Page 118 of A Promise of Peridot
“Hello,” Arwen said to the girl brightly. “You must be Esme’s daughter. I’m Arwen, and this is Kane.”
“You’re just as you look in my visions,” the girl said.
A chill broke out along my spine. Arwen faltered for words but the girl only stood there, jostled by patrons, eyes full and solid and unwavering. The pub was growing livelier as the evening settled in, and I could barely hear my own thoughts. “Here, follow me.”
Arwen offered a hand, but the girl didn’t take it, choosing instead to trail us out of the tavern and onto the cobblestone streets. I led them around the corner into a narrow alleyway wedged between a fish market laden with tentacles and scales in crates of crushed ice, and a candy shop with rows of bright green apples dipped in butterscotch.
Arwen leaned down to meet the girl’s eyeline. “What’s your name?”
“Beth.”
“How did you know to come find us, Beth?”
“I overheard you. In my mother’s shop.”
“You’re very bright,” Arwen said with a wry smile.
“You were loud.” Her voice was ice-cold. Devoid of any emotion. Likely thanks to years of seeing things far beyond what she should—moments she had never and would never live—love and death and loss.
“I know what you seek,” Beth continued. “But I don’t know where the blade is. My visions of it are too fleeting.”
I had lost faith in vague leads such as these a long while ago, but Arwen straightened beside me and grasped my wrist tightly. “We’ll take anything you can give us.”
Beth, showing her age for the first time, fisted her hands in her trousers and cast her eyes down to the gray stone beneath us. A briny wind carried over the scent of fish from the shop next door. “The blade has been in Onyx all along. It never left.”
“That’s not possible,” I said, not unkindly. “It was stolen from my vault five years ago. The entire keep—the entire kingdom was searched.”
Beth shook her head with vehemence, those dark, haunting eyes still downcast. “I’m never wrong. Even when I want to be.”
Arwen swallowed hard and straightened to stand beside me. It seemed at once we both suffered the realization that the seer’s gift had been more of a curse on the young girl.
“The Blade of the Sun is in Onyx. I have visions of it, thrown beneath heaps of other weapons. Tied to another master, but yearning to be paired with its mate.” She turned to face Arwen. “You.”
The color had seeped from Arwen’s face, leaving her even paler than usual. “What do you know of me?”
“You are the final Fae of full blood born at last. As my nana said you would be. Daughter of the Gods.”
Daughter of thewhat?
“What does that mean?” Arwen pleaded, crouching down to the young girl’s eyeline once more.
“You don’t know?” Beth’s depthless eyes met mine.
“Neither of us do. Can you share?”
She opened her mouth, but must’ve thought better of it and instead took a step back. “What about my father?”
“We’ll find him for you, I promise,” Arwen swore to her. I fought against my tensing muscles. The man was likely dead. It was a daring oath to make.
“The king beside you thinks he is dead.”
I bit my tongue. “A seer and a mind reader. Quite a lot of lighte you’ve got there, Beth.”
“It’s why my mom keeps me hidden. The world is not safe for Fae like me.”
She was right. Not as long as Lazarus harvested lighte like wheat in a field. “Then why trust us?”
Arwen shot me a devastating glare, and I shrugged at her.
