Page 65 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

I blinked, taken aback by the knowledge that the duke had killed his father out of what Adefina considered kindness.

Before I could say anything, Adefina continued, “His Lordship’s mother was all Ice, to be sure. But his father? Well, I’ll just say I wouldn’t be surprised to learn His Lordship has some Star in his lineage.”

“How many humans have Caix in their genetic mix?” I asked, drawn even further from my questions’ original purpose, but unable to resist learning more.

“I can’t be knowing that—but aye, there’s plenty.” Adefina said. “Some with Star, some with Ice, as well, though you’d hardly know it these days. Just the barest touch of magic, and that too easily wiped out by all the iron in your world.”

I knew I shouldn’t let my curiosity about Ivrael’s past continue to distract me from quizzing Adefina to learn what she knew about the firelords. Yet, I couldn’t help asking, “Does that happen often? Ice and Starcaix ending up together, I mean.”

“More than you might guess,” Kila said, buzzing up and dipping her thimble, the one that served as both teacup and soup bowl, into the dishwater.

“But the Icecaix are so…so…” I waved my hand in the air as I searched for a word.

“Cold?” Adefina suggested.

When I began nodding, she and Kila both snickered.

“They all just seem so obsessed with power and control,” I added.

“More Caix than you would imagine are willing to trade everything for a chance at power. If not for themselves, then for their children—Ice and Star.” An odd, almost melancholy expression crossed Adefina’s face.

Before I could ask her what she was thinking about, though, she turned the conversation back to the firelords.

Adefina was telling the truth when she told me she didn’t know much. Not with any certainty, anyway. But she had plenty of stories, and over the next few weeks, she told them all to me, I think.

Most were tales of the firelords defrauding or destroying the Caix in one way or another. Sometimes the Caix were victorious against these attempts, but more often than not, they were cautionary tales, promising death and destruction, misery and mayhem, to anyone who made the mistake of attempting to deal with a firelord.

“So you’re telling me you don’t have any stories where the firelords are the good guys? No renegade firelords going against everyone else in their culture? Nothing like that?” I asked one afternoon as she and I washed the dishes Ramira had brought back down to the kitchen from Ivrael’s suite.

“There’s one,” Adefina conceded. “A story of a firelord who fell in love with a wood cercy.”

“I know this one,” Kila announced, flying up to perch on the flour canister Adefina kept in the cupboard above the baking counter.

“A what?”

“They live inside trees,” Kila explained, flitting around my head. “They’re lithe and beautiful. And a little prone to distraction.”

“Like a wood nymph?”

She shrugged. “I guess?”

I shook off the thought. “Does this story at least have a happy ending?”

Adefina snorted. “Not for the wood cercy.”

“These fairy tales for Starcaix suck,” I said. “You people need to learn how to tell some uplifting stories. Stories that end with ‘They all lived happily ever after.’”

“You asked for stories about firelords,” Adefina said, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “You can’t very well expect both firelords and happy endings in the same tale.”

Kila snickered, and with a groan, I shook my head. “Fine. Go ahead.” I waved a soapy hand at Adefina. “Tell your story. Make me cry. See if I care.”

“Well, since you’re tired of having your heart broken by my firelord stories, I’ll skip the beautiful story of the firelord’s unyielding love for the fair maiden and her adoration, in return, of the firelord.”

“Yes, please,” I said. “I’ll take all that as a given.”

Adefina thought for a moment, finding her place in the tale. “Realizing they could not live without one another, the firelord and the wood cercy were secretly wed, determined to defy both their peoples together. Soon enough, though, the Starcaix fell pregnant—and Caix bodies are not meant to bear firelord infants.”

I cringed. “This is about to get ugly, isn’t it?”

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