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“Our lives are always growing and shifting with every choice we make.” The prince sighed. “Admittedly, I thought you might recall your abilities when you returned, but I can help you find them once again.”
“Abilities?” My voice was hardly a breath.
Destin gingerly took hold of one of my palms, turning it toward the sky. “In your life, do you ever recall strange occurrences? The unexplained? Did these events ever happen near you if you were upset, or frightened, or angry?”
My eyes went wide.
A lifelong plague had hovered close whenever I tried to find a bitof peace in the world. Promptly, it would pull it away and toss me into chaos without a notion as to how.
My fifth-grade bully, when he stole my chocolate milk, took a drink, and it wasn’t milk at all. It was bleach. The school got sued, and I’d been expelled and re-homed after another girl insisted I’d touched the milk. All I’d done was glare at the kid.
Or when my only friend junior year broke out in a month’s long chicken pox that festered. She’d told me to meet her at the football field where I caught her and my first boyfriend having sex behind the bleachers.
Lloyd’s supernatural-obsessed cousin accused me of being a witch when one of the goons of their gang tried to grope my breast after a meeting and his fingernails fell off as his skin practically rotted to the bone overnight.
“I’m going to take your silence as an affirmation,” said Destin, drawing me back to the moment. He smiled kindly, assuredly, the sort of smile that didn’t cut at my oddities but welcomed them. “You are a mage, Adira Ravenwood. You are the Blood Sacrifice returned to us.”
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“No.” Destin tightened his hold on my hand. “The Blood Sacrifice is the name for a woman who gave her life so we might live. It was always prophesied she’d return.”
I snorted. “That’s insane.”
“Then I wonder why you seem so at ease. As though your life might finally be making sense? Did you even know the tongue in which you are speaking? I assure you it is not one of the mortal languages. I do not know them.”
My lips parted, and I strained to hear—all around satin lilts and accents and interesting words were rapidly murmured in the curious crowd. I didn’t know the words . . . but I could understand. A lot of chatter about uncertainty if I was House Ravenwood. Comments about my bare feet. Remarks on my eyes looking familiar.
When I didn’t respond, Destin opened one arm toward the door. “Come. You’re welcome here at Briar Keep. Dine with me. I havemany questions, but perhaps, I may be able to answer yours. This is real, Adira.”
One breath, then another. I studied the thick, mahogany doors on the fortress. I looked about at the curious faces. I returned my gaze to the prince who still held out his hand. Slowly, I curled my fingers around his and followed him up the staircase.
CHAPTER 10
Adira
A manin a deep crimson tunic with leather boots to his knees ordered women with gold bonnets over braids to toss back velvet drapes. Skeins of pale sunlight broke through enormous window panes, igniting a dreary entryway of Briar Keep into a wonderland of bright colors and endless corridors.
Cold stone and wood beams made up the outer walls, but inside, tapestries and rugs lined polished wood floors. Staircases spiraled around towers, and iron chandeliers hung from rafters overhead, flickering in curious flames.
“They’re colorful,” I said a little aghast.
“Yes,” Destin said, studying the ebony, lavender, and brilliant green of the dancing flames. “Ignis mages—fire workers—enjoy making the flame a bit more interesting.”
With half a dozen of the riders keeping pace at our backs, we rounded a corner into an open room. Spacious and wide. Stone tiles made the floor, and the colorful pattern spiraled toward the center where a long oak table was set with silver dishes and covered platters.
The scent of the hearth warmed my throat—spiced oak and cedarwood—and my steps moved like a rehearsal of a dance I’d always known.
“Welcome to the great hall, Adira,” Prince Destin said,arms open in a sweeping gesture to the room. “You are our guest. This is where we gather for feasts and good company.”
Dim, but comfortable. Woodsy, but warm.
I paused at a row of items on display along one wall, glittering things propped on wooden pedestals—blades with emeralds crusted down the steel, a headdress with blue and gold feathers, jade beads wrapped with ruby crystal.
What brought me to pause was a gold wrist band, nearly identical to the arm ring of the thief, only this one was fashioned like the gold was made of rope. Instead of wolves at either end of the curve were two gaping maws of two bears, as though the heads snarled and snapped at each other.
As desperate as a moth to a flame, I could not step back, I could not cease gawking. There was nothing so glamorous about the band. Still, my blood thudded in my head, my fingers twitched restlessly by my sides.
A longing to touch it, to claim it, knotted in my chest like a coil of barbed wire and would not release me.
