“The Grove, Your Highness,” Eryndor replies, his tone heavy. “A large forest not far from here. You would have flown over it when you arrived.”
The memory hits like a blade. The sharp ache of it cuts through flesh and digs deeper, to a place I can never reach. I remember the moment too well, the pain that was more than physical, the sense of something lost before I even knew it existed.
“And this is where the threat lies?” I ask, my voice quieter now, though no less sharp.
Eryndor nods. His fingers move with an elegant, mystical flourish, and the mirror’s image shifts. It feels as though I’m there, walking the forest’s overgrown paths. The scene expands, bringing us to a sunlit clearing where lavender-colored flowers blanket the ground. The sunlight is dazzling, almost blinding as it spills over the blossoms. At the clearing’s center, next to a large boulder, sits a human.
A woman, young, though with humans, age is deceptive, always slipping just beyond my grasp.
She’s singing, her voice lilting and unfamiliar, the melody strange to my ears. The breeze tugs strands of her hair across her face, and she brushes them back with a delicatehand. I can’t discern the color of her hair. It could be brown, yet the thudding in my chest resists such simplicity. The same confusion grips me as I try to name the glimmering shade of her eyes. Both the song and the sight of her unsettle something deep within me, something I don’t yet have the words to name.
I stand here, Prince of the Mordorin, Commander of the Ebon Flight, a leader, a warrior, a being who has watched decades fold into centuries, unbent and unyielding. Yet before this girl, this human with her haunting song and unassuming grace, I feel undone.
“Your Highness,” Eryndor says, his voice slicing through my reverie. Only then do I realize I have been staring. How long I do not know, so intent was I on studying the delicate curve of her neck, the way her hair brushed her shoulder like silk.
“What?” I snap, the edge of my voice cutting sharper than I intend. Eryndor lowers his head, his posture contrite.
“My apologies, Your Highness. But this is her…the girl I sent word of.”
My stomach tightens. Impossible. It cannot be her.
“Who is she?” I demand, swallowing a lump that rises unbidden in my throat.
“She appears to be favored, not only by the village but by the elementals who dwell within the forest,” Eryndor replies cautiously. “It seems they are teaching her our magic, and her response to it is…unprecedented. Stronger than any we’ve seen before.”
I glare, my lips curling into a sneer. “The elementals?Yourelementals? The ones you failed to control?”
Eryndor flinches but presses on, glancing at Elyss as if seeking silent reinforcement. “The villagers worship them as gods. The Maledannan deemed it wiser to let them remain untouched, undisturbed.”
“And look where that wisdom has brought you.” My voice drips with disdain. “The humans in this forest revere those lesser Fae more than they revere you. You should have crushed this nonsense centuries ago, Eryndor, but you were too busy clawing at power over the Sundered Kingdoms.” My smirk sharpens, cutting deep. “You cannot even control the lands you were gifted.”
Eryndor’s lip twitches, a crack in his carefully constructed composure. The Lord of the Maledannan may shroud himself in civility, but there is darkness in him, vengeful, brooding. He needs only to slip, to let an ounce of that malice show, and I would gladly make a widow of his female.
“You are right,” he admits slowly, his tone tight with restraint. It disappoints me. “But despite my house’s failures, this matter must be addressed. If she is what we suspect…”
“Awakened,” I cut in, the single word heavy enough to stir unease in the room. Even Arax shifts behind me, dipping his chin, disbelief shadowing his eyes.
I step closer to the mirror, drawn toward the image of the girl like a moth to a flame. My gaze fastens on her, every fiber of my being resisting the urge to reach out and feel her warmth through the cold glass.
Arax’s grumbling voice rumbles at my back. “If she is Awakened, Your Highness, a human Awakened, she could be a greater danger that any Awakened before her.”
“Or a great asset,” I counter to him quietly over my shoulder, my eyes narrowing as I turn my accusing stare on Eryndor. “It surprises me the Maledannan even brought their suspicions to us.”
“They know better than to test us after last time,” Arax mutters darkly. “They’d be fools to repeat their mistakes.”
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I murmur. “I don’t believe for a second that anyone wouldn’t want to possess…her.”
My voice trails off, the words faltering under the sudden weight of my breath as I exhale. My chest tightens, the telltale shudder impossible to mask. Arax notices. His brow furrows, his gaze sharpening on me with quiet scrutiny.
“What now, my prince?” he asks.
“Now, I do what I came here to do,” I reply, rolling my neck as tension coils in my jaw. “I will determine if this human truly poses a threat to the Fae.” My gaze returns to the mirror, to the girl sitting in the clearing, oblivious to the storm she has summoned. “What is her name?”
Eryndor hesitates, glancing at the mirror. The girl plucks a flower from the grass, tucking it behind her ear with such simple grace it feels like an affront to the chaos she has already wrought in me.
“The humans call her Amara Tyne,” he says at last.
Chapter 2
