Page 274 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
“What do you think I was doing?” Luka retorted.
He ignored the sarcasm, letting his darkness swarm and billow, creating a shield to protect Axel and the Fae in case the wall exploded. Which would not be great and would probably alert his father, so he was really hoping that wouldn’t be the case.
Little by little, pieces of the wall fell to the ground. Tiny pebbles and pieces of shale. It sounded like raindrops as they fell faster and faster until they all crumbled into a pile, leaving them staring into a room. A small sofa for two. A table and chairs for the same. A small bed. And on her feet, wide emerald eyes staring back at them was?—
“Caris?” Axel rasped, and Theon was glad he said it, because he sure as fuck couldn’t.
He was just…staring at her.
A phantom of his past. A female he’d watched be tortured to death in front of his own eyes when he was scarcely ten years. A nursemaid who’d been more of a mother to him than Cressida had ever been.
Her eyes were bouncing between him and Axel and Luka, and she appeared as frozen as they were. No one daring to breathe or move. As if they were looking through a pane of glass.
“She is powerful,” Tessa hummed, stepping over the line of crumbled rock and into the room. “But she is trapped.”
“Tessa, stop,” Luka ground out, going after her and winding an arm around her waist. He pulled her back into his chest, his dragonfire brushing along her arms and stomach.
But now the female’s gaze was holding Theon’s, and all he could think to say was, “How?”
She smiled sadly as she took him in. “You’re tall.” Her gaze skipped between the three of them again. “You all are.”
“How?” Theon repeated. “You’re not… You can’t be…”
“You have to speak it otherwise I cannot say it,” she said, still as unmoving as he was.
A vow or oath of some sort then.
“You’re my mother?” Theon asked, the words quiet as they passed his lips.
And she nodded, something shifting in her features. A wariness, perhaps? Suspicion?
“We saw you die,” Axel said suddenly. “We watched it. What he did…”
“You watched the torture,” she said, her fingers curling at her sides. “You thought you saw my death.”
“We scattered your ashes in Sinvons Lake,” Luka said, and Theon could feel his own suspicion down the bond.
“But did you see my body burn?”
“None of this makes any sense,” Theon said. He took a step back, pebbles crunching under his shoes. “This is a trap.”
“How can it be? The Mark led you here,” Tessa said, seemingly back from the depths of her power.
“I hear you have become quite the academic,” the female said tentatively, clasping her hands in front of her.
“From who? Him?” Theon sneered.
She arched a brow. “Valter only visits me to gloat or try to force me to aid him. He never speaks of you. Of any of you. It was a torture in and of itself.”
“I think you need to explain…everything,” Luka said, still holding Tessa to him, and she was looking at the female with keen interest.
“She’s trapped,” Tessa said again.
Ignoring her, Theon said, “Start from the beginning.”
She studied him for a long moment, and he felt too godsdamn exposed. Why was he wondering what she thought of him? If he measured up? He’d watched Caris die, and even then, Caris couldn’t have been hismother. She was a Fae with water magic in love with Pen.
“My family line is the original line to rule Arius Kingdom,” she finally said.
