Page 105 of A Courage of the Chosen

Everything spins, and the ground isn’t steady beneath my feet.

“You’re just. Like. Me.”

“No.” I slam the door shut between us, fisting my hair into my hands.

It can’t be. Tavish has done something to me. When he speared his darkness into my veins, he broke something fundamental and corrupted me. I’m nothing, nothing like him.

“An taghadh.” The ancient voice hasn’t spoken into my mind for a long while, and despite her absence, those two little words have haunted me.

The Chosen.

But Chosen for what?

I sprint from the courtyard on wavering legs, as though I can escape it.

The answer is there. In my magic. In my heart and soul. It solidifies with every breath I drag in, every horrified blink, and every heavy footstep.

With each pace away from it, my stomach plummets, because there’s no coming back from this. From who I am.

I’m a light wielder.

The last living Darrow.

I’m a friend. A daughter. A granddaughter. A lover.

Queen of Elfayne.

I’m also part Dorche.

Chapter 30

Elsie

I’m spiraling.

My father was Dorche. He passed that power onto me, and I have zero fucking idea how to deal with that.

Callahan can sense something has shifted. If I hadn’t made it blatantly obvious since I pieced it all together last night by shutting myself off from him in every sense, the drawn expression on my face would be give away enough.

There’s no way I can tell him now. Any of them.

Not Rach or Reyne or Brodie or Eòghann. Not after how quickly they killed Kerr. They mourned him, we all did. But it was so easy.

I don’t think I can even tell Grandpa.

He said it meant nothing. Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps some things were kept from him, too, and Granny died with the truth. Was Granny even aware of this darkness within me?

There are some things that are hard to believe, but some truths are easy to accept, because I’ve known.

Deep down, I knew what that beast was, and that Tavish simply unlocked it with his power. A side to me that has always been there waiting patiently for the day I stopped fighting my own damn nature.

I wield mist and light and shadows.

Gripping the edge of the sink, I glare at my reflection locked in my palatial bathroom. I haven’t slept at all. I lay staring at the ceiling with Callahan’s hand over my waist, flitting between denial and pure, unadulterated panic.

The sun has barely risen through the gap in the curtains, but I can’t be still any longer.

I need to get out of here.