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He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers. Sparkles of light I remembered from my childhood shimmered around his hand. My eyes widened. “That was real magic. You’ve been using real magic around me this whole time?”
He rocked his head. “Not since the incident. That’s why I went strictly to card tricks.” He made a disgruntled face. “Which, annoyingly, were your favorite of all my tricks, anyway.”
I laughed, taking me a moment to calm.. “I just need to know, Dad, why didn’t you tell me the truth when I came of age?”
He frowned. “Because of everything that happened. After losing your mother and nearly losing your life, I couldn’t add something else that would bring you pain and disappointment.”
Because I would have been a regular human. Not special. Broken. Unworthy. “So the only way you would have told me, was when my magic manifested.”
“If, Ace—if. And the older you got, the more that likelihood faded.”
I smirked. “Here’s the thing about the world that I’ve learned—it likes to surprise us when we least expect it. And I really love that I now understand where my magic comes from, since that’s been quite the conundrum for the last few weeks.”
Dad’s attention sharpened. “Ace?”
I held up my hand and made the same shimmer of sparkles he had. “Surprise, late bloomer.”
Diego and the gods choked on laughter. My dad, however, stared at me. Both pride and sadness flickered across his face.
“You… learned it without me.”
I frowned. “Dad…”
He grabbed my hand and shook his head. “Don’t, Ace. I don’t want you apologizing. We don’t control when our magic manifests. Even if our family is known for much earlier manifestations. I just had hoped, when it did manifest, I would be the one to teach you.”
I squeezed his hand. “You still can. There’s so much more I can learn. Even if Aya is teaching me, I’m sure you’ve got a few tricks I can snag.”
He smiled. “You’re right. I’d be a poor father if I didn’t continue the family tradition, even if you’ve had a head start.”
“You’d never be ‘shit dad,’” I said. “Well, unless you don’t explain to me what you mean by family tradition.”
He refilled his glass with wine, allowing me to take a sip. “Our family is one of the few that has a long-standing blessing of magic users every generation. Until me, they were all the firstborn daughters, and sometimes, if that generation was lucky, their other daughters would be as well. Of course, magic is subjective. It wasn’t always like ours. Some could heal, others saw—”
“Visions,” I said, a strange feeling falling over me. “You told me once we had Scandinavian heritage. Are you saying you’re from a family line of volva?”
His brow pinched together. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Did you have a sister?” I asked. “Named Randi?”
He watched me for a moment, his eyes only flicking to Aya briefly, who sat much straighter with this topic of conversation. “Randi is a namesake in the family. The only time anyone deviated from naming their firstborn Randi was when they named her—”
“Astrid.”No fucking way.The exchange I made with Aya confirmed the exact conclusions I was coming to. “Your sister was your twin, and you were the first and only male inheritor of the magic gift of our family.”
Dad’s eyes shifted between us. “What is going on? How do you know this?”
“How many Astrids were born into the family after the death of Volva Astrid, daughter of Volva Randi, the reason for the namesake, after her death in battle?”
“Astrid, how do you know that?”
“Answer the question, Dad.”
“Nine, including you. It became seen as a family curse because—”
“They all died as children in an animal attack,” Tyr finished, catching on. “But regardless of all that, you still felt compelled, possibly unnaturally so, to name your daughter Astrid.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Dad sat straighter, though he looked more defensive than interested. “Urd said you were no longer human, Astrid. What did she mean by that? It’s time I get some answers instead of providing them.”
“You are the descendent of Leif, son of Bjorn and Volva Randi.” I placed a hand on my chest. “Brother of Volva Astrid, chosen wife of the Norse god Tyr, who ascended to immortality and died in the war of the Norse gods. And through complicated magical means, was reincarnated into the family over and over again, as her former enemy found and killed her, until Freya finally found her first, and made sure she was protected this time.”
