Page 34 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

Neith

“H ey Van,” I say with a slight smirk, since my body is molded to his, and his face is only a few inches away from mine.

“Yeah, Nene?”

“Do you think you could pull your magic back. I’m rather wet and not in the good way,” I tell him, my smile widening as he realizes that we’re pretty much completely soaked as the water swirls and dances around us both.

The guys all start laughing at his expression, and Van looks slightly sheepish as he pulls the magic back.

I’m mildly surprised to find that I’m completely dry again and that he’s pulled all of the moisture from my clothes as well.

“Thank you,” I tell him with a smile.

There’s silence for a moment, and we both turn to look at everyone else. The guys are all smiling at us, and Van’s parents are looking at us in shock.

Eamon recovers first as he says, “I promise you that if we could have told you what we knew, then we would have.”

Van nods, “I get that. It just shocked me, that’s all.”

“That’s understandable,” Calia replies, offering a smile which Van returns as we both take our seats again.

“You’re a lot stronger than you were,” Eamon comments, looking at Van.

“A lot has happened,” Van replies vaguely.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust his parents enough to tell them about the fact that all of their magic has been playing up, and everything else that’s been going on.

It’s just that it is always smart to keep that sort of knowledge in a small circle.

Also, anything that has to do with the Choosing result we can’t actually tell them about anyway.

Calia looks at me, “We had no idea that you would be gone for that long. If we had, then we would have looked for you the minute that you had gone.”

I nod. I don’t really know what to say to that, if I’m honest. I do know that if I ever get the chance to speak to one of these Gods that seem to have dictated all of this shit, then I’m going to find it pretty fucking difficult to stay polite, God or not.

I figure the best thing that I can do for everyone right now is to get us back on track, and back to talking about what we were talking about before all of this kicked off, “What were you saying about the kelpies?”

“Oh yes,” Calia grins, seeming relieved that the subject has been changed.

I think we all are. It got pretty fucking heavy for a moment then.

Calia continues, “Your mother was able to call the entire herd, and they held loyalty to her. That’s why the majority of them stayed behind.

We did think that we would be able to call them to us, but the closing of the realm is so complete that even the kelpies can’t get through. ”

“She could call them like I can?” I ask.

“Yes, and once she was bonded to a kelpie, the whole herd began to change color as well,” Eamon replies. “I’m assuming that your kelpie is their leader?”

I nod, “Yeah, he is. That’s so cool, and it’s really nice to actually get an answer to a question that we’ve had for a while now.”

“I can only imagine how frustrating it has been for you all to get half answers all of the time,” Eamon agrees, his eyebrows drawing down.

“Honestly, it’s not been easy, but we’re finally starting to get some answers now that Neith knows who her parents are,” Ransom replies, looking as relieved as I feel that we’re finally getting answers.

“It’s not a gift that is specific to angels. It’s actually because you’re royalty that you can do it, and specifically your mother's royal bloodline.”

“That’s really interesting,” Raiden replies. “I’ve heard of gifts being passed down through royal bloodlines, despite what kind of supernatural you are.”

“Wait, I thought she was the first fallen angel in hundreds of years?” I ask, feeling confused and wondering if I’m remembering that right.

Calia shakes her head, “That’s not strictly true.

She was the last surviving angel, and no one is really sure where she came from.

The Gods did an origin spell and found out that she was descended from the royal bloodline.

She was the true ruler of Trieneliea, but even they couldn’t work out who her parents were, or recover her memories from before she was sixteen. ”

“Like me, but she had a lot more of her memory taken,” I mutter, shocked at the parallels.

Eamon nods, “You weren’t supposed to have your memories taken.

You were only supposed to have a silencing spell on you.

If your mother had realized that the Gods had forced your father to do to you what she had done to her, no one would escape her wrath,” he pauses and frowns.

“Looking back, it’s almost like it was the plan all along. ”

Calia’s eyes widen, “Surely not?”

“I don’t know as much about these Gods as you do, obviously, but from what I’ve learned so far, I would say that is definitely something that they would do,” Coen replies.

“If that’s true, then it begs the question, what did Neith know that the Gods didn’t want her to remember?” Raiden asks.

“Fuck, you’re right. If it was the plan all along, then that’s the only reason that they would want Neith to lose her memories,” Calia curses.

“Can’t we just get my memories back and see what it is?” I ask, confused.

Reed shakes his head, “No, memories are extremely delicate, and so is memory magic. Your father probably isn’t even sure if he removed your memories or suppressed them.”

Eamon nods, “Reed is right. Even if your memories are just suppressed, getting them back is not possible. It hasn’t been done for an extremely long time because the person it was performed on always died, or went insane.”

“It’s the reason why your mother’s memories were never recovered, even though she desperately wanted to know where she came from,” Calia adds.

I frown, “So the Gods really are assholes then.”

“They’re prideful, arrogant, tend to have their best interest at heart and not yours, and never tell you the whole truth,” Eamon replies, somewhat bitterly.

“Some will genuinely help you, but there is no way of knowing if that’s the case or not,” Calia adds.

“It seems like they were a lot more involved in Trieneliea than they are now. No one talks about Gods like you do, and it seemed like a regular occurrence to have them involved in things,” Doc questions.

Calia nods, “Yes, they were certainly more involved and more well-known. They haven’t been around since Trieneliea shut.”

“Apart from when I came over,” I point out.

Eamon nods, “Yes. Apart from then, but that was the first and last time that any of us had seen them over here. The younger generation of supes aren’t really aware of them, as you know.”

“That’s true,” Raiden agrees.

Eamon sighs, “Unfortunately, there is nothing that we can do about it now, but it is something that you need to be aware of should you ever deal with them.”

Evander nods, his expression serious, “Agreed. We will definitely keep it in mind.”

“Also, bear in mind that this is just conjecture at this point. We have no proof that it was done for that reason. The Gods really are petty enough to do it just to punish Bhaltair. Especially since he knew how much turmoil it caused Emeri to not remember anything before she was sixteen, and of course, the Gods were aware of that as well,” Calia adds, with warning.

“She’s right, the Gods are not the average supernatural, hell, they aren’t even close to the strongest supe, they are far beyond that, and you do not want to cross them,” Eamon adds seriously.

“Understood,” Evander replies. “We have no intention of going up against the Gods and putting ourselves in unnecessary danger.”

“Besides, we’ve got plenty that we need to deal with. We don’t need to add to it,” I point out.

Calia smiles, looking relieved that we’re not going to make a plan to go up against the Gods. Honestly, that would be insane.

“Good. Do you have any other questions about the kelpies?” she asks once again, getting us back to the subject that we started talking about.

“What about how the lake appeared like it did?” Coen asks. “Is that something to do with Neith being a part of the royal bloodline?”

“Good question, and honestly, it could do, but I don’t really know for sure,” Eamon replies.

“I wasn’t aware that the kelpies had that kind of magic,” Calia adds, “but I could be wrong. We’re constantly learning about new things about supernatural creatures that we thought we had all figured out.”

“That’s a really good point,” Raiden agrees. “They recently found out that Warbalites can actually fly. For years, it was thought that their wings were too small, and it was by pure chance that they discovered that wasn’t the case.”

I have no idea what Warbalites are, but now is not the time to ask. I’ll make a note of it and either ask him about it later, or look it up myself. They sound cute, but like all supernatural creatures that sound cute, I would be willing to bet that isn’t actually the case.

I’ve learned over the years that the cuter the name of a supernatural creature, the more scary they are.

For example, there’s a creature that is called a Dimple. I thought that sounded pretty cute, and definitely not threatening.

I was Wrong. Really wrong.

It will literally eat your face off. Not metaphorically either, I mean that’s its diet, that’s how it eats. It starts with faces, and it doesn’t discriminate either, it doesn’t care if you’re human, or what kind of supernatural you are, so long as you’ve got a face, then it will eat you.

The worst part is that they actually look pretty cute too, they’re like these little colorful fluffy balls, with no features whatsoever, like a starfish, their mouths are underneath them.

I shudder. Cute things that do disturbing shit is probably one of the things that freak me out the most.

“Are you okay, Love?” Coen asks, and Van’s parents’ eyebrows once again hit their hairlines.

I choose to just breeze past it rather than try to explain Coen and our complicated past.