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Beryl laughed. “Oh, not at all. I killed my sister twenty years ago. Her dust has been stomped into the ground for my enemies to bleed upon. I don’t know why you would eventhinkthat I would keep that hussy as a hostage.”
Before I knew what I was doing, I crossed the room. One moment, I was at Ness’s side, the next I towered over Beryl. I’d stepped in-between at some point and hadn’t even noticed. That meant no one, not even Faust, could react before I grabbed Beryl’s chin and forced her to look up at me.
“You won’t even get the chance to join her,” I promised. “When you die, I’m scattering your ashes in a dog park for animals to shit on.”
Behind me, Ness snickered. The words that left my mouth were vile, but I meant them, nonetheless. I never wanted to see this woman again so long as I breathed. If I had to spend one more day in her presence, I would lose my mind.
“Where are Janessa and Mom?” I asked, digging my fingers into Beryl’s jaw as I spoke.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Janessa again. Only, it wasn’t Janessa. It was Faust, wearing Janessa’s guise so he could mockingly quiver and pout as he clutched his hands to his chest.
He must have thought that he had me shaken to my core, but the sight of him triggered another memory. A door in the back of my mind opened and a scene sprawled out before me.
I was small again. Someone held me tight to their chest while screams rang out in the distance. For a moment, I thought it was my fae mother. I squirmed to look up and found that it was another familiar fae face, Ostara.
She dropped to her knees as a shadow fell over her. Hugging me close, she bent her head over me to shield me from whoever approached.
“I do not wish to die today,” Ostara cried. “Please show some mercy for your old allegiances and spare me, Taliesin. I know that the Seelie have never shown you love, but I see now that you deserve it.”
I almost snorted at the ridiculousness of her words, but this was Ostara. Of course, she only realized someone’s worth the moment that it threatened her.
“I understand why you joined the Unseelie!” Ostara’s voice cracked. “I know now that we should have loved you as one of our own. Instead, we berated you. We treated you as lesser for your human origins. Truth be told, we were all jealous that you were born with a soul, and we were not.”
Ostara flinched as she waited for a response. Her grip on me loosened. I half expected her to fling me to the wolves to save her own skin.
“You were charged with raising Princess Cerridwen,” Tal growled low.
The hair on the back of my neck rose. Chills ran down my arms. I could hear the menacing threat in his voice. If he killed Ostara and took me, then Beryl would have no one to challenge her in the future.
But he didn’t. He stepped closer and knelt. When he reached for me, Ostara flinched only for Tal to run a hand along my halo of curls. Ostara stilled like she was waiting for the worst to happen.
“I know that her mother told you to raise her as your own,” Tal began.
That was new to me. Was that really what should have been? If that was the case, then why did Ostara dump me?
“If you take her, then Beryl will hunt you down. There will be no escaping. Are you prepared to be on the run forever?” Tal’s voice stayed low and whispered along the floor around us.
Ostara started to speak, but Tal stopped her.
“You’re not. We both know you’re not one to sacrifice anything. You will grow hungry for your old ways of life and let your guard down. The moment that happens, Beryl will catch up and take Cerridwen from your grasp.”
“Why do you care so much?” Ostara asked cautiously.
“I want the girl to have a fighting chance, and she won’t have that with you. Accept that, and we will move on to your new orders.”
Unsurprisingly, Ostara didn’t argue. We both knew, at this point, that Ostara was a tad selfish and lazy. Tal was using that to his advantage now.
He laid out a plan in which Ostara would bury my memories and leave me as a changeling with a local family. Tal suggested the local Pack. He reasoned that Beryl would not be able to touch Pack members without starting a war between the two. The Unseelie Queen wanted a court, and all out war with the other communities in Lakesedge would be her undoing. Placing me with Alvin’s Pack would buy me a decade or two, Tal reasoned.
I wanted to be mad at him for leaving me in Alvin’s cruel hands, but no one knew what kind of monster had been at the head of our Pack. Alvin only showed his true colors to us when Ness shifted into a hound and not a wolf.
I snapped out of the memory and realized that I’d been standing in the middle of enemy territory, absolutely defenseless for too long. Faust still stared me down with Janessa’s face, though there was a mean twist to his lips that told me he was enjoying this façade. He really thought that he’d scared me in some way.
“I’m going to tear your empire apart piece by piece,” I told him. “Starting with Rhoan.”
Turning away from Beryl and Faust, I could still feel the presence of another arcana beneath my feet. If it wasn’t my fae mother still caught in Beryl’s grasp, then what was it? I let my seed of arcana sit close to the other presence. The familiar power wrapped around my seed and hid it from Beryl’s sight.
Beryl’s awful little performance told me that I wasn’t going to be able to get our friends and family back this way. Knowing that I’d planted the seed of arcana in the court and hidden it well helped me walk out of here with my head high, but Ness didn’t see it that way.
