Page 52 of Knowing Trust

Then what Calarel said hit me. “Wait, our power jumped?” I waited until she nodded, seeing others as well, and took off my magic. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, we felt it the moment we arrived, Tamsin,” my dad assured us. “You will both need to have your wings out for a few weeks.” He nodded when we both groaned.

People started talking and debating, and I simply sighed again.

“We hoped this would happen if they were to be together,” Onas said.

“Yes, but I thought they never would be because of the princess’s incest concerns,” someone argued.

“Wait, time-out,” I cut in loudly, wanting that handled. “That was long since handled.”

“And firmly,” Neldor added. “Her best friend made it—the Henry VIII argument.”

I nodded. “More humans are directly related than we are because of Henry VIII and all of his wives and mistresses or whatever. Ancient Simimar was almost four thousand years old, right? And he didn’t know which was the original royal family, light or dark. That means there were dozens and dozens of queens and—we’re not remotely related.”

“No, not remotely,” Neldor agreed. “We’re settled on this.”

“Well, that’s good,” someone else muttered. “I thought we would have an issue with that later down the road.”

Others seemed glad it was handled and I wanted to roll my eyes. I wasn’t that big of a pain. No one seemed to really know what the fuck happened with the royal families or the legends of how the realms split or if they were even ever really one to begin with. Some of the ancients were thousands of years old and didn’t know.

Yeah, that’s not remotely like Neldor and I were second cousins or something gross.

People were still talking about it and I was going to interrupt them, but then I shared a look with Neldor and we both kind of shrugged. Fine, let them talk about that for a bit instead of us having sex so we had a moment to digest all of it.

They started to talk about some ring though and I shot a glance at Lageos. He raised an eyebrow at that as well, clearly thinking the same thing as I did. There was some heated discussion and back and forth, and people were getting way off focus when we had more to handle.

And I was now hungry and would get hangry soon.

Something Lageos picked up on, waving for me to handle it as he sighed and motioned for my security to come over.

I rolled my eyes when I heard Neldor jump in and yell for people to drop it about the ring and we’d never get the answers. I moved over to him and clapped my hands together for attention. “I know where my mom’s damn ring is, Nel. I’ve always had it.” I teleported it to my hand. “Why is this an issue now of all times?”

Everyone froze, like went eerily quiet.

“Well, clearly, that is more than Meira’s ring and we’re missing something,” Lageos drawled.

“Where did you get that, Tams,” Neldor whispered, finding his voice first as he moved his hand towards mine holding it.

“It was left with me,” I told him. “It was one of the things in my possession that always found me again. The key and this ring. I told you about the key and said there was more.” I studied him. “Lageos confirmed it was my mother’s ring.”

He swallowed loudly and met my gaze. “That’s not just Meira’s or a Vale ring. That’s the royal ring from the gods given to the first queen of Faerie.”

“It proves that the Vale family was the true lineage and the Donovans broke off and split the realms,” Iolas whispered. “Why the hell didn’t Meira tell people she had that?”

I closed my hand around it and hid it behind my back as if I could close this can of worms back up somehow. “And what would have happened if she had?” I snapped the fingers of my other hand until people focused on my face, completely understanding why my mother had done this for once. “What would have happened, people? Use your heads!”

“People would have overthrown my family,” Neldor mumbled, his face completely pale. “The dark realm would have fallen into chaos.”

“Yeah, probably. Or the light realm might have and someone would have taken out my mother saying it was a fake, right? Or just general chaos. The ancients trying to take it for bad things? I doubt peace and happiness. I very much doubt that would be the outcome.”

People seemed to agree but then started debating what to do about it now. It got heated and pissy. I lost my temper when it turned to yelling and some shoving.

Fucking idiots. I’m going to smack them all.

My eyes went wide as they all acted like someone punched them.

“Shit,” I whispered. I focused on Neldor. “I’m so sorry. I just thought it. Holy fuck. And not you. Dad?”

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