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“I don’t know.” I put down my spoon. “As far as I remember, I have no parents. I have no memories before I was taken into the Order.”
“None?” Feron pushed. His hand reached out and brushed my fingers. They felt warm against my skin.
I thought of the scar at my hip. I had it the day they found me. The lines were precise and even, carved into a symbol no one at the Order had ever seen. Someone had cut the marks into me. Maybe it had been my parents or whoever had left me alone.
A warm sensation crawled up my spine. I didn’t understand where the heat was radiating from, but my body relaxed as it coursed through me. My skin prickled along my neck and a tangy taste settled on my tongue.
Magic. Feron was using his powers on me.
Fuck off, I thought. Feron didn’t seem to react, but the warm sensation faded away.
“You are very young,” Feron said after a minute, his dark brows knitted together as he scanned my face.
“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“How old were you when you were taken to the Order?” There was a lightness to Feron’s voice that I didn’t trust. It was too sweet. Too eager. But I felt compelled to answer anyway.
“They say I was eight,” I said, taking a spoonful of mousse. “But with no parents and no memories, I don’t know if that’s accurate.”
“You have been the king’s Blade for quite some time. Longer than any of the others. Yet you are still so young. You must not have attended the Order for very long,” Feron remarked, his fingers drumming along the side of his goblet.
I could feel the magic working over me again but didn’t fight it. I didn’t see the harm in answering these questions. I’d save my will for any secrets he tried to pry away.
“I trained under Mistress Carston first and then Mistress Hildegard. I spent almost thirty years there before I was called to take the Trials,” I answered, hoping it was enough to appease his curiosity.
Feron was quiet for some time, studying me. “There are no Elves left in Koratha, not for two hundred years. Your Elvish blood runs very strong if you have seen sixty-some turns.” His eyes trailed along the length of my ears beneath my veil. I fought the urge to reach up and cover them.
“It seems that way.”
“Were you found near the Burning Mountains?” Feron asked. I followed his train of thought. Perhaps I’d been sired by an Elf from the Faeland.
I shook my head.
“I was found in Calen’s Rift. I doubt an Elf would’ve traveled so close to Mortal’s Landing.” The eastern city was where the Blood Wars had begun. Their hatred for the Elves was older than the decrees outlawing their kind altogether. It was why the Elves had left to begin with. Even today many Halflings were found beaten and stabbed in the streets of Mortal’s Landing and the villages surrounding it.
“Inthe Rift?” Feron repeated, his brows lifting.
I nodded. “They say I fell. I was found on a ledge inside of the Rift near Wenden. I had no memory of how I got there.”
Feron brought his cup to his lips but did not drink. Instead, his finger tapped against the side of the goblet, swirling the wine inside. “I was there the day the Rift was formed,” Feron said in a soft voice. His eyes settled on the table, wide and unfocused.
“You saw Calen create the Rift?” I asked in awe. The chasm was wider than the capital city of Elverath. A jagged cut so deep that many believed the bottom didn’t exist, just a never-ending tunnel of shadow.
“Create the Rift?” Feron said, his gaze snapping back to me. “What version of history do they tell over the mountains?”
I leaned back in my chair. I’d never considered the tale I heard in the kingdom had not been one of truth. “That Calen was a powerful Light Fae,” I said, trying to remember the details. “He created the Rift after his love was buried without him.” The story had been well-loved in the Order, whispered among the initiates late into the night.
Feron shook his head.
“Everything you said was wrong.” He chuckled. He leaned back in his chair and sipped his drink. “Calen was an Elf. Not Fae.”
I shook my head. “How could an Elf create such a thing? They have no magic.”
Feron gave me a knowing smile that sent a warm rush through my skin. Another touch of his magic. “Elves do not have the ability towieldmagic, but that does not mean they do nothavemagic.”
I blinked.
“Everywhere you look is magic. It pulses through every plant in this city, every creature in the forest hills. In us.” Feron sipped his wine.
