Page 64 of A Sun Scorched Bloom

Lea looked around the cottage. Crystals sat in the windowsill, covered in a sheen of dust. A throw blanket was thrown over the arm of the couch, and a clay mug sat near the fireplace.

"Do you think…" She couldn’t finish the sentence.

He nodded, understanding anyway. "I think Delphine told her where Adelaide would be, if the girl ever needed help. I think she fell in love and had a child, the granddaughter of Queen Emmaline."

"And you think that Azalea is that child," Gray interrupted, saving Lea from having to speak.

"Yes. Her birthmark. Her magic. There is no other explanation. Our theory was that the queen’s daughter knew the king would be looking for her, and wasn’t willing to risk your life. So she gave you to us, knowing we would love you like our own."

And they had. They had loved her so well, she had never doubted until recently that she was wholly and completely theirs. But if Lea was being honest, she’d had her doubts as her magic had revealed itself, as Gray had insisted that she descended from Emmaline, but she’d burrowed herself into her denial.

Still, noneof it made sense. If she really was a descendent of Queen Emmaline, shouldn’t she be Fae as well? Or at least havesomeFae characteristics?

But she wasn’t tall or graceful, fast or light on her feet. She didn’t have extraordinary eyesight or hearing, and her strength left something to be desired. Either way, she wasn’t who she wassupposedto be, and it felt like she didn’t belong to the parents who’d created her any more than the parents who had raised her.

"What happened to her? My birth mother?" The words felt like gravel in Lea’s mouth.

"I don’t know. I’ve looked, Azalea. I’ve searched for her. So that your mother and I could know for sure who you were. Everything we thought? They were just theories, parts of some big puzzle we were missing pieces to. I tried everything to find her, so that we could learn what you might be capable of and how to protect you. But it’s as if she just vanished."

"That’s what you’ve been doing? All this time you’ve been gone?"

"I only left because once your mother died, I didn’t know how else to protect you. She had always been so calm, felt so confident you were safe with us. But without her, I didn’t know what to do. Your magic was so strong. I wasn’t sure how to keep you safe anymore."

"What do you mean, her magic was strong? It wasn’t until a few months ago there was any indication that she had any." Gray asked.

"She was already showing her magic the day we found her. Things would fall when she cried. Shadows would reach for her blanket and cover her small body when she was cold. Once, she fell and scraped her knee, and the storm she summoned burned down a neighbors smokehouse when a bolt of lightning hit it. But we didn’t want you to be found, so your mother gave you a tonic that dampened your power. You took it every day until she passed."

"The floor," Lea said breathlessly, thinking about the cracked bottom of her well of magic that she had burst through trying to save the baby. Trying to save her own mother.

"What floor?" Gray asked.

"When I was trying to keep the baby alive, in the vision, the goddess appeared. She told me to follow the darkness, so I did. I reached for my night magic and it was like there was something solid blocking the rest of it. I fought against the barrier, ripped into it, and once it cracked—I’ve never felt anything like it. It was pure power. Nothing like the magic I’ve wielded before."

"The potion was meant to suppress your magic, to keep you from accessing it. She gave it to you every morning in your tea. She said that pushing down your day magic was easy, but that your shadows were stubborn, that they seemed to be tied to something darker, deeper. Your mother couldn’t explain it, but she said she knew she needed to lock whatever that power was away. She said it felt as if it could destroy the world. It took so many tries, so many combinations of ingredients and so much of your mother’s magic to make it work. I would have continued to give it to you, but my magic doesn’t lend itself to healing. There was nothing I could do."

Lea’s stomach squeezed. Something darker, deeper, that was tied to her shadows? Is that why she preferred using her light? Because it didn’t pull from that well of magic that felt so beyond her control?

"That’s why her magic appeared so slowly. That wall was slowly breaking down, allowing her magic to wake up over time." Gray’s eyebrows lowered, his jaw clenching in anger.

"How could you keep all this from me?" Lea asked, suddenly so exhausted. "I understand when I was a child, but maybe it could have helped me with the moonflowers. Maybe I could have saved Mom. And Thomas’s dad and everyone else."

"We were afraid, Azalea. Terrified of the king finding you. We just wanted you to live a normal life. This—" he gestured to Gray—"a life of war and danger? It isn’t what we wanted for you."

"Even if it can save others in the kingdom from losing someone to the Lonely Death like you did?" Lea reached down the bond, silently asking Gray to lend her some strength.

"I’m a selfish man. I do not regret trying to keep you safe," Henry said curtly. Rubbing a hand across his scruffy face, he softened his voice. "But I do regret keeping this from you. I hope that someday you can forgive me."

It was so much to process. He’d been gone for so long, making her feel unwanted and alone. But even if it was misguided, he had been trying to protect her. Lea rubbed her forehead, pressing against the pain still pounding there. She would have to try to dissect how exactly she felt later.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"Your necklace. My magic lends itself toward hunting. I spelled the jasper to allow me to track you years ago."

"I didn’t even know you and mom had magic!" Lea exclaimed, standing. "And if my vision was true, then mom was alive two hundred years ago. How is that possible? Everyone in town would have known. She’d hardly aged at all from when I saw her in my vision."

"Is it another potion that changes your appearance, then?" Gray asked Henry. "You don't look Fae. I couldn't sense it at all."

"It's the water from the mountains—We don't know why, but when we drink from it regularly, it hides what's in our blood. Makes us appear human, even though we still have our powers. It's why there are so many with magic who live in Bearswillow. It protected us from the king. Let us live our lives undetected."

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