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“These are not secrets, Tante,” I gritted out, willing her to get to the point.
“You can’t stop what you’ve put in motion, Declan. Might as well hear enough to have a fighting chance when she comes back to claim you.”
“Comes back?” I choked out, ignoring Tante’s scowl at being interrupted. My mother was dead. Killed before I could remember her face, along with my twin brother.
Tante hissed at me to be quiet. “Julianna lives, as surely as her gobbelin ancestors do. Frozen in time. In ice. In magic.”
She may have continued, but my mind had exploded into darkness streaked with flashes of lightning.
Gobbelinancestors?
“Yes... yes. Your blood is not all fae, I’m afraid. The true reason you were never to share your blood with the vampire girl is because even a single drop of that foul gobbelin ichor is enough to crack the egg of prophecy.”
“What are you saying, old fae?” I snarled, my mind roaring with confusion. The snake lunged at me, but Tante only smacked it to the side and watched it wriggle into the tree roots before staring me down.
“You were always meant to raise the gobbelins from their slumber, so that Haret could finally be cleansed of their filth. It was your single destiny, and so of course you have not escaped it. But we groomed you to wait untilafterthe princess had regained her throne and found her path to the ancient vampire magic. Only then... only then would she have been a match for the gobbelin king. Now... well.”
Tante sighed as though the world had just ended with a whimper, and she was a goddess watching the dust float away on the breeze.
“Julianna was part gobbelin?Iam part gobbelin?” I whispered, the possibility too horrible to be true. But Tante nodded.
“Your brother soaked up most of the blood in her womb. You are mostly fae. But the truth is there, braided right into your energy magic. You gain power from sex, do you not?”
My jaw dropped, and I shook my head, not wanting to believe her. No... the truth couldn’t have been so plain all these years.
Little was remembered of the gobbelins now, but their magic did depend on a twisted sort of succubus power. They fed on the pleasure of others, gouging out the sweetness of sex and desire, then carving it into something ugly, addictive, and destructive.
Those who fell victim to a gobbelin would soon wither away, forever wanting more and more of whatever pleasure the gobbelin meted out, until death finally drained them dry.
But that was nothing like what I did with pleasure to power my energy magic.
Was it?
Kana’s pleasure had fed my power, yes. But it had not drained hers.
“I hear you thinking too hard. You have very little gobbelin blood, Declan,” Tante repeated impatiently. “But through the threads of your destiny, it was enough to act as a siren call, echoing through the vampires’ ice magic, down into the cracks of the Sans Cesse Mountains and deep, deep in the black waters of the Surtout Sea. The gobbelins awake, Declan. They arise. And you need to warn your princess, before they arrive to take what little is left of her queendom, forever. They will not lose the wars this time.”
“No,” I whispered reflexively. I couldn’t let it happen. I stepped backward, and Tante hissed a warning at me.
“I am not finished, you rash young fae. Listen. Andrememberthis time. You were meant to give the princess your bloodaftershe had gained the vampires’ ancient magic. Then, it would have alchemized in her blood like a poison-tipped dagger to be used against the gobbelins’ return. Now... now she isinfectedwith it. It will grow. It will fester, as if she had tasted their forbidden fruit herself. And one day, shewilldie of this poison, Declan. Your only choice now is to help press the gobbelins back into their icy graves before she rejoins her ancestors in the mist. The wars will wait for the next generation, perhaps.”
“I... I have poisoned the princess?” I stammered, fury swirling through my chest as I focused on that detail. “Why wasn’t I told this? Why keep it a secret? How can I be expected to help anything or anyone when I have so little information?”
My voice had grown loud enough to attract attention, and Tante began to climb back into the hollow tree to avoid it. Soon, she would disappear, and the fairy creatures would find me again.
“You know the double-edged power of prophecy well enough, fae. You see the future, but never the whole future. Pray for forgiveness from the Goddesses, and perhaps they will give you another chance to play their games. They do want Haret to survive, I think.”
And with that, she curled back into the mess of bark and insects and rotten leaves, the tree wrapping its arms around her until she was gone, and the forest held the eerie silence of listening creatures.
The Goddesses may be playing to win, but that didn’t mean the rest of us were destined to share in the spoils.
Breathing deeply, I opened my senses to what awaited me in the forest, then chose my steps with as much speed and care as I could manage with such a swirling mess in my mind.
I had to get back to Saori Sang and find a way to tell Kana just how much of her life I had ruined.
