AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nylah looked at my hands as she held them, but I knew she was concentrating on what she felt, not what she saw. When she looked up at me, her eyes were filled with new knowledge, with a certainty that scared me.
“This is Fae magic, Ellie,” she said.
“How can it be?” I asked. “Did the hunter do something to me?”
Or had it been Ren, because we’d slept together? I didn’t verbalize that part. Nylah didn’t seem concerned about it, but I still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Nylah shook her head. “Fae can’t bestow magic on others, Ellie. That’s not how it works. We are born with it, we wield it. Some are more powerful than others. But we can’t give it to others. If you have Fae magic, then it’s all yours.”
I shook my head again and again. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Nylah frowned, focusing on what she felt again. I watched her turn her concentration inward. “There’s something else. Power that I don’t understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never felt this kind of magic before. There’s something about you…”
She let go of my hands and folded hers in her lap. She looked up at me, her face a mixture of expressions.
“We’ll find out what’s going on, Ellie. I promise. And none of this is bad, okay? The magic I sense in you, although unfamiliar, isn’t evil.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. A part of me had wondered if this had been because of Zander and what he’d done. Even when Nylah had said they couldn’t transfer magic.
“What am I?” I asked in a thin voice.
Nylah shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s what we’re going to find out. But there is one thing I know—you’re not fully human.”
27
Istruggled to wrap my mind around what was happening. My whole life had changed, but it was easy enough to get used to a new routine, to get fit and eat right and do all the things that made me ready for battle.
I’d still been human. I’d still been Ellie. I’d been myself.
But now, everything was changing. It wasn’t just my home and my routine and where I belonged. Suddenly, I wasn’t who I’d thought I was all this time.
And it was terrifying.
Nylah was set on figuring it out. She spent the next two days poring over books, locked up in her cathedral, going over everything she could find.
She found nothing.
I tried to do research of my own, but the palace library was filled with fiction rather than history books and books about magic and spells. Normally, I’d be okay with that—thankful, even. But right now, I needed some help.
My own books were no aid—the warriors had training manuals and historic accounts of wars won more than anything else on their shelves.
Nylah called for me on the third day. She looked thin and exhausted.
“I’ve been trying to find answers, but I have nothing for you, Ellie,” she said. Her voice was apologetic.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not.” She shook her head. “I’m determined to find out what this is. I want to do a few rituals and spells, if that’s okay with you. It’s a bit more intense than the hand-holding we’ve done before, but I don’t know how else to do it.”
“Will it hurt?” I asked.
“Not at all. It’s just different from what you’ve seen before.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I wanted her to find out what was going on with me.
