1980 - 2001
There wasnothing more than a date and a name. No inscription, no note, nothing of who he was or what he meant to people. It felt so cold.
The wind whipped by, and Emma stared at the stone. “I thought his grave would be more... I don’t know, impressive. The way my mom talks about him, he sounds so... amazing.”
“His parents probably paid for the headstone,” I said. “If things weren’t great between them before he died, they did the bare minimum required to mark his grave.”
Emma shivered. She placed the white roses over the plot and removed the paper, stepping back into me.
“There,” she said. “It looks a little better now.”
Emma teared up. She tried to hold them back, but a few tears slipped out of her eyes.
My face twisted, and I wrapped my arms around her. “Oh, Emma.”
She turned into me, and started to sob. I felt awful— this was bringing up all kinds of churning, painful emotions from the loss of my own father, but I couldn’t break down now. Not when Emma needed me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I shouldn’t be grieving someone I never even knew.”
“It doesn’t matter if you never met him. He was your father,” I said. I rubbed her back and held her close. “That’s still a loss.”
“I just... I wish he was here. I never had a dad. I’d hoped and dreamed I’d get to meet him one day. My mom told me he died years ago, but it was like there was this stupid piece of hope inside of me that refused to believe it.”
She sniffed and pressed herself into my coat. “I didn’t think he was really dead. But now that I’m standing at his grave, I can’t deny it. This is proof that he’s gone.”
I knew how she felt, because even though I’d watched my own father die, I couldn’t believe it myself. Not until I’d observed his body be sealed in the tomb at the cathedral.
“I’m here for you, Emma. Now and always.”
I pressed my lips into her hair as she cried. And there, in the twilight of the falling snow, I held her.
Chapter Eight
Emma
After the meeting with my mother, Ethan and I didn’t have any leads on investigating my mysterious Unseelie ancestry. He’d used some of his leverage as prince regent to get us into the sealed-off Arcanean Hall of Records, but we’d searched, and Anastazy’s records didn’t contain any mention of him being Unseelie. As it was written, his ancestors— and mine— were all Seelie.
I felt like I didn’t know who I was or where I’d come from. The only other avenue we had was talking to my grandparents, but I had no desire to meet them after seeing my father’s headstone. They hadn’t even mentioned he was a father, a mate and a son. They’d invested the minimal effort required to give him a decent burial.
My mother had to be right. They knew I existed, and they’d never reached out, not once in nineteen years. They were evil, and I wanted nothing to do with them.
So, with the mystery unsolved, I buried myself in my classes. Faction Abilities was becoming my favorite class— not just because I was good at wolven magic, but because it was the only class where I got to spend time with Ethan.
Today we were working on expanding my telepathy magic. Ethan had me levitating heavier and heavier objects each time we met. This class period, I’d lifted a stack of heavy books and a ten pound dumbbell.
“You’re doing well,” Ethan said when we’d advanced to the twenty-pound dumbbell and it’d failed to phase me. “Your power’s growing in strides.”
I beamed. I loved hearing Ethan’s praise. My attention turned to an alicorn statue on the other side of the classroom— it was taller than me, and had to weigh at least a hundred pounds.
Ethan caught me eyeing it. “Emma, don’t try it,” he warned. “You’re not ready.”
I didn’t listen. I wanted to prove to him I could do it. I focused my eyes on the statue. The alicorn began to shake— it wavered back and forth on concrete hooves before it shakily rose into the air. I expected to feel some sort of resistance, but the statue lifted at my request. Ethan’s eyes widened in shock.
I could only lift it a foot off the ground before I felt my powers begin to fail. I gently set the statue down— scattered applause littered throughout the classroom.
“Well done, Miss Sosna! Very good for a First Year,” Professor Lunesta said.
I beamed. Last semester I’d fainted when trying to levitate a stone. Today, I was able to lift a hundred-pound statue without breaking a sweat.
