought…”

“I know, me too, Dad,” I whispered, worried about him. “I will read the next section of what Mom wrote and unlock it. We’ll figure this out.”

“And you won’t go alone,” he said firmly. “No! No, Tamsin!”

I sighed when everyone else agreed. “Fine, Dad and I will handle him.” I shot Neldor an annoyed look. “Both the last royals to take on a crazy fucking Vale older than us is the stupidest idea ever. Like ever. We get the facts, figure this out, and hear some answers from the guards he knocked out and then Dad and I go hunting.”

“Fine, yes, and you need some serious fueling up,” he agreed.

“Yeah, but also fast because I drained him a bit with that barrier. He’s not going to stay quiet now that he tried to attack.”

I was glad when everyone seemed to agree with me.

I stayed with Stefanie while the others handled what they needed to. They kept checking in. Food was set up and brought in from Earth in a buffet for us against the far wall. I didn’t want to eat, but I knew I needed to.

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