Page 26

Chapter twenty-six

A Confession From the Heart

T he world blinked away and returned. Some of the dizzying sensation was diminishing. I supposed that meant I was getting used to it. But it still nauseated me, the feeling of being ripped out of the world and tossed back into it.

It took me a moment to realize that we were in the horrendous orange-covered apartment from the Court of Wanderers, the first place he had ever taken me in this realm, the place where he had offered me his friendship, his understanding, and the chance to figure out who I could be here. I had felt fear here and even a bit of hope, excitement at the scholastic opportunity. Now, I looked at that orange leather sofa and felt only hate.

“The Court of Wanderers?” I asked with a raised brow, hesitating in the center of the room while the Fae spread out all around me.

Rook wandered into the kitchen where he leaned against a counter and waited, giving us space but remaining near enough to intervene if necessary. Cass strode away to the windows, looking down at the city beyond and averting her gaze as if that might make this easier for her. Lark kept his eyes on me, mimicking my movements so as not to appear threatening.

“I’m going to tell you everything and, when I’m done, the choice will be yours. The portal to the mortal realm is just down the street. You can walk yourself there and step through it and I’ll never darken your doorstep again. Or you can choose to stay with us, to find a place in this realm that is entirely your own, wherever that may be.”

I tensed, hope clawing at the door of my heart, begging to be let in. But I couldn’t trust him, couldn’t tell if he was lying or not.

“Shall we begin, then?” I asked, instead, remaining calm, remaining distant, as I strode forward and took a seat on that hideous couch.

Lark gave a nod and settled into the armchair in front of me, leaning forward in preparation. Rook tensed in the kitchen and even Cass loosed a breath that fogged up the windows. I focused, narrowing my gaze and peering into his soul. The wall was still there and I almost said as much aloud but then I watched as it crumbled away, one piece at a time, brick by brick, until nothing was standing between us.

I felt the rush of his emotions then. Some fresh, some centuries old, cascading into me. It was so much that I had to grip the seat beneath me, knuckles turning white as I gritted my teeth and faced the onslaught of centuries worth of feeling.

His sorrow hit me first, a wave that pulled me under, drowning me in countless losses, untenable grief, a sea of mistakes and failures. Then came the anger, always an easily identifiable base emotion. His father, his sister, his brother, even Rook from a time long before they shared such a close bond. Other people too, people I didn’t recognize, people I had never known. Anger always clung to those who had caused it. They wore every color of the rainbow and marched forward in a dizzying haze of blurred lines as I was still trying to resurface from the sadness. Rage followed, a fiery inferno with no particular direction, encompassing me in its swirling heat.

Then came fleeting moments of happiness, laughter, light. Memories associated with some of the same people who had preceded in anger and more, far more. He let me see them, flashes of them, dreams of living color, waking jubilance. It filled my veins with calm, clarity. A sampling of others followed. Doubt, pain, fear, disgust, trust, joy, anticipation. It was too fast and too much to follow. I closed my eyes and tried to feel it all, tried to focus on it all. Then I felt it, a light blossoming, growing larger and stronger. Love. I recognized it the moment I felt it. My breath hitched as I prepared to be overcome by it. But he pulled it back, at the last minute, and my eyes snapped open to find him watching me.

“Ask,” he said simply.

“What happened?” I replied.

“Ariadne Dawnpaw has been the heir of the Court of Peace and Pride for over a millennium now. I’ve known her name since I was born. She has a reputation for being manipulative and deceitful. I never cared to get to know her personally or to intervene in any of her schemes, despite how much I heard of them from members of other courts, people she had wronged. I would not go against the heir to another Upper Court, not when she had done nothing to me,” Lark spoke and I measured his emotions. So far, he was telling the truth, or at least the truth so far as he believed it. I grit my teeth against the accusation that my mother was manipulative and deceitful as he continued. “But then the council announced their intention to test the possibility of revealing our existence to the mortal plane. They said that they were in search of an ambassador, someone who could be trusted to represent us and our interests to the mortals. I had no interest in the job but that was before I heard Ariadne did.”

I tensed, remembering what the King had told me about this part of the story. That Lark had wanted it, had desired it more than anything he ever had before. I searched the Fae sitting in front of me, however, and found no trace of desire, no inkling of dissatisfaction that he had not been chosen for the job, not a hint of the devastation his father had suggested he had exhibited on finding out that Ariadne had gotten the gig. My shoulders slumped as I realized, again, that I had been lied to.

“I went to the Court of Peace and Pride,” Lark continued and I snapped back to attention. “I talked with Alban, asked him about his daughter’s sudden philanthropic interests. He was pleased with her, practically beaming with pride. He said he was happy she had finally found purpose and that she was throwing herself into this so wholeheartedly. He even told me she had been visiting the mortal realm doing research for months. But I knew the council had only made their announcement weeks ago.”

His pulse remained steady, his emotions calm, collected. There was no hint of deception when he spoke.

“I knew Ariadne did nothing that wouldn’t result in some personal gain so I took it upon myself to investigate. I couldn’t send anyone else. If anyone but a high-ranking member of another royal family were caught spying on another member of another royal family, they would be executed. So I went. I waited in this apartment, watching for her. And one day I saw her walking right towards the portal. I followed her to the mortal realm, all the way to New York City to a dingy apartment in a dark, forgotten part of town.”

I was leaning forward in my seat, I realized, and attempted to right myself, to focus on examining his emotions as he spoke. But they were still level, still consistent. And that wall was nowhere to be found. There was nowhere for him to hide.

“She had a man chained up in the basement,” he said then and I felt a rise of anger within him at the memory. He clenched his jaw, looking away from me as he spoke, as if remembering it all vividly now that he was saying it aloud. “I heard her talking to him but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. When she left, I sneaked down there myself. When I stepped into that basement, he didn’t even move. His eyes were open but he wasn’t seeing me. They were glazed over, his pupils a fog of gray. I should have freed him. I should have cut through those chains and helped him escape. But I couldn’t break him out of that fog and I knew that even if I broke the chains, he wouldn’t leave.”

I was starting to feel sick and, from the signals I was receiving from the rest of the room, the others were too. But Lark grit his teeth and went on.

“I returned home in a daze, confused. The Dawnpaws could sense thought, maybe even read it. There was never any sign that they could manipulate it, could control it. But it was the only thing that made sense. I researched their family lineage, your family lineage, for any mention of mind control and found none. But it was eating away at me. I had to know. I declared my intentions to run against Ariadne for the position of ambassador just to keep it away from her a little longer and I went back to that apartment. I sneaked into the basement and I used my magic to flood that man’s mind until my own ability crowded out hers. When that fog broke, I released him, and he started screaming the second he was free of her control. He grabbed my collar, shook me, begged me to help him, to save him. He verified my suspicions, saying she was controlling his mind, forcing him into a relationship with her, saying she loved him, that she was making arrangements so that they could be together. He said she had… used him too.”

Lark’s eyes slid closed as a wave of sadness and disgust washed through him.

“I broke his chains, I helped him up the stairs, and I took him all the way to Hadley University where he said his brother worked in the astrophysics department. I promised him I would take care of Ariadne, that I would see her punished for what she had done to him. I put up protective wards around the university and I left. I rushed home to tell my father all that I had discovered but arrived to find a feast in progress, celebrating Ariadne’s victory over me for the position of ambassador to the mortal plane, allowing her full, unobstructed access to the mortal plane. I lost it. I destroyed half the feast in my rage. My father assumed I was angry that I had lost and, when I told him about what she had done, he accused me of petty jealousy and told me not to dare breathe a word of that nonsense to anyone else.”

My hands were shaking so I gripped the couch below me even tighter. He wasn’t lying. I could feel it. He wasn’t lying. But this couldn’t be true.

“I went silent,” he continued, the memory pulling him under, shrouding him in anger, in bitter sorrow. I wanted to reach out to him, but held myself at bay. Not yet. I couldn’t trust him. Not yet. “I did as my father said. I didn’t tell anyone because if my own father heard that tale and accused me of making it up out of jealousy, everyone else would too. And besides, the mortal was safe, hidden at the university, and protected by my magic. For a time, the world moved on. Ariadne seemed happy with her new position, keeping busy with the council as they sought to define her role. She was in and out of meetings every day. She hadn’t even set foot in the mortal plane. I knew because I’d had her tracked.”

Lark glanced Rook in the corner and he gave a solemn nod. My breath caught in my throat.

“But that mortal, he was never one to stay in place. He thought he was safe. He didn’t understand that my wards only protected him when he was at the university. He ventured off campus and she found him,” Lark said and I stared at him, wide eyed. I couldn’t breathe. “She dragged him back to our realm, put him under her spell again, and locked him in the dungeons of her court. I couldn’t reach him, not without invading another court, not without starting a war. I tried to tell my father again but he wouldn’t hear it. Ariadne was doing a great job of convincing the council they had made the right choice. That she was the shining representation of the Fae race and I was an unhinged lunatic from the darkest court. She held him for two years.”

I hissed in a breath.

“Then she announced she was pregnant and I knew whose it was. I knew she had sired a child with that mortal captive of hers. It was horrific, repulsive, and I knew he wouldn’t want it. I knew I couldn’t break him free of her control, not while he was so close to her, but I also knew that he wouldn’t want her to have his child. That he wouldn’t want his son or daughter to be raised by that woman, controlled by that woman, never really knowing if what they were doing was their mother’s will or their own. So I told the council. When they were all gathered for a meeting, I burst in, despite having been asked not to attend, and I told them all that she had become pregnant by a mortal. That, alone, was against our laws. It should have been enough. I shouldn’t have even had to make any other claims. But her father stood and gave some rousing speech about there being no better way to establish an alliance with the mortals than through commingling blood. After all, that was how it had been done for centuries. Arranged marriages and the like. The council bought it and chose not to punish her. I went stark-raving mad. I started screaming to anyone who would listen what she had done, how she had the mortal locked up in the dungeons, how she had been raping him for years, how she had him completely under her control. And because there was no history of mind control in the Dawnpaw family, because that magic was unverified and unknown, no one believed me.”

I withdrew from his emotions to face my own. I knew what was coming. The writing was on the wall. The picture he was painting was only missing one key piece and I knew what it was before he said it.

“I fought for the entire duration of her pregnancy. I made multiple attempts to access those dungeons, to save that mortal, but she beat me at every turn. She was always one step ahead,” Lark said and I noticed Rook tensing again as he looked away, jaw clenched against the reminder of their failures. “I got close once. When she was in labor, I thought I could use her pain as a distraction. It was enough to break her hold on his mind, enough for him to say three words to me that I will never forget. Save the child.”

His eyes flicked to mine and I crumbled. I lifted one shaky hand to my mouth as a sob escaped me. Cass was there in an instant, holding me against her as I wept, as Lark continued because he had to, because I had to hear the end.

“We made a plan. Rook tried to break the mortal free or, at least, he made a good enough attempt to draw Ariadne’s attention away from the baby. Then Cass and I sneaked in, dispatched the guards, and we—,” his voice broke as his eyes bore into mine, “we took you.”

My lips trembled, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“I brought you right to your uncle, the man I’d taken your father to before. I told him only what you needed to know. I reinforced the wards around the campus and added a few more in the surrounding areas. I burnt that dingy apartment to the ground. And then I came back and I—” he closed his eyes. “My father was waiting. Alban and the other council members were there. Ariadne was distraught, half naked and wailing. They asked me what I did and I told them I killed you.”

My whole body shook with sobs.

“I told them I killed you so they wouldn’t look for you, so she wouldn’t find you. And they believed it because it was exactly what they had already convinced themselves I was capable of, anyway. She started screaming. She fell to the floor, clinging to her father. Alban snapped at my father about doing something with me. So he banished me. And I disappeared before I could hear anymore.”

In the silence that followed the culmination of Lark’s story, I wept. I turned into Cass and let the tears flow freely as my mind reeled to understand every version of this tale that I had been told.

“Ren,” Lark tried and I did not have to target his soul to identify every emotion in his broken voice.

“Give her time,” Cass said, looking up at him from over my shoulder.

So he did.