Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝔖𝔦𝔵 ♔

So I didn't actually realise how much of this book I already have written and (somewhat) edited. As such, I figured I'd treat the readers this book has with a surprise upload before I go back to writing. (Just finishing up chapter 27).
Should I be doing uni work? Absolutely. Am I going to?
No. I have a book to write.

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♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔

It is strange, the way in which something can be so terrifying, yet exhilarating. I haven't quite adjusted to how disturbing it is. Every time I think of what I did to Ezekiel, not only does it pinch me with fear, but also a profound sense of invincibility. Ezekiel, the Fae Hunter, an abdicated High Lord with power and strength and durability, brought to his knees by a girl of twenty, one without a harness on her power, power forced upon her only a few short weeks ago.

When I look at my hands, it is hard to fathom what destruction they may be capable of. The power of all the Fae I killed with the Pario Telum. The power of any Fae that was still stored within it, until gifted to me by my father. I cannot help but wonder if he knew. If this was his way of protecting me, even beyond the grave. I am sure he would revolt if he saw me now. A monster, still his daughter, but no longer who she was. The very thing we all feared for years. The thing that he protected his children from, time and time over. What a waste of his time I have made all those days in the Woodlands of Cracuria.

I am not even sure what he would see. I haven't dared to look at my reflection since I woke.

At dinner, I avoid letting my eyes meet the distorted image that looks back at me in the cutlery. When watching outside, I press my cheek so close to the glass, I can see nothing but the transparent outline of my eye, that is still the faded blue smoke colour it always was. It is Sloan that does my hair, so that I don't have to worry about accidentally knocking the new shape of my ears. I dress quickly, and as covered as I can get without boiling in the fabrics, so that my skin is hidden from view. Bits and pieces, but never the whole thing. Never my whole body, from head to toe.

There is a mirror in my room, a full length one at that, but since I cast a spare blanket over it the day I woke, I haven't bothered to bare notice to it since.

With slow, hesitant movements, I approach it. I let my fingers take a firm grasp of the wool and stay still. If I remove the veil, reality will come crashing down. There will be no reverting back to ignorance, there will only be moving forward to acceptance, and I am not sure if that is even a viable option for me. I know I have changed; I know what has become of me, and I will never be able to deny that. Yet to see it – it seems almost too real, too soon, too difficult to bear.

Nevertheless, I find my arm lowering, dragging the blanket with it. It slips slowly down the mirror, as if in warning, but I do not relent. It is not until the seam tips over the top of the frame, and then it is uncovered within a second. My reflection meets me, holding the blanket in a trembling grip, just like I am.

It is the same girl who always looked back when I hunched over the small mirror back home. The same one I always glanced at in the glass panes of windows of the richer areas of Cracuria. The younger version of my mother. There is something more sombre in her expression. Her frown is not hard set from exhaustion and stress, but from anguish and upset. Her dark brows are still thick and furrowed but pinched in a way that creases the plane of her forehead.

She still looks skinner than she should at her age. Months without proper nutrition, which would explain the paleness to her skin too – but I know she is eating well. Better than she even has, and better than her siblings back home. She hopes, as much as I, that their cheeks are rounded now, as summer looms. As the snares are full each morning and each night. As the brook begins teeming with fish and the nests stack with eggs. She almost smiles at the image of Mari with a full set of baby teeth, and Metri with a whole grin of adult ones. Then she scrunches her eyes closed as the pain of her imagination becomes too much, and I can only feel the weight of mine.