Page 39 of A City of Flames

My face hardens into concentration at the candle. I’d heard how rare witches are—that they use their magic to enchant any mortal, and if it is witnessed, they’ll be hanged.

“It’s not true, you know. What they say about us enchanting mortals.”

My eyes dart up through furrowed brows. “Did you just read my mind?”

She shakes her head, drawing her bottom lip in. “No, we can’t read minds, but we can feel emotions, influence them even. And based on your apprehension followed by the idea that everyone thinks of witches as manipulators, it’s not hard to guess that was what you were thinking.”

Now I have the urge to hide any emotions of mine.

Shifting on her seat, she says, “Millennia ago our ancestors—witches called Exarees—were guides and protectors to shifters after they helped the Exarees against the raging wars with—”

“Sorcerers,” I cut in. “I know the history.” Sorcerers and witches had feuded for centuries before the treaty, most against power. Sorcerers wanted to rule Emberwell, the witches did not agree, neither did the shifters. And after the witches and shifters won, not many sorcerers lived. Now, most spoke of only a few alive, residing in other kingdoms.

“So, you know of the Rivernorth bloodline. The previous rulers of Emberwell that were shifters.”

Again, I try not to let it show on my face, the surprise of never hearing that name. I know there was a ruler before the queen but who? I’ve never been told. “No,” I mutter.

“I thought so.” She leans back, talking more to herself.

“And how do you know?” I ask, narrowing my brows. “Witches aren’t immortal.”

“I know because my sister,” she says, cautious, “fell in love with a shifter over twenty years ago. He’d lived through the era when the treaty was forged, lived to see the fall of the Rivernorths. All killed, which means someone else had to take the throne.”

“The queen,” I say with the single thought that’d popped into my mind. “Did she... kill them?” I’d wondered what her story was, what she is if she held power for someone who’s lived over three hundred years.

“It’s a possibility,” Leira hums. “But the true extent of what happened is not known. That side of history is buried deep within Emberwell, I’ve only known parts here and there thanks to my sister.”

“And where is your sister now?”

A speck of sorrow shines in her hazel eyes as she holds my stare. “She perished.”

I can’t sense emotions, feel them like Leira says she can, but I felt pain in those two words. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” I whisper, hiding the grimace over telling her a phrase I’ve despised hearing myself from others in the past.

Her thankful smile is weak and sealed. “You know, sometimes I prefer to imagine she’s somewhere else still alive, perhaps in one of the other lands of Zerathion. Then I remind myself how impossible that is when we can hardly step into other lands without the possibility of being killed or enslaved.”

“It’s hardly fair that other leaders can cross kingdoms as they please.”

Leira nods. “Except for the only ruler who has never once made an appearance in any other land, the king of Terranos.”

The Elven king.

“Why?” I ask. I’d thought previously that the Elven king despised Emberwell too much to ever come. For all I know, it could still well be the exact reason for him never crossing territories. He is the one whose land is known to hold the darkest, most fearsome place... The Screaming Forests.

I shudder, remembering the times I’d come close to the borders when trapping and days where Idris would pick me up as a child who’d wandered near there.

“It’s something I’m still trying to figure out, “ Leira notes. “Aelle and I thought perhaps he is the one in charge of those new creatures.”

I frown at the mention of the new breed. “What about the Golden Thief?”

“That boy?” Her brows rise. “He may be the only known shifter to carry all three dragon powers, but it’s doubtful he’s the one causing havoc other than robbing every store out there.”

Just don’t worry about those rumors, Lorcan had told me, but it’s all I can do. “Well, did your sister never say? She knew a shifter, why—”

“Because even then she was secretive, she held onto many things and—and we’d fought too much, too often until she left one day, and I didn’t see her for many years. I had to hear from someone who knew the shifter that they’d both been found dead near a forest up north.”

I shut my mouth, slouching back onto the chair. The candle wavers amongst my movements. And then, after a minute of silence, I ask, “How did you know my father?” My voice is unrecognizable.

Leira loosens a defeated breath, running a hand through thick obsidian curls. “A year prior to his death, we’d met when another venator had accused me of stealing. Your father swooped in and saved me. He’d always spoken about how he didn’t agree to many aspects of a venator. And that day as a token of my appreciation, I invited him for tea, and from then on, he made sure to visit once in a while.”

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