Page 45

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

C haos fills the waiting room on the other side.

The entire Red Faction, and half of the White Faction, are arguing with their respective faction owners, trying to persuade them to in turn argue with the guards that we should be disqualified because we’re technically not citizens of the Unseelie Court.

The guards themselves are busy glaring at Draven, who apparently almost shattered the door to get to me when he realized that I was truly in fear of dying.

There are black scorch marks on the pale stone door where his lightning hit, and half of the tables and chairs closest to the door look to have been smashed against the stone by a blast of wind.

Isera is standing by that charred door, gazing out through the slot towards the Unseelie King’s section with a slight smirk on her lips.

Draven, however, isn’t acknowledging the guards’ glares.

Instead, he is seated on the ground next to where Galen and Lyra are lying on a pair of blankets.

Galen’s hands are badly burned, and his leg is sticking out at an odd angle.

Next to him, Lyra is breathing, but her eyes slide in and out of focus.

Alistair is kneeling next to her, his hand hovering over her arm but not quite touching it.

Jocasta, who was celebrating our miraculous win earlier, has promised to take both Galen and Lyra straight to Haldia and pay for their healing as soon as the guards give us all permission to leave.

The moment I stepped through the door, Draven was there, checking my injuries and demanding to know if I was okay. I assured him that I was, that he should focus on Galen and Lyra, and that I needed a moment to myself.

In truth, I need more than a moment.

Shock still clangs inside my skull like giant bells, and memories long buried are now rattling around in there. I feel off-kilter. As if something fundamental has snapped free inside me, and now I’m just flailing as I tumble through an open sky with nothing to grab on to.

Seated on a bench at the back of the room, I stare at Oleander Darkmane.

He is hiding underneath a pale wooden table, as far away from me as he can possibly get.

His blue and red eyes are wide with terror as he stares at me from underneath that table, and his face is ghostly pale.

The remaining two members of the White Faction, who aren’t currently arguing with their faction owner, are looking between me and Oleander’s shaking body. Confusion and fury mix in their eyes.

“Malachi’s balls,” Jocasta says as she plops down on the bench next to me. Leaning back, she stretches out her legs and rests her back against the stone wall behind us. “That was some finale, kid.” There is deep approval in her eyes as she glances over at me and smiles. “I knew you could do it.”

“Thank you,” I reply, as sincerely as I can.

I want to mean it. I do mean it. But I’m just so shellshocked right now that I’m having trouble functioning.

That memory of my parents is still swirling around inside my mind.

And I also can’t stop thinking about that incredible feeling of pleasure that I got when I created the fear in Oleander’s chest. And I can’t stop staring at Oleander, huddled underneath that table and still terrified of me.

Jocasta follows my gaze and then nods discreetly towards the terrified man. “You must’ve used a lot of power if he’s still this scared of you even after you’ve released the magic.”

Jolted out of my stupor, I blink repeatedly as a sudden idea hits me. I can decrease his fear so that he won’t have to hide under the table now that the match is over. Calling up my magic, I throw it out in search of that bone white spark of fear.

Shock crackles up my spine when I find two .

There is a small spark of fear and a big one.

The small spark feels the way it usually does when I connect to someone’s emotions.

But that big flame next to it, it’s distinctly mine.

I can both see and feel my own influence and magic in it.

It’s incredibly obvious that it’s not his own fear.

Leaving the small spark alone, since it probably has nothing to do with me, I instead latch on to the bigger spark and start lowering his fear at a rapid pace.

That massive bone white flame decreases steadily.

Then it stops.

I scowl, trying again to decrease it. It’s smaller than before, but it’s still there, burning steadily. And no matter how much I try to decrease it, it doesn’t get any smaller than that. I try instead to simply slam it down. Like a lid slammed onto a burning pot. That doesn’t work either.

With that frown of confusion on my face, I turn to Jocasta. “How do I release it?”

She blinks, looking genuinely stunned by the question. “What do you mean?”

“I haven’t removed the fear that I put in his chest. It’s still there. I can feel my own magic in it. I managed to decrease it a little. But how do I turn it off completely?”

Silence falls over us for a few seconds as she just stares at me, her mouth slightly open. As if she’s trying to figure out if I’m messing with her or not. When she sees the seriousness on my face, she blinks again and gives her head a quick shake.

“Like normal,” she says, sounding hesitant. “When you disengage your magic, it disappears.”

“No.” My frown deepens. “It’s still there.”

“Just try it again. You looked a little dazed after the match so maybe you just forgot.”

I cut off the flow of my magic. Once Jocasta has seen that my eyes have stopped glowing, she nods.

Turning towards Oleander, I throw my magic towards that bone white spark of fear.

Just like last time, there are two. One small spark and one steadily burning flame.

The flame has my distinctive feel to it.

“It’s still there,” I say, cutting off the flow of my magic again and turning back to Jocasta. “And I can’t decrease it beyond a certain point either.”

Once again, silence descends over us. But this time, it’s filled with tension. Jocasta turns to look at Oleander. After I decreased his fear slightly, he has at least stopped shaking and hiding underneath the table. But he’s still staring at me with terrified eyes.

Through the open slot in the door, the murmur of the crowd drifts in like the rumble of the sea as they discuss the matches and wait for the victory presentation.

Next to me, Jocasta licks her lips. But all she says is, “Oh.”

My heart jerks. I don’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, oh ?”

“It’s supposed to disappear when you withdraw your magic.”

“But it doesn’t.”

“Probably because your magic is so much stronger than mine. With that much raw power, I guess there are… side effects.”

Ice washes through my veins and my stomach drops. “It’s permanent?”

“It would appear so.”

“Can’t you remove it from his chest? With your magic?”

“No. It’s impossible to even manipulate, let alone remove, an emotion that another emotion wielder has created.”

Dragging in an unsteady breath, I turn to stare at Oleander. I can create emotions, but once created, I can’t remove them? Goddess above, what a terrifying thought.

That memory slams into me again like a punch to the gut.

And suddenly, I can’t breathe.

My parents, standing there looking surprised. And then from one second to the next, resentment flashes to life in their eyes.

I run my tongue around my suddenly parched mouth. My heart is beating so hard against my ribs that I can hear the loud pounding in my ears.

What if I made my parents hate me?

Back when I was young, when I couldn’t control my magic, it activated randomly. What if, back then, I accidentally made them resent me? And then I couldn’t remove it?

My heart is beating so fast that I feel lightheaded.

What if my parents don’t actually hate me? What if, all this time, they were just acting that cruel to me because I unwittingly created feelings of resentment in their chests?

The thought makes my head spin, and I have to grip the edge of the bench hard with my fingers to stop myself from just toppling sideways.

If I created the hatred in their chests, there will be no way to undo it, so it won’t change anything. But at the same time, it will change everything . Because I will know that it’s not actually real.

A small sob escapes my lips.

As soon as this is all over, I’m going to return to the Seelie Court and seek out my parents. Then I’m going to reach out with my magic and see if the flames of resentment in their chests are actually theirs, or if they have my dangerous magic all over them.

“They’ll be okay,” Jocasta says, misinterpreting my small sob as she glances between me and where Lyra and Galen are lying on the ground.

“I promise, as soon as we get permission, I will take them straight to Haldia. I’ll even skip the victory presentation with the king.

” Her eyes are full of gratitude as she glances at me while placing a light hand on my thigh.

“You’ve made me more money today than I have ever made in my entire life.

You’ve bought me life-changing freedom in this court in a way that I can’t even properly explain to an outsider.

If you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask. ”

Drawing in a calming breath, I push the world-altering memories and realizations and questions about my parents out of my mind. There will be time for that later. For now, there is something else I need to know.

“I have a question,” I begin hesitantly, trying to figure out how to word this without sounding like a psychopath.

She nods. “Shoot.”

“I, uhm…” I clear my throat. “When I created that flame of fear and shoved it into Oleander’s chest, I got this intense rush of… pleasure. It was so addictive that I just wanted more and more.”

Mabona’s tits, that was the best explanation I could come up with? If that doesn’t make me sound like a psycho villain, I don’t know what does.

But to my surprise, Jocasta doesn’t look at me as if I’m the King of Hell incarnate. Instead, she lets out a small breath of amusement and leans back against the wall again.

“Oh, that.” She sucks her teeth and then shrugs. “Yeah, I get that too. We all do.”

“When creating fear?”

“When creating all emotions.”

I blink at her in surprise and confusion. “Why?”

“It’s nature’s way of creating balance. Our magic is much stronger than elemental magic.

” She chuckles. “Fire wielders especially will argue with you about that until the day they die if you ever mention it to them, but it’s true.

They can create elements. But we can change a person.

It’s one of the most dangerous types of magic there is. ”

Alistair’s nickname for me suddenly flits through my mind. Selena Soulstealer. Maybe he wasn’t all that wrong after all.

“That… makes sense,” I reply, but my brows are still furrowed as I look back at her. “But why this addictive feeling of pleasure?”

“Because that’s how emotions work.” She lifts her shoulders in a casual shrug.

“Everyone is addicted to something. It could be the comforting feeling they get when they eat, or the pleasure they feel when they have sex. Some people are addicted to anger. They actively seek out things to be angry about because it gives them a sense of purpose. Some are addicted to the feeling that people have wronged them, because it makes them feel righteous. And some people are addicted to that warm feeling when someone praises them for being good because it validates their existence.”

Ouch . That one might have hit a little too close to home.

She shrugs again. “I could go on, but I think you get the point.”

“Yeah.” I rub my thigh, suddenly feeling anxious. Then I glance back up at her. “Does that… craving ever go away? Because I kind of already want to feel it again. It was like a warm sparkling hug, and I just… I can’t stop thinking about how good it felt.”

“Unfortunately not. You will have to manage that craving now. But don’t worry too much about it. I’ve been successfully handling it for over six hundred years now. It’s not too bad.”

“Oh. Good.”

She sits up straighter, blinking as if a sudden thought just struck her. Swallowing, she meets my gaze with eyes that have suddenly filled with a terrifying amount of sympathy.

“But,” she begins, sounding hesitant for the first time in this conversation. “I suppose the craving will be even stronger for you than it is for me. Maybe significantly stronger, given the strength of your magic overall.”

I stare back at her in silence, my mind spinning.

This just adds more weight to my suspicion that I accidentally made my parents hate me.

My mind probably blocked out the whole thing and buried it deep inside where I couldn’t reach it, both because of the sheer trauma of what I had done and also to cut off the memory of the pleasure I felt, so that I wouldn’t continue doing it to my parents just to feel that rush of pleasure again.

A choked noise escapes my mouth.

I’m suddenly not sure whether to bawl my eyes out or burst out laughing like a crazy person.

Not only did I probably make my own parents hate me, I will now be fighting against an overwhelming urge to do it to everyone else around me too.

Splendid.

Just… splendid.