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My heart nearly pounded out of my chest when I turned a corner and found her - my beautiful, raven-haired princess - slinging icy mind magic at a storm cloud of raging fairies and cracking a vicious whip at a pair of gobbelins who had cornered her against a wall of sharp thorns.
She was a Goddess of destruction, but sometimes even Goddesses needed help.
I was her prophet, but I could be her warrior, too.
Drawing the bow I had secreted into the labyrinth beneath my clothes, I aimed an arrow tipped with Aralian fire stone. The arrow flew true and straight, the liquid lava trapped inside the stone exploding inside the gobbelin’s chest as it wailed and toppled to the ground.
Kana whirled to face me, her eyes growing round, then narrowing as she recognized my fae form. She was angry with me, and I had apologies to make.
But first, she had to be safe.
With only a single gobbelin to fight, she made quick work of the creature with her whip, lashing mortal wounds across its chest and splitting open its throat.
I busied myself creating a garden of foxgloves, using my glamor to call up the sweet scent of nectar and entice the fairies to crawl back into bed.
Fairies were completely unforgiving when their sleep was interrupted.
“Come,” I gasped, grabbing Kana’s hand as the last of them disappeared into the flowers, their lights twinkling with color beneath the petals.
She let me lead her into the nearest clearing, which had a narrow creek and reeked of ice magic and blood.
It was empty of vampires, though, and as soon as we were safe and the night was quiet again, Kana whirled on me.
“Where did you go? And why - how - are you here now?”
I bowed my head. “I am sorry, princess. I have many, many secrets to share with you, and I wish I’d shared them before. I have made everything so much harder for you.”
Her glare softened a small amount, and I felt hope rise in my heart again. I would do whatever it took to fix this.
I called up a bit more of my earth magic and coaxed a hedge of ivy to weave over and around us, sheltering us from sight. I wove in sweet-smelling vines to distract from our scent, and hopefully ward off any wandering gobbelins drawn to the lingering remnants of ice magic here.
Settling on the ground beneath the ivy canopy, I gestured for Kana to join me. She hesitated, and I felt more anxious than I ever had in the forests of Aralia.
“Please, love. I will tell you everything,” I coaxed.
Finally, she relented. “Start from the beginning, Rush... Declan.” Her eyes went to the pointy tips of my fae ears, then to the silvery tattoos at my neck.
“I... I think it might be more helpful to start here and work backward,” I suggested, trying to ignore her glare.
She kept silent, though, so I began to spill the swirl of thoughts I’d been trying to organize ever since that afternoon in the arena when she’d innocently tasted my blood and set all of this into motion.
“I sneaked into the labyrinth by glamoring myself as a blood slave. A noble pushed me from the back of a harpy into this section, and thankfully, it was the same one where you are. I came to find you, Kana. To tell you everything, and to help you, if you’ll allow me.”
“I guess it’s fitting that I would find my prophet in the Prophecy section,” she grumbled, and I suppressed most of my smile at her use of “my” to describe me.
Although I knew my role in her life, I’d been afraid for so long that she’d reject it completely because of her history with the fae, being forcibly engaged to my half-brother Killian.
Prophecies could tell the future, but they could also be changed, with the right amount of care and will.
“I am your Prophet, but the role given to me by the ancients in Aralia is a little larger. And unfortunately, in keeping that a secret from you, I have made a mess of things, love.”
“The blood? When I tasted your blood at the arena,” she guessed, and I nodded.
“It was my one task. To give you my blood - butonlyat the right time. I am truly sorry, Kana, although in my defense, even I was not told the entire story until two weeks ago when I left your city and traveled to Aralia to seek my own prophet. She told me pieces I hadn’t known were missing.”
“No more vague words, Rush. What are you? What did your blood do to me?” she asked, leaning away from me. She looked tired, as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and truly it was.
“In Aralia, I learned my mother was part... part gobbelin.” I winced as Kana hissed out a breath, but I kept going. “When you tasted my blood, it was meant to awaken the gobbelins, so that Saori Sang could eradicate them. To cleanse Haret, to succeed where your ancestors did not. They have been poisoning Haret from deep within, Kana.”
