Page 70

Chapter 70

Saelyn

I WAS TEN AND I UNDERSTOOD WHY MY MOTHER STRUGGLED TO LOOK AT ME

Ten -year-old Saelyn and Thevin sat in the tall grass with Pah - Pah as he taught them how to whistle through the wide blades. I had been curious about my father growing up. We didn’t speak of him. We didn’t admit how much I was growing to look like the man painted with my mother in the portrait on the endless staircase. I had wanted to know everything about where I had come from, and Pah - Pah was the only one in the Fortress willing to speak of him.

“ My mother misses him, too,” I had said. Even at such a young age, I had been aware of the reasons she avoided my eyes at times.

“ Why would the father of your child meddle with my powers? ” I asked the Blightress .

She looked on with a slight upturn of her lips as a younger me pushed Thevin and threw grass in his face. “ He has lived in all Barons and you come from two with new magic unheard of. I do not doubt his part in what you have become. ”

My heart raced. “ That man…that man I saw beside my father … he is the Baron who lives in my mother? ”

“ And has since she accepted the power of the Baron of Felgren … ” she trailed and smirked my way. “ About seventeen years past. ”

I frowned, watching Pah - Pah throwing grass at us children as we rolled, each trying to pin the other.

“ Are we almost through with this magic? ” she asked me, holding out her hand for me to take again.

I shook, placing my hand in hers. “ There’s just one more. The first time I heard my name called on the wind. ” A tear ran down my cheek as she echoed my name, and I knew that I had failed.