Page 26

Chapter

Twenty-Five

Despite Thalius speaking throughout the rest of the tour, I didn't hear a single word. My attention remained fixed on Lil. I couldn't tear my eyes from her.

Kadian positioned himself close, acting as a barrier between her and Thalius.

However, she seemed oblivious to his presence.

She wrapped her arms around herself as if they could serve as armor for when she would have to confront her uncle.

Her only form of protection.

Oz glanced towards me, gesturing toward the two of them while cocking an eyebrow.

I didn't know what to say.

The tour ended in front of the library. Illerium dismissed us and made his way towards his office. “Lilianna,” Thalius said. We knew she hated that name, perhaps this was why. Lil refused to look at us, continuing to hug herself while she marched towards him.

“Who the fuck is that,” Kadian growled.

I moved in front of him, attempting to block his view of her, even though he stood a foot taller than me. “Kad, look at me,” but his eyes remained unwavering. “Kadian,” I said as I placed my hands on his arms and squeezed just slightly. “Look at me right now. ” Reluctantly his eyes met mine. “That’s her uncle. Thalius is the head of her household, and she answers to him. ”

“ Does all of your father’s family live at the Court of Reflection ?” I had once asked Lil.

She had nodded, “My uncle and my dad don’t really get along, though. It’s why my parents chose to live in Lesalia.”

Thalius towered several inches above Lil. Despite her tall frame, she shrank in his presence. He gestured for her to follow. She walked beside him with her head bowed, a stark contrast to her usual confident self.

“Maybe you should go lay down before dinner,” I suggested, my tone hopeful, desperate for him to heed my advice.

I wanted to go after Lil—she shouldn’t have to face this alone. But there was no way I could have Kadian in his current state with me.

A moment later, Oz placed his hand on Kadian’s shoulder, causing him to jolt. “Let’s go.” I watched as Kadian’s muscles tensed at the touch. Oz, unsure of what was going on, smiled at me and gently guided Kadian toward our rooms.

Sighing, I readied myself to follow. They’re headed toward the House of Reflection . Just as I was about to take a step forward, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Addie standing there.

“You okay?” She was dressed in the familiar robes I had grown accustomed to seeing her in. It felt strange to see Addie looking so plain when outside of Azmeer, she was anything but. Her hair, pulled back into a neat bun, was allowed to run wild with her brown curls during her visits. Addie was known for her colorful, bright clothing and large jewelry, which she described as “a way to express myself without getting too crazy.” But here, none of that vibrancy was present. The colors were replaced with beiges and off-whites, and her usual earrings and necklaces were nowhere to be seen. Despite the simplicity in her appearance, she never looked any less beautiful.

“It’s been a strange day,” I said, rubbing my temple with my fingers. I could feel the muscles in my face and head tightening.

She gestured towards the library, “I’m on break in a few minutes. Do you want to talk about it?” I peered into the inside, it was empty at this time of the day. “Maybe just sitting for a few minutes will help,” she wrapped her arm around me and led me inside.

I sat down at one of the chairs along the tables under the window and closed my eyes.

“ Hmm, ” I heard Addie say. I opened my eyes to see a small smile resting on her face.

“Do you hear that?” She said as she looked toward the window.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Hmm indeed . I smiled. “Rain,” I said a few moments later.

“A good thing, too. It hasn’t rained in months.” Her gaze continued to linger outside.

“I love rain in the summer.”

“Your mother did, too. I always thought she was crazy. Rain, I would say. How could rain be your favorite type of weather?” Addie looked at me, “Do you know what she would say?” I shook my head. “After every storm, it’s like the world is made anew.” She sighed. “I think of her every time it rains, and I appreciate how the old world is washed away to make room for what’s to come.” We sat in a comfortable stillness, listening to the rain tapping against the glass panes. It was a beautiful sound.

"You know, some believe—mostly the Court of Reflection," she rolled her eyes, "that it only rains when Hild has seen something so upsetting, so disturbing that it brings her to tears. A bit ludicrous if you ask me," she said, placing her hands in her lap. "They need to do more scientific research," she added with a smile. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

“What do you know of Thalius from the Court of Reflection?”

She rested her arms on the table and clasped her hands together, “I’ve never met him,” she continued, “but I know that he’s important within their court. He’s known for having a rather…stern reputation.”

“Is he here often?”

She shook her head, “I’d heard he would be visiting. We were requested to retrieve some papers for him over the next few days. Can’t say for sure, but I don’t believe he is here too often.”

“Do you have any idea why he’s visiting now?” I returned my gaze to the window.

“I don’t. Why the curiosity in regards to Thalius?” She put her hand on my shoulder, “Is he what’s bothering you?”

“ He’s only part of my problem, ” I wanted to say. I needed to speak to Marsh; I was worried about what was happening with Kadian, and my interaction with Rai. Why hadn’t I seen anything in those pools? Aela . Thalius and Lil were only the most recent crises.

“He’s Lil’s uncle and seems rather formidable. She barely uttered a word as soon as she caught sight of him. Just curious in regards to his nature.” I said, trying not to sound too concerned.

“I’m sure she’s used to how he functions,” Addie said while raising herself. “You should be going to get ready for dinner.” Addie leaned in, “Make sure you eat something,” she cupped my face with her hand and made her way back to the desk.

The library’s stillness pressed down on me as I stared at Addie, trying to gather my thoughts. I had walked into this conversation with questions, but now that I was here, now that the truth was so close, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. My mind was a tangled web of uncertainty and dread, each thread pulling me in a different direction, each one leading back to the same haunting thought: what else hadn’t I been told?

“Addie, I need to talk to you about something.” The words felt heavy, like stones dropping into a dark, endless well.

She settled back into her chair, arms resting on the table, her eyes holding a softness that both comforted and unnerved me. I wished she would say something first, give me an out, but the silence stretched on, filling the space between us with expectation. I swallowed hard, trying to steady my voice.

“Last night, at the feast following the ceremony, a man approached me and called me Aela.” The name felt foreign on my tongue, yet familiar, like an old melody I couldn’t quite remember. Addie’s reaction was immediate, her face draining of color as if the name itself had the power to reach across time and snatch the breath from her lungs.

Her eyes darted away, and for a moment, I thought she might deny it, might tell me that the man was simply mistaken. But then she looked back at me, her gaze steady but tinged with a sorrow that made my heart ache. “Now, to my knowledge, Mom had never been in Azmeer, so would you like to tell me why it is that a stranger mistook me for her?”

The accusation in my voice surprised me. I hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but the realization that Addie—and my father—had been keeping something from me was like a sharp, twisting knife in my gut. Addie began to rub her face, a gesture I recognized as one of hesitation, of uncertainty. She was stalling, trying to figure out how much to tell me, how much I could handle.

Addie cleared her throat, the sound unnervingly loud in the quiet room. “Your mother,” she began, her voice softening, as if she were speaking to a wounded child. “I take it that your father didn’t have this conversation with you before you came here?”

I shook my head, unable to speak. The silence that followed was suffocating, wrapping around me like a shroud. Of course, he hadn’t. We didn’t talk about Mom anymore, not really. The memories were too painful, too raw, and so we had let them fade into the background, like a book gathering dust on a forgotten shelf.

“Of course not,” Addie muttered under her breath, more to herself than to me. She took a deep breath, her expression softening as she reached across the table to place her hand over mine. The warmth of her touch was a small comfort, but it didn’t ease the knot of anxiety tightening in my chest.

“Aela, your mom,” she said, smiling wistfully, “as you know, was a year younger than me. We were inseparable, everywhere I went, she followed close behind. I never minded because I loved the company. She told the best stories, your mom, and had an imagination that I swear could have filled more books than there are in this room.” Her gaze drifted around the library, as if she could see my mother’s words etched into the spines of the books that lined the shelves.

I tried to picture it—my mother, young and full of life, chasing after Addie with that same stubborn determination I had inherited. But the image wouldn’t come. It was as if the years of silence had blurred the edges of my memories, leaving only a vague outline of the woman who had once been my whole world.

“I was granted a research opportunity during my final year of study to come to Azmeer and work in the library. My dissertation required access to books that cannot leave the premises, and the research was detailed enough that I needed an assistant. I couldn't have chosen anyone better than Aela to accompany me.”

I shifted in my seat, the sudden urge to flee almost overwhelming. But I forced myself to meet Addie’s gaze, to listen to every word she was saying, even though each one felt like a hammer striking the fragile glass of my reality.

“She came with you?” I asked, the words no more than a whisper. It was a stupid question—of course, she had. But I needed to hear it, needed to know that this wasn’t some cruel joke or a misunderstanding.

“Of course she did! You couldn’t have stopped her. Gods, she was more excited than I was. She was up first thing that morning, practically had to drag my sorry ass from bed,” Addie laughed, the sound warm and nostalgic. I could almost see it now—my mother’s determined expression as she yanked the covers off a groggy, wild-haired Addie, chiding her for being late.

The thought brought a bittersweet smile to my lips. Time was a cruel thief, stealing away these precious moments that I would never get to experience, these stories that had been kept from me for so long. The sadness inside me grew, an ever-expanding void that threatened to swallow me whole.

“When we arrived, we were greeted by a man named Yezed. He was Fae and a member of the Court of Shadows; he had been for many, many years.” Addie smiled again, but there was a sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Despite us being here for my research, when Yezed took one look at your mother, it was like I wasn’t even there.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“I would ask where our rooms were, and he would speak only to Aela. I commented on the palace itself, and he told your mother it was almost as beautiful as she was.” She chuckled, but it was a hollow sound as if she were trying to laugh off the pain that still lingered after all these years. “It’s funny when I think back on it. He was unmarried, and gods if he did not want to make your mother his wife. Over the course of the year we spent here, they became very close. Every decade or so, the House of Shadows holds a ball. We were invited that year at the behest of Yezed, who at the time served as a personal advisor to the king. Being the only humans in attendance, we felt very special.”

My chest tightened as the story unfolded, each detail a sharp sting against my already raw emotions. Yezed had wanted to marry her. My mother had been loved by someone else, someone who wasn’t my father. The thought was almost too much to bear, and I felt a wave of nausea roll through me.

“Despite being a high ranking official, he always made time for Aela. He became better about answering me as time went on, too,” she said, her lips curling into a small smile.

“But from the moment he saw her, he loved your mother.”

The room seemed to close in around me as her words sank in, heavy and suffocating. My mind raced, trying to process this new information, but it was like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands. My mother, the woman I had always idolized, had a whole other life, a whole other set of experiences that I had known nothing about. How could this be true? How could she have kept this from me?

“Yezed wanted to marry her,” Addie continued, oblivious to the storm raging inside me. “But one day, while out wandering the streets of Azmeer, your mother said she stopped to listen to a man she said sang the most beautiful song she’d ever heard. While she stood there listening, she saw a man across from her. She said the moment she saw him, she knew that was it. Not soon after, your mother decided to leave here with your father as it became clear Yezed was not going to give up easily.”

“Is…is that why they chose to settle in Escalia?” The idea of my parents running from something, from someone, was a strange and unsettling thought. They had always seemed so strong, so sure of themselves. But now, I wondered if that had all been a facade, a mask to hide the fear that had driven them to Escalia.

Addie nodded, her expression serious. “They feared if they went anywhere with too much magic or a connection to Azmeer, that Yezed would find her and somehow lure her back. They wanted to be somewhere safe. It was a logical choice.”

Safe. The word echoed in my mind, hollow and meaningless. Safe from what? From whom? And what did that mean for me, now that I was here, in Azmeer, where all of this had started?

“Whatever happened to Yezed?” I asked though part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“No one’s sure,” she placed her hands in her lap, “the days following your mother’s departure, it was as if he seeped into madness. People claimed to see him pacing the corridors at all hours of the night, asking everyone if they had seen her, and then one day, he just disappeared. No one has any idea of his whereabouts or whether he's still alive. I suspect something might have happened to him. He didn't strike me as someone who could cope in such a state. To my knowledge, no one has seen him since.”

“What did he look like?” I found myself asking, the question hanging in the air like a thick fog.

“His actual appearance was typical for members of the Court of Shadows. He had darker hair—auburn. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and undeniably handsome.” A small smile played on her lips as she spoke, but it quickly faded, overshadowed by something deeper.

“What do you mean by ‘his actual appearance’?” I pressed, feeling a chill creep up my spine.

Addie cleared her throat and shifted in her chair, her gaze growing distant. “It was rumored that he was a Shadow Stalker, which is why he was so close to the king.”

“A Shadow Stalker?” The term felt foreign on my tongue, heavy with implications.

“I’m not familiar with that terminology, Addie.”

“Likely because it’s a rare gift,” she explained. “Shadow Stalkers can step into the shadows of those they watch, essentially becoming that person…”

My heart raced as I connected the dots. “You mean they could manipulate their appearance to look like the person they stalked?”

She nodded. “It was a gift that, according to your mother, he seldom used. Only ever doing it at the behest of the king.”

The idea of it—someone lurking in the shadows, stepping into my life, my very identity—was horrifying. I imagined it, someone slipping into my skin, my actions, my voice, becoming me. How could anyone trust their own reality? How had my mother known and lived with that knowledge? Did she ever wonder if she was speaking to Yezed or someone else he had copied?

As if sensing my thoughts, Addie replied, “Your mother trusted him. That was all I ever needed to know.”

The weight of her words pressed down on me, each sentence peeling back another layer of my reality. Yezed’s anguish and desperate search had driven him to madness. And my mother—she had left him behind, moved on to a new life, and never looked back. A wave of emotions crashed over me, each thought more turbulent than the last. I felt lost in a tangled web of my family's secrets and the ghost of a man who had once meant everything to my mother.

The world felt like it was closing in around me. I could barely process the grief that swirled within me. My mother had a history that now felt like a secret I had been kept from. I struggled to comprehend the magnitude of what Addie had shared, the reality of my mother’s life in Azmeer standing in stark contrast to the comforting, static image I had carried with me all these years.

“Why have you never told me this before?” I asked, my voice cracking. The question was a plea, a desperate attempt to understand why I’d been left in the dark about so much of my mother’s life.

“I never thought it was my place to say,” Addie said, her eyes filled with regret. She cupped my face, her thumb brushing away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. “I assumed your father would have mentioned it at some point, but it seems his way of coping after she passed was to stop speaking of her. Frankly, it's an insult to your mother. Her praises should be sung daily. She wouldn't have wanted to be forgotten.”

“I never forgot her, Addie,” I said, the tears now flowing freely down my cheeks. But I’d been so caught up in trying not to disturb my father’s grief that I let her memory slip away.

“I know, sweetheart.” Addie’s voice was the medicine to my wounded heart as she caressed my cheek. “And I’m sorry to tell you this way. I figured she would have shared her stories with you when you were older, but you were robbed of an incredible mother.”

I nodded, sniffling as the full weight of her words settled over me. I had never pushed my father to talk about her. I had tried to respect his silence, but now I wondered if, in doing so, I had been complicit in letting her memory fade into obscurity. I had been afraid to confront his pain, but in doing so, I had ignored my own need to know, to understand, to connect with the mother I had lost.

Addie’s gaze softened with sympathy. “Do you know if Yezed left any records about the time you and Mom were here?” I asked, my voice trembling with a mix of hope and desperation. The idea of finding something, anything, that could bridge the gap between my fragmented memories and the reality of my mother’s past was almost too much to bear.

A small, wistful smile appeared on Addie’s face. “I do not. The House of Shadows does not keep records like that in the library.” Her words felt like a final blow, the last hope of finding a tangible connection to my mother slipping away.

I rose from the table, my legs trembling as if they might give way beneath me. The weight of the conversation, the revelations, was almost too much to bear. “Thank you for telling me,” I said as I struggled to keep my composure.

Addie stood as well, pulling me into a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry, honey.” When we parted, she cupped my face, her touch warm and steady, like she thought she could hold me together. “What did this man look like—the one who spoke to you at the ball?”

I swallowed hard, the memory resurfacing in sharp, unwelcome clarity. “He had dark hair, a beautiful face,” I choked out, my voice breaking despite the practiced sarcasm I tried to wield as a shield. “Pretty standard for members of the Court of Shadows, it seems.”

Addie nodded slowly, her lips pressing into a thoughtful line. “Likely a friend of Yezed’s,” she said, her voice low and distant, as though the words carried her somewhere far away. “Someone who had been introduced to your mother.”

The warmth of her hug was a fleeting comfort, a temporary reprieve for the raw wound that had been opened inside me. I held onto her, trying to steady myself, but as I pulled away and left the library, the story of my mother, my father, and Yezed continued to swirl in my mind.

I wandered through the corridors, my thoughts a chaotic whirlpool of grief and confusion. The walls seemed to close in around me, and before I knew it, darkness had fallen. I found myself in an unfamiliar corridor, the moonlight casting eerie shadows across the floor. The garden beyond was bathed in a silver light, and I laughed as I saw the yellow blooms of the Larrea tridentata plant waiting ahead.

Of course, this would be when I’d find it .

The solitude of the garden was both a refuge and a torment. The moon hung low in the sky, its light reflecting off the still water of a small fountain. I felt drawn to it, as if it might hold the answers I was seeking. However, it rested as still as the mirrors outside of the House of Reflection. What a day . I thought as I rubbed my temple.

Before I could do anything else, a voice echoed from deeper under the canopy, “ Hello, Ilia. ”