AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All the information I’ve just learned seems to blur together, as if three different letters have been drafted on the same piece of parchment, right on top of one another, and I’m having to sift through them character by character to decipher the meanings.
“There’s still the question of what the Queen of Mystral has to do with this. What she wants with the parasite,” says Kiran.
A single name whispers in my ear, carried on the draft let in from the hall.
“Farin,” I whisper. “She wants Farin.”
Asha’s spine goes rigid, but it’s Kiran who jumps to his feet.
“What did you say?”
“Farin. It’s her son. He died years ago, but she still has his ashes. She’s been trying to get him back, but the last attempt went all wrong and…”
“And what?” Kiran snaps. He’s closed the distance between us, but now Evander is in front of me, separating the two of us.
“Back away from her if you want to ask any more questions,” Evander says, glancing down at Kiran’s hands. They aren’t glowing red, but the temperature in the room is certainly simmering.
Kiran doesn’t move, not until Ellie calls his name softly. She’s made her way over to Asha, whose eyes have glazed over. She stares out as if into the distance, though there’s nothing to see beyond the walls of this room.
Kiran is back at her side in an instant, tucking his fingers into hers, but when he speaks, he addresses me.
“Farin was the name of the son. The one from the story Asha’s Magic told when we first married,” he explains.
“Well, was the son a murderous lunatic who got a thrill from hearing others scream?” I ask, with just enough jest to hide the way my mind is whirring, trying to put the pieces together before my friends realize the vase has been dropped and shattered.
Kiran’s tanned skin goes pale at my joke.
“Crap,” I say, at the same moment Ellie clamps her hand over her mouth.
“You said his body lies within the ashes?” Kiran asks.
Evander gestures to everyone and no one at once. “Would someone please be kind enough to explain what’s going on?”
Asha’s face has gone as white as bone, and I dread what’s about to happen, what I’m about to witness.
But before the Old Magic can overtake her voice, before I can witness what it looks like for the magic to control a person, the piece clicks into place.
Farin.
The queen wants Farin.
Farin is inside Nox—part of him, at least.
And Nox discovered the method to free the parasite from her curse, to place her permanently in control of her host.
A process the parasite would have known from lurking in the back of my mind, eavesdropping as he explained it to me.
The queen wants Farin.
The parasite wants power.
Each of them has the ability to grant what the other needs.
As long as they have Nox, that is.
It’s my turn to clamp a hand over my mouth. Suddenly, it all fits into place. Why it was imperative for the queen that I leave Mystral.
She wasn’t jealous of Nox’s attention, or if she was, that wasn’t the driving force behind her decisions.
