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“I’m so glad you shared it!” Nylah said. “We will have so much to prepare!”
Ellie giggled with excitement, and she beamed and glowed with pride and joy. I smiled, watching her as she accepted the well-wishes and blessings from her friends graciously. Her excitement was contagious. For a brief moment, a pang of jealousy shot into my chest.
I wanted what she had—a love that would last forever, a male to stand by my side and support me no matter what. A baby. Or two, or three. The idea of starting a family had always been enticing.
I’d grown up as an only child, and it had always just been my mom and me. We were a family and went through everything together, but it wasn’t the same as the fairy tale families I’d seen around me and heard of, and I wanted that.
What I wanted most was a home to settle down in, children who could carry forth the legacy of everything we’d been through and everything we’d learned. What was the point of overcoming adversity if there was no future to pass it on to?
The women still gushed and cooed over Ellie and her pregnancy when I drew my concentration back to the conversation.
“How will it work with your magic?” Mom asked Ellie. “Will the baby inherit your power?”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “I haven’t even thought about it. Nylah, what do you think?”
Nylah furrowed her brow. “Hmm. You were born with the light, Ellie, so I can’t see why your baby won’t have the same light. You and Ren both have incredible power. I can’t see how the baby would have anything less.”
“If your baby is born with the light, the future of the kingdom will be bright indeed,” Mom said. “They will have healing power like no Fae that’s ever been heard of, an amalgamation of your power and the king’s.”
“Healing power?” I asked.
Nylah and my mom both nodded.
“I guess that makes sense. The baby will inherit it. I don’t understand how it works with me, though.”
“How what works?” Mom asked.
“Ellie was born with the light, so it makes sense that she can heal the Conjurites and bring back their Luminescence. What about me? I wasn’t born with the light, I was just a regular Fae baby.”
Nylah tapped her finger against her chin.
“Well, let’s work it out. Terra bestowed the light upon Ellie when she was born, but since she was born from Vanya, Vanya has the light, too.”
Mom gasped. “Really?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Nylah said. “Terra is just and kind. She wouldn’t have given you a child with abilities you yourself didn’t possess. How could you raise a child you don’t understand? Her kindness would have allowed you to have it, too. Why not give you a special gift she bestowed on her daughter?” She smiled. “I see that light in you when we work together in your priestess training.”
My mom beamed, looking pleased with herself.
It still didn’t explain why I could heal the Conjurites.
“You were born of Vanya, Hazel,” Nylah said, as if she could read my thoughts. “It stands to reason that you were born with the light then, too. It’s really a matter of genetics, if you think about it.”
“It has very little to do with genetics,” Ellie said with a laugh.
Nylah shrugged and laughed, too. We all joined in. Joy flooded the room as we sat together, sharing in the happiness of the news.
My mind drifted away from the conversation again, to what lay ahead of us. We were going to save the Conjurites. I wasn’t sure how we would do it—we had so many of them to help, and we’d managed to save so few. I was convinced we would figure something out. Nylah had never been more determined about anything, and Ellie was personally invested, since the Conjurites were now also her people.
If there was one thing my half-sister had in abundance, it was compassion. She’d inherited that from my mother, just as I had. We all cared so much about the people who were trapped in darkness, serious about freeing them. They hadn’t realized what they were doing when they’d given up the light. They’d been ruled by a king who’d taught them that the darkness was the only way to go.
Erol flashed before me again, with his dark hair and deep eyes. The way he’d looked at me sent shivers down my spine just thinking about it, and my insides clenched. He was handsome in a rugged, unrefined kind of way, and despite the fear that flowed from him like a river, his raw, unadulterated power made me ache for him.
Even now, when I wasn’t close to him.
“Hazel?” my mom called, and I glanced up, realizing they were talking to me, and I’d missed a part of the conversation.
“What?”
