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I contemplated how much to say. I stood, walking away from the chair toward the large windows. The sun had set behind the horizon, allowing the darkness to creep in, but splashes of deep orange, pink, and purple still painted the sky. It tainted the world below in brilliant shades of purple and blue.
“I didn’t choose this life,” I finally confessed. “I never asked to become Conjurite.”
“Can it be forced on Fae?” Rainier asked.
“No, it can’t. It still has to be a conscious decision, but there’s a lot of trickery involved. Power is always attractive, isn’t it? That’s what Conjurite magic promises. Power and riches.”
“Riches?” Rainier echoed, surprised. “I wasn’t under the impression that Palgia is a rich kingdom.”
“It’s not,” I confirmed. “Having a lot of money, gold stacked high, and vast stretches of land means nothing when you have nothing to show for it. What can you buy in a kingdom where nothing grows? What’s the point of buying material things when mere survival is a struggle? Having a lot of land is wonderful…until you can’t cultivate it. Withoutlife, riches mean nothing.
A lot of the Conjurites were Fae who suffered, poor Fae who couldn’t get by, or Fae who couldn’t defend themselves against the raids that happened when Conjurites started stealing from each other. I’m talking about centuries ago, now. Long before my time—by the time being Conjurite was offered to me, it was the norm. Everyone had already done it.”
“This is a part of the kingdom’s history I know nothing about,” Rainier said. “So, someone with a lot of power—a Conjurite who already had that link to the dark magic—forced you to turn, too?”
I scowled. “If you’re asking me if Ichoseto give up the light, I did. I made that choice consciously, knowing what I was giving up. But you see, it was out of my hands.”
I glanced at Rainier. He sat in his chair, looking at me with an open expression, and he said nothing. He only let the silence between us grow. I filled that silence—it was what he wanted, but I didn’t have much to hide anymore.
“When I was born, I was a powerful Fae. One of the most powerful in the kingdom. My power had started much earlier than what’s normal, but when I came of age, it broke loose in an enormous surge. Falx and his dark High Priestess, Lavinia, found me. They wanted my power for themselves.” I looked at Rainier over my shoulder. “If you understand half of Falx’s greed for power back then, how he needed everything he could hoard for himself, you would know how desperately he wanted to use me.”
“Enough to convince you?”
“Enough to force me,” I answered. “He threatened my family. My father had left us to fend for ourselves by then, and I’d been the man of the house. Falx promised that if I didn’t turn to the dark side and relinquish my light, he would kill my mother and my sister. And if you know anything about Falx…”
“He would have kept his threat,” Rainier finished for me.
I nodded. “I had no choice but to do what he asked. I said the words. I gave up the light, but it wasn’t what I wanted. At least my mother and sister are safe.”
“I’m sorry,” Rainier said, and the sympathy in his voice made me frown at him.
“I’m not asking for your pity.”
“It’s not pity. I understand your pain. Where are they now?”
“They’re in Palgia, still. Safe and sound, since I did what Falx asked. I haven’t spent any real time with them in over a century. I see them once in a while to be sure they’re all right, but if anyone caught wind that I might be connected to them in a way that could still hurt me…I was terrified of what Falx might do to them.”
“Even now that he’s dead?”
I hesitated. “It’s not that simple.”
How could I go back to the family I’d abandoned? How could I go back, a tainted, dark man, when my mother and sister were still pure and light? They deserved all that was good, all that was worth it. I was none of that.
“Erol, you can return to the light if you want to,” Rainier said, standing. He took a step closer to me. “I know my wife and Nylah will do whatever it takes.”
I shook my head. “You have no idea what power I have, and how hard it will be to drive away the darkness. Right now, they’re not strong enough.”
Rainier frowned. “You can’t tell me you don’t want it gone.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m saying I don’t know how to get rid of it with how strong it is, how deeply I’m rooted in it. I’m not trying to be coy, Rainier, I’m being realistic. I know a lost cause when I see one.”
Rainier put his hand on my shoulder, and his power pulsed through me. Automatically, my darkness rose up to counter the light. I had to force myself to back down, to not go up against Rainier.
The darkness within me had a life of its own, and to try to fight it would only hurt me, and it would hurt the people I’d come to respect.
It was that life of its own that made me nervous to see my family again. What if I did something to hurt them? What if Falx would get his revenge on me beyond the grave after all?
The darkness we lived in wasn’t a joke. It was a living, breathing thing that lashed out when it felt like it. I wasn’t always in control. Sometimes, the darkness took over, and I became less than the sum of my parts—I maimed, I destroyed, I killed. I’d done a lot of that over the years, acting on the darkness that took over. I’d always felt terrible afterward, although a part of me relished in the pain, the anguish I caused.
