AllFreeNovel
Share Us
22JAIDE
“I'mold enough to remember living with the Fae,” Delphine said.
So I was right. Delphine was a lot older than she looked because even I knew such living arrangements hadn't happened for a long, long time. She crouched in front of the fire before her tent, feeding it bits of brush to keep it burning. For someone so old, she moved with more ease than I did. I was still chafed and sore from all that riding.
“What was it like?” I asked.
There was so much I wanted to learn, history I needed to catch up on. There was so much I wanted to know about my mother—my birth mother—and her people.
“I taught the children. We all did. How to harness the earth, how to live with it. Lessons I'm afraid have been lost to many.” She stirred the fire, chuckling without humor. “Yet one more in a list of crimes that have been committed thanks to the separation that took place after the war. The sense of balance was lost.”
“Do you remember my mother?”
“I do very well. The memory has always lived in my heart.”
What was she like? What did her voice sound like? What was her favorite color? What happened to her?
Instead of asking the questions clamoring around for attention in my head, I settled on the one that actually mattered. “Did she have light magic? Is that where I get it from?”
“If she did, I never saw it. I've never seen light magic practiced,” she said. I must have looked disappointed, since Delphine offered a sympathetic grunt. “I know that isn't what you wish to hear. For what it's worth, I wish the answer were different, as well.”
Parris spoke up, stroking the short whiskers along his jaw. I had to give him and Garret credit. They weren't used to falling back and letting other people call the shots, but they had done a lot more listening than talking since our arrival. They weren't trying to strut around with their chests puffed out, not even King Ego.
“So you don't know the limits of this light magic she possesses?” Parris asked.
“One thing I can tell you. I don't believe light magic is limited to lightning.” Her lips twitched in the beginning of a smile. “Otherwise, we would call it lightning magic.”
I bit my lip, glancing at Elliot. “I can see where you got your sense of humor.”
He only rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to his mother, who now opened a leather pouch. Breeze stirred around us, carrying on it the scent of the herbs inside. Spicy, almost smoky. I wondered what it was.
And I was going to find out. Delphine drew a hefty pinch of the ground-up herbs between her thumb and forefinger, which she dropped into a clay pot. After pouring water up to the top, she set the pot on the fire to steep.
I couldn't keep my eyes off it. “No offense, but that's not going to make me hallucinate or anything, is it?”
Elliot looked pained, but Delphine only chuckled. “No, nothing like that. It's meant to open you up to your powers. We don't have any time to waste.”
“I'll do anything. Whatever it takes.” But there was a twinge in my chest when I said it.
Delphine was even more insightful than her son. “You're troubled. You must let go of it, of whatever you feel is holding you back. Otherwise, you will never be able to reach your full potential, and you must if you're going to survive what is to come.”
The sun was so warm and pleasant, but I shivered just the same. “I'm supposed to be using these powers against my brother. I can't wrap my mind around that.”
Garret sat closest to me, and now he reached out to stroke my hair. “Like we've tried to tell you, this isn't the Jett you used to know. I am so sorry for what's been done to him, truly. None of that is your doing, either.”
That was easy for him to say. The only reason Jett had offered himself up at the blood auction was me. He was doing it for me. And now, how was I going to repay him? By trying to kill him? It was no use trying to explain it to the rest of them. They didn't understand, and they couldn't. They weren't a twin.
They didn't know what it was like to feel that connected from birth.
To think, if things had gone differently, we might have grown up with these witches around us. This could have been our life, tending the fires in front of the tents, milking the cows and the goats, and gathering herbs for potions and spells. We would have lived under the open sky for the most part. No slums, no starvation.
No desperation.
Of course, I understood why there was no choice but to take us to Sypani. We couldn't risk Healynas finding us and twisting us into—well, into what Jett had now become, if my mates were to be believed. They had no reason to lie to me. I knew that. Even if I still couldn't quite believe them.
Steam started rising from the pot, so Delphine pulled it from the fire and poured the brew into a small cup. It was a murky brown and brought fairly unpleasant images to mind, but that spicy smell was pleasant enough.
All eyes were on me as I accepted the cup, which was warm but not too hot. “Drink it,” Delphine murmured. “Do not be afraid. You are surrounded by those who will protect you from whatever comes.”
