It felt as though the realm tilted off its axis, and I was spinning and twisting through the galaxy.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Hands were gently grippingmy shoulders. Large hands. And a scent drifted around me. Pine, cedar, and the sea.
“Prim?” a male said, as though far away.
My eyes fluttered open.
“Prim?” Kole said again, his voice quiet yet urgent.
I blinked and realized the warrior was hovering over me. Dazed, I took in the couch I lay on. “What happened?”
“You fainted.” His voice was rough and laced with concern, but he helped me to sitting. “I came back in when I heard your parents’ shouts for a healer.”
My parents.Kole knew who they were. Of course he knew, I thought bitterly. He and Jamie had admitted as much last night when I’d been in a similar state of shock after Gwen had admitted that my parents were alive.
My gaze cut across the table, and my mind sharpened as my fainting spell passed. Opalin and Roosep were still there, but they sat on the edge of their seats, their expressions coated in worry.
“I’m fine.” I shrugged Kole’s hands off, suddenly needing to put distance between him and me. Distance from all of them. Distance fromeverythingthat was happening in my life.
Magic roiled inside me, heating and growing. This was all too much.What’s next?My bitter thoughts grew.Is Ree going to betray me too?
I shoved myself into the corner of the couch, shaking. The star-studded gown I wore caught on the couch’s fabric from my rough movements, but I didn’t care. I angrily wrenched it free.
A knock came at the door.
I straightened. “Who’s that?”
“That should be the healer.” Opalin shot to her feet, but before she could hurry to the door, I frantically shook my head.
“No, I mean it. I’mfine. It’s just this stupid gown. It makes breathing hard, and what you said—” I shook my head again. “I don’t want a healer to see me. Please.”
Opalin and Roosep shared a troubled look, but after a second, both nodded, acquiescing.
“Kole?” Roosep said gruffly. “Would you dismiss them and then stay in the hall?”
The warrior’s aura still pounded into me from where he hovered beside me, but once again, he did as my supposed father demanded.
Straightening, I managed to regain my wits as Kole disappeared into the hallway again.
“Why?” I demanded, my voice hard and laced with the stinging feel of betrayal coursing through me. “Why would you lie about that for my entire life?”
Tears filled Opalin’s eyes, and she balled a hand to her mouth.
“It was the only way to protect you,” Roosep said hoarsely. “It was the only way to keep you alive.”
The two faesitting on the couch across from me, whom I’d always considered my family yet I had never actuallybelievedtobe my family, began to tell me the story of a young child who had been persecuted since the day she was born.
They spoke of an infant who’d been born at the exact moment of a great celestial event, to a powerful king and queen. The infant was their third daughter, a true blessing, since they didn’t believe they would be able to bear any further children.
But as the child was delivered, something happened to her at birth. Magic was unleashed upon the land as the celestial event imbued the realm with new power.
Yet that magic had sought the child and emboldened her with abilities that were whispered to be of the gods.
