Page 158 of The Reaping Rose

Malachi twists the orb between his thumb and finger. It thumps at the pace of a beating heart.

“We are not supposed to speak of Mother,” I warn him, holding my chin high.

Malachi chuckles, and though he does not move, the air around me thickens. “What will Father do if I speak of her now? Return from the After to strip me of my crown? And to think he feared her. What little the Fae understand about what is out there.”

He holds his fingers up, weaving a ball of light, then watching as it melts like candle wax, dripping onto the ground.

“You speak as if you are no longer Fae yourself.”

“We are something greater, sister.” He lifts off the ledge, walking toward me.

My neck cranes farther back. He hasn’t grown taller, but it’s as if his presence is expanding. The limits of his being are no longer contained in his flesh. His magic reaches beyond it.

“You do not hear the whispers I do, but they see you. They hear you.” Malachi reaches, his hand shy of brushing my cheek when he pauses out of fear of what my shadows will do to him even now.

It is the reason my skin does not truly know touch. That my bones constantly ache for a connection. Anyone who dares come close is claimed by my magic, whether I wish it or not.

“Who do you hear?” I ask, my throat tightening at how distant Malachi’s eyes have become.

One blue, one gold, neither truly looking at me, even as they both don’t blink away.

Malachi shakes his head, not answering my question but pacing around the room with the orb in his grasp. “I feared what Mother was before I understood her.”

“There is no understanding her or what she did.” I shake my head. “It’s not natural.”

“And you are?” he snaps with such cruelty that my shadows swim around my forearms. “She was grieving. Could you blame her?”

My eyebrows pinch as I try to figure out why that matters. Why my brother would suddenly have any sympathy for what might be done in the name of grief. But then I recall the females who have walked from his chambers recently—reflections of Selia.

He’s grieving her, possibly regretting that he’s the one who killed her. And somehow, he’s using that to relate to our mother when he’s spoken poorly of her my entire life because of the magic she wielded.

When our father first met our mother, it was thought she didn’t have any magic at all. It wasn’t until my twin and I were born that the court learned the truth. I was born first, Hemlin second. And like in many cases of Fae twin births, Hemlin did not survive it.

Mother could not handle the grief, and in that moment she held his lifeless body, her magic woke in a brutal surge upon his corpse, revealing the nature of her power. She rested her hands on my dead twin’s chest, and his eyes snapped open. Father and his guards saw what she really was: a necromancer.

Only, necromancy is not a blessing. It’s a curse. What she raised was not her child; it was a creature with black eyes that opened its mouth and screamed until the piercing pitch made ears bleed and eyes water with blood.

Father killed Hemlin a moment later, and Mother coiled into her grief.

But the damage was done. The Guard dragged her away, knowing that what had been opened inside her could not be put back. To wake a necromancer’s magic is to allow something unnatural to take place, and to perform that magic once will result in far worse if done again.

Mother was killed the morning after I was born. I never knew her or my twin. But Malachi was there; he watched. He saw our father send her to Sarrow.

I wondered how Father could do such a thing to his own mate, even if it was his orders, not his hands, that killed her. Watching Malachi now, I understand it was mercy. That he knew they would reconnect in the After.

It’s believed one cannot harm one’s own mate, but that is not necessarily true. Harm can be interpreted in many different ways. If one truly believes they are keeping the other safe, is it harm at all?

Father did not believe he harmed our mother. He destroyed the necromancy that would consume her.

He saved her.

And then he erased her name, her memory, her being from this realm so he would not have to stare at that pain. Unlike Malachi, who casts light to create visions of Selia and surrounds himself with her, our father cast our mother out.

Malachi closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “We are going to make this different, Hazel. We will create something else soon.”

“And what if Wilder and Elorie have found a way to stop you?” I challenge. “You could be playing into exactly what they have planned.”

“They cannot stop what has already begun, not when they have brought exactly what I need to finish this. Elorie will give me what the orb wants.”