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“How did he meet Elvira?” I whispered, and Meredith picked up the story quickly before Rycon could resume.
“The Court of Lust had grown unhappy in their position and wanted more. the queen of The Court of Lust at the time was Anjoilie Nevra. Ash Nevra’s mother.
“Being queen of the Court of Lust was not enough for Anjoilie Nevra. She wanted to be queen of the Dominion, she began to attempt to seduce Aleites. She hoped he would mate with her, and she would rule at his side. Aleites had created the Dominion of Sin to alleviate his boredom and loneliness. Consequently, he found Anjoilie’s advances amusing in the beginning. He would entertain her in his palace from time to time and enjoy her company when she offered it. However, he never intended to share his throne with her.
“When Anjoilie’s games became tiresome, he would often leave the Dominion to wander the human realm in peace.” Meredith paused to take a sip of her tea before carrying on.
“Then, one day, while wandering through the pastures of England, he found her, his life mate. She was the daughter of a farmer, working in the fields. She had long dark hair to match his own, black as the raven, and a smile that eased the crushing loneliness he had been plagued with since the beginning of time.” That must have been my mother. My mind was spinning. How could that be? If this story was true and this had happened hundreds of years ago, how was I here now, about to turn eighteen? Conrad picked up the story again.
“There are many versions of di story dat retell their courtship, but each version ends di same. Aleites making Elvira his mate and taking har back across The Veil wid him to rule at his side. As yuh can imagine, dis did nuh go over good with Anjoilie.”
Meredith interjected, “Of course, Anjoilie was not the only one who was unhappy with the pairing. Many of the other courts believed that a human had no right to rule them, especially when many of them had been denied the taste of the fair species for so long by Aleites himself. The tension was felt even on the other side of The Veil. The magick folk and the shifters all knew a revolt was coming.
“Everyone could see it, except for Aleites, who was blinded by his love for Elvira. Knowing that she was mortal and she would die in a short period of time by a daemon’s standards, he impregnated her, hoping for a more permanent piece of her to remain by his side.” Meredith met my eyes. “He impregnated her, and you were conceived, Raven.”
“So wait, you’re trying to tell me that I was conceived three hundred and sixty years ago?” I tried to laugh at the silliness of it, but everyone in the room was dead serious. “Jesus,” I whispered.
Rycon snorted. “That guy has nothing to do with it, believe me.”
“Anyweay ,” Conrad said loudly, “De news dat dis mortal woman was pregnant with a half-breed infant, who would one day rule de Dominion of Sin, enraged Anjoilie. Dis was unacceptable, and she would nah have it. She alone was not strong enough to stand against Aleites. She would need an army to back har up if she were going to usurp di throne. As unhappy as di rest of di courts were with di arrangement, dey did not feel personally slighted as Anjoilie did, and dey would not join har in her vendetta. Dey feared Aleites enough tuh deny her deir swords.
“Finding no allies in Di Veil, she was forced tuh look elsewhere, and traveled to di mortal world, where she had heard of a powerful line of magick folk, di Nightshades.” I was starting to get where the story was headed, and my blood began to run cold.
Conrad continued, “It was a dangerous time for magick folk and shifters alike, all over di globe. Enslaved Obeah practitioners in Jamaica were often blamed for tings like hurricanes and were hanged by slave owners as ‘punishment.’ Di British at the time worried dat Obeah would be used against dem after slaves were liberated, so dey prohibited it. Di practice of Obeah is still technically banned in Jamaica.”
“Things in Europe were not much better.” Meredith added. “There were regular witch hunts, especially in Scotland, where women were captured, interrogated in unwinnable trials, and burned at the stake. Men were not safe either, as they could just as easily be accused of being a shapeshifter or werewolf that the devil sent. Usually, the humans never caught a true witch or shifter, and it was their own kind who was burned at the stake, but all the same. Covens and tribes alike were lying low, doing their best to keep attention off of themselves.”
Rycon’s skin rippled again, and I wondered if the beast that lived within had been awoken at the thought of being hunted. “My sister and I learned about the witch hunts in our lessons as children.” He said, his voice a low growl. “Many innocent lives were killed in horrific ways. Shifters were often mistaken for witches, caught and then tortured to death.”
Conrad nodded in a rare display of agreement with the shifter. Meredith picked up the narrative, her eyes haunted.
“The Nightshades were even more influential in the magick community in the 1600s than they are today. They resented being hunted and hiding out like animals. So when Anjoilie approached the head of their coven and promised them power beyond their wildest dreams, it was not a hard decision for them to make. They followed Anjoilie across The Veil and into the Dominion of Sin. A rare privilege for any mortal being. It was unheard of for a daemon to allow passage to someone who is ‘other.’” She glanced at me with sympathy in her eyes.
“Anjoilie knew that she would not survive her attack against the throne. As she took on Aleites, she knew that he would kill her. She just needed to keep his attention long enough for the coven to work their magick. There is no known way to kill The Origin, so they froze him and his mate in stone, doomed to live for eternity bound and separated. As the curse began to set, and Aleites realized what was truly happening, he created a curse of his own. A curse on the Nightshades and the Court of Lust.
“He vowed that one day, a Nightshade with a pure heart would emancipate themself from the cursed family. By doing so, they would undo the curse on Aleites’ mate, and his child would be born from her womb of stone. He cursed Anjoilie’s entire line with your existence. Anjoilie was killed by one of Aleites’ guards shortly after he turned to stone.” I gaped at Meredith, my mouth hanging open.
She pressed on, “With no one to stand in her way, Ash Nevra rose to take her mother’s place as head of the Court of Lust, and she assumed control of The Dominion of Sin. As long as you exist, Raven, you are a threat to her. You are the one true heir to the Dominion of Sin. You are The Origin’s daughter.”
34
I sat in my mother’s out-of-date chesterfield and tried to process all this. Nearly eighteen years ago, a member of the Nightshade family had emancipated themselves from the line and triggered my supernatural birth. I was the heir to some daemon throne that I did not want. I was the only thing standing in the way of an evil daemon who wanted to rule over an entire world of godlike beings.
It took several long moments for me to realize that everyone was staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I surprised myself and managed to remain calm. As overwhelming and impossible as this information was, it felt right in some strange way. Somehow, I knew in the depths of my bones that it was all true. Now I just needed to decide what to do next.
Every fight I had ever gotten into happened because someone attacked me first. They would put me down and berate me for no reason other than the fact that they were afraid of me. I hadn’t understood why, but I knew now they were picking up on something neither they nor myself could have possibly understood. For the first time in my life, I knew why I was being attacked, and I would be damned if I would stop fighting back now.
I had a family that I had to somehow protect from the mess I had been born into. I wasn’t about to let this evil queen ruin my life any more than I was going to let Neil Green humiliate me in front of a room full of my peers. If Ash Nevra wanted to pick a fight with me, I would approach it the same way I always did, head on.
“Alright,” I said, my voice calm. “So, with all that being said, please explain to me why we’re trusting this Kieran person if he’s a Nightshade.”
Conrad and Meredith looked relieved at my obvious acceptance of the tale, and Rycon looked relieved.
“Kieran claims that he is the one who emancipated himself from the line,” Conrad explained. I mulled over this bit of information.
“Do you believe him?” I asked. Conrad bobbed his head back and forth as if mulling over the question himself.
“Mi nuh know. When someone separates demselves from deir bloodline, it sends a shockwave through di world, and dey normally leave di name behind. Mi remember feeling a surge of power when mi was very young, and yuh’re here, so di emancipation definitely happened. However, mi nuh di only one who thinks it is strange dat Kieran has kept di name ‘Nightshade’ despite his supposed denouncement of di line.”
