Page 49 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
It took a moment for me to consider whether or not I should say anything but now seemed as good a time as any. “That nightwhen the bond snapped into place, your fingers turned black. Like something had burned through you from the inside out.”
Meera blinked. “What?”
Sadie’s head snapped toward her, then to me. “You’ve seen that too?”
Meera turned slowly. “What do you mean, ‘too?’”
Sadie looked guilty. “Yeah, so funny story there. I thought it was a trick of the light or maybe some weird magical backlash the first time it happened. It didn’t last more than a few seconds, and you didn’t say anything so I figured it was harmless.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Meera said, brows drawing together while she looked at her hands. “Why’d you never tell me about it?”
Sadie shrugged. “Like I said, it went away quickly and didn’t seem to hurt you. I wasn’t sure if you knew and were keeping it a secret for whatever reason. I didn’t want to push if you weren’t ready to tell me.”
“I tell you everything,” Meera murmured, flexing her fingers as if expecting to see the black again. “I’ve never seen it. I don’t feel anything different happening in my body so I don’t know how many times this could have even happened in general.”
“It didn’t feel like a magical backlash when I saw it,” I said. “It felt ... old. Like something buried deep woke up for a second.”
Meera frowned. “Woke up? You’re not seriously saying I’m possessed by some ancient entity, are you? Because I feel like I would know if something was living inside me.”
“No,” I said carefully. “I’m saying there’s something in your bloodline that doesn’t come from Faerie.”
Damon chimed in, more curious than cautious. “Could be Hellkin blood, or a forgotten godline. There’s a lot of lost magic out there.”
I lifted a brow at my nephew. “Hellkin, huh? How do you even know about thatextinctbreed of hell fae?” Fae was a very loose term. Hellkin weren’t fae. Not even remotely. They came from a different realm but evolved so similarly to fae that you wouldn’t know it. Convergent evolution was the theory.
Damon met my stare with a bold one of his own. “Surprising as it might be, I read, Uncle.”
When I turned back to Meera, she was still staring at her fingers. “I’m not opposed to being something weird. I just wish I’d known about it sooner. It’s another clue about where I came from.”
I watched a second longer, something tight settling in my chest. She wasn’t afraid of what she was or where the magic came from. Like everything else so far, she approached it with a quiet curiosity that felt innocent somehow. My mate was collecting pieces of herself and fitting them into the whole of who she was.
The glow in the air shifted, barely perceptible, but enough. We all froze.
Whatever further questions she might have had would need to wait.
Meera turned her head slowly and whispered, “Lanterns are dimming.”
The soft flicker of light near the huts had begun to fade, and the pastel creatures grew sluggish, their movements dulled.
“Prep time is almost over,” I said. “We move when the lights go down.”
Damon grumbled, “I still think this is dumb.”
“Dumb keeps us alive,” Meera said, already on her feet. “Let’s hope that trend continues.”
“No, dumb kills people,” Damon argued, wiping his palms. “You live in the Earth realm. You should know that.”
“Well, good thing we’re not in that realm, then.” Meera slung her bag over her shoulder, tension tightening her jaw. We all felt the edge creeping closer.
“We need to be mindful that land can shift at any time,” I whispered, reaching for Meera’s hand and squeezing. “We stay together. All of us. Understood?”
The three of them nodded in agreement and we waited until the last lantern dimmed to a soft glow.
And then we ran.
Chapter 13
Corvo
