Page 28 of Sun, Moon & Shadow (Fate of Aemoria #1)

Nova's chest tightened. “I-I don’t believe it,” she stammered.

Elena’s chin trembled. She reached a hand out toward her daughter, who pulled back at first. “Nova, you came,” she said, taking a tentative step closer.

Elena looked exactly as she had in the painting.

The gold flecks in her green eyes matched the tone of her skin.

When she reached out a second time, Nova remained motionless, allowing her mother to run a hand over her hair and down to her cheek.

Nova blinked several times, completely numb.

Elena drew Nova to her, stroking her hair as Nova stared wide-eyed over her mother’s shoulder.

After a moment, Elena pulled back, holding her daughter at arm’s length.

“Come,” she said, glancing around the crowded temple. “Let us find somewhere to speak in private.”

She led Nova outside to an isolated stone bench at the edge of the fountain.

Several minutes passed in near silence, no sound but the the fountain’s spray falling onto the surface of the shimmering water.

Nova studied Elena’s profile from the corner of her eye.

How strange to be sitting with her mother, who barely looked older than she did.

There was an aura of wisdom about her, but otherwise, Elena could easily have passed for her sister.

Finally, her mother spoke. “I’m certain you have many questions—”

“How?” Nova demanded. The initial shock of seeing her mother had withered, and anger rose within her to claim the space it left behind. “Why? Why did you leave me?”

“My heart broke when I left you. You must believe that.” Elena slid closer to her on the bench.

“And what of my father’s heart? Do you think he felt nothing when you died? When you left ? It changed him. I was all he had.” Nova thought of Anson’s kind smile. “Did you even love him?”

Elena stared down at the refracted sunlight, darting like bolts of lightning across the bottom of the pool.

“I cared for him. Deeply. Anson was kind to me. Before I met him, I had known only cruelty for a very long time.”

“Cruelty?” Nova barely contained her scoff. “I was a monster in the Human Realm. Ridiculed. Beaten. Alone.”

Anger surged in her chest at the memory of the frightened, lonely girl she had once been. Nova clenched her jaw and turned her face away from her mother.

Elena laid a hand on Nova’s shoulder. “You must believe me, my darling. Leaving you was the only way I could protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” Nova shrugged out from under her mother’s touch. “Your selfishness?”

“From your father,” Elena said, her voice dropping lower. “From Omen.”

Nova’s breath caught as if all the air had been siphoned from her chest. She tried to stand, but her legs refused to cooperate, and she dropped back onto the hard surface of the bench. Elena grasped her shoulders to steady her.

“I don’t understand,” Nova said, brows pinched. “Omen of Raven’s Isle? He is my true father?”

“He wasn’t always as he is now,” Elena said, as if it might quell the fear gathering like storm clouds in Nova’s chest. “He was once caring and idealistic, but deeply angry. His entire life, he’d been tormented by his father and older brother. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of Onyx.”

Nova nodded vaguely, recalling the night she’d crept to the library in Pyralis and learned of Silvergard’s dark history.

“Omen’s father despised him—feared him. He knew Omen’s abilities would one day eclipse his own. So, he sent him away to Sonnend to serve as an emissary. That’s where we met. We were young. We fell in love. We wanted to be wed, but our parents needed to arrange the union.

“Omen begged for his father’s blessing, but Onyx refused. Shortly after, my parents told me I had been promised to Omen’s older brother instead. There was nothing I could do. I was duty bound to marry Sable. Omen was blind with rage. He vowed to kill Onyx and Sable himself. He frightened me.

“I heard nothing from him until the day of the ceremony, when he appeared in the temple out of nowhere and slaughtered his father and brother before my eyes. He came for me, and I cowered before him. When I looked up, he was shattered. Utterly devastated. As if my rejection had broken him. He stumbled back into the shadows and vanished.”

Nova finally looked at her mother. Elena’s eyes were clamped shut, bronzed cheeks wet with tears. For a brief moment, a spark of shame flickered in her chest at making her mother relive the terrible memory. But she had waited long enough for the truth, so she urged Elena on.

“If what you say is true, then how did I come to be?”

“The quake that created Raven’s Isle happened the same day. In the weeks that followed, attacks occurred throughout the Realm, including one in Nivali that claimed the lives of the Noble Lord and Lady. I felt responsible. I offered myself to Omen, begged him to stop the bloodshed.”

Elena crumpled in on herself, her shoulders shaking with the intensity of her sobs. Nova flinched when her mother straightened suddenly, wiping her eyes roughly on her sleeve and swallowing the rest of her tears.

“I thought I could save him, but he was no longer the Omen I once loved. He was violent and controlling. Full of rage. I endured five years with him. A prisoner locked away in a dark tower of his black fortress.

“We coupled to seal the union, and he made such demands of me a handful of times over the years. He said he would never father an heir and vowed to kill the child if he did. I never allowed myself to believe it would come to pass. But, one day, I knew. Deep in my bones. I could feel you, shining like the faintest ray of sunlight breaking through dark clouds.”

Nova sprang to her feet, striding to the pool’s edge and peering into the water. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of the new information, her mother’s voice fading in and out in the background.

“. . . left me alone, and I managed to escape. . . he killed my parents . . . fled to the Human Realm. . .”

Elena appeared beside her and took Nova’s hands, her grip bordering on painful.

Their eyes locked, and Nova found she could not pry herself away.

How many nights had she studied her mother’s portrait trying to identify the look in her eyes?

She’d always thought Elena was hiding something, but nothing could have prepared her for the extent of her mother’s secrets.

“The glamour convinced Anson and the community that I’d died in childbirth. But I hoped you and I could be reunited one day.”

“How is this possible?” Nova asked, recalling the story of how the Shadow Court was formed. “The quake that created Raven’s Isle happened centuries ago.”

“Time is different in the Human Realm. While only twenty-five years passed for you there, nearly two hundred years passed here.”

Callan had said time was different for the Fae; she’d thought it was a figure of speech.

Nova’s legs threatened to buckle, and Elena held her firmly by her upper arms. Certain her mind could not endure another revelation, Nova wrenched herself out of her mother’s grasp and staggered away.

Her grip on reality was tenuous as it was, like grasping at smoke.

Elena reached out and caught Nova’s wrist, her fingernails piercing Nova’s skin.

Her mother’s words rushed past her lips, as if she knew she’d pushed Nova to the brink.

“He started killing again as soon as I left. As long as he lives, I can never leave this place. Powerful magic protects Illora’s temple. He’ll never find me here. Please, stay . If he discovers you in Aemoria, discovers who you are, I won’t be able to protect you. I can’t even protect myself.”

Nova’s gaze narrowed on the open sky above the courtyard.

There was no shield around the temple, but she could feel it—a faint vibration emanating from deep within the solid rock beneath her feet.

Visions flashed in Nova’s mind. Fragmented images.

Callan’s dark eyes and the curve of his smile.

Fawn peering at her over the top of a book. Even Evander and his smug grin.

“No,” Nova murmured, shaking her head. “ No ,” she repeated, more forcefully. “I’m through running. I’m through hiding. I have people who care about me now.”

Sorrow flooded Elena’s features, her gaze falling under the weight of it. She nodded solemnly, loosening her grip on Nova’s arm.

“I wish I could convince you.” She clung to Nova’s hand weakly, rubbing her thumb over the smooth white stone of the ring that had once been hers. “Wear this ring always, my darling. It’s my last gift to you.”

Elena squeezed once, then let go, her hand dropping to her side with a sense of finality.

Sister Iris approached and stood behind Nova. Her time with her mother had reached its end. The Sister motioned for her to follow, and Nova turned to leave.

“Goodbye, Nova. My sweet child,” Elena called out weakly. Nova glanced back over her shoulder.

“Goodbye,” she murmured.

She forced herself to turn her back on her mother, wondering if it was the first and last time she would ever see her.

Nova barely registered the walk from the temple building to the front gates. Sisters breezed by in a blur of white like doves in her periphery. Sister Iris spoke as she guided her toward the entrance, but Nova didn’t register her words.

She managed to reach the bottom of the wide stone steps before she collapsed, landing on her hands and knees.

Her breath came fast and shallow. She didn’t know whether to sob, scream, or laugh like a madwoman.

Lifting her head, she saw Callan standing at the end of the dock, his stature dwarfed by the distance.

Nova rose to her feet and started toward him.

Relief washed over her at the sight of him there waiting, but countless emotions churned within her chest. Disbelief, frustration, sorrow, and anger all battled to be given a voice.

Her first instinct was to bury each and every one.

To slip on a mask of indifference and pretend she was unaffected. But she knew she couldn’t manage it.

Not this time.

Callan jogged halfway down the dock to meet her, his smile morphing into a look of concern as she drew closer. A scowl pulled hard at the corners of her mouth, but she was powerless to erase it. Nova strode past him without a glance, and he turned on his heel, following close behind.

“Nova? What’s wrong?”

She spun around, and he stopped short.

“What’s wrong?” she snapped. “I just met my mother.”

“What?” Callan shook his head.

“My mother, Callan. The one who abandoned me. Who lied to my father—no—he wasn’t my father.” She was rambling, words spilling out in a confusing mess.

“Slow down. What is going on?” Callan spoke softly, his hands held out with palms facing her, as if to remind her he wasn’t a threat.

“Did you know?” she demanded coldly.

“Know what?” His hands hovered above her shoulders, but he didn’t touch her.

“About my father?”

“I see that you’re angry, and I want to help, but I don’t know what’s going on.”

Nova shoved against his chest, forcing some distance between them. If she couldn’t hide her emotions, she’d cling to her godsdamned rage. She refused to let anyone see her pain.

“Of course I’m angry!” She struck his chest again with all her strength. His body barely registered the assault. “Everything I’ve ever known has been a lie.”

Nova’s restraint crumbled, her anger giving way as she collapsed to her knees a second time.

Her breath was too fast. Too shallow.She couldn’t get enough air.

A rush of tears flowed from her like a burst dam.

Tears caused by more than the shock of seeing her mother alive, or the revelation about her true father.

Tears she never shed during the torment she endured as a child.

Tears she silenced when her first love cast her aside.

Tears she bit back when she lost the only father she’d ever known. The only person who had ever truly loved her.

Tears she swallowed when she left the Human Realm and the life she’d created for herself, however lonely it had been.

Callan knelt before her, gathering her in his strong embrace. He anchored her and kept her from blowing away like a scrap of parchment on the cool breeze swirling around them. Stroking her hair, he held her close, his low voice a soothing rumble in her ear pressed against his chest.

“I’m here. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Nova clung to him until her tears ran dry and she sagged in his arms, utterly drained.