Darkness and Beauty (The Fated Series, #1)

Chapter 38 - Fauna - Rest

I wake to the sound of voices arguing. My head is pounding, my breath which I can smell beneath my balaclava isn't pleasant, and my stomach is in dire need of food. I lift my hand to rub at my head finding every one of my muscles sore and shaking with the effort. Something soft brushes my cheek and I open my eyes, nearly falling off the bed when I find flowers just starting to bloom running down and around my forearm. The other one isn't any better. My left arm is encircled by some kind of stream of water.
"What in ten hells?" I turn to the sound of Darius's hoarse voice, finding him looking at his own arms covered in fire and something nearly invisible if it didn't blur his arm a bit.
Oh no. Nononononono. No.
Where my mind repeats the words, Darius pleas to every living thing aloud. It wasn't supposed to be true. The pendants were supposed to be trinkets of metal made to make a girl look pretty, not give the - this. My mother couldn't have been a Queen with elemental power, I would've known. Right? Did dad know? Did Lance know?
The voices that woke me rise in the next room. I hadn't heard them over the ringing in my ears. Needing answers, I look to Darius to tell him to come, but his face is pale.
"What?"
He looks at me, his eyes going from my hands to the pendant that somehow got around my neck. I want to snap the chain and toss it out the window, but at the same time, I don't want to touch it. I don't want to feel that pain again. Gods, it was awful. The tearing, the cracking, the burning - and then suddenly it was gone, replaced by that large breath of...life. I wanted to know if he felt it too. I almost do but stop short when I see how he stares at his arms.
His dream. All this time we've been so focused on who the stranger and his followers were, that we forgot about the other parts. Like how it always starts with him finding his arms coiled in fire and air. Or how there's a King and Queen with the same markings on their arms, as we now have. He did give us descriptions of the rulers to try and ransack our brains for any from history that might match them, but none of us could figure it out. I did think of my mother, initially, but I threw away the idea because she wasn't a Queen. At least, I hadn't known she was.
I'm a damned idiot. I've been focused on the threat rather than the warning, and that's just naming one of the mistakes I've made recently.
Slamming up another mental wall between the shock and the panic, I grip the blanket over me and throw it off."Come on. Ella has some explaining to do."
I ignore the anxiety swirling in my stomach and swing my heavy legs over the side of the bed. I manage to stand up for two seconds before my knee quivers and fold, making me fall to the ground. An echoing thump from the other side of the bed tells me Darius did so as well.
"Guys!"
There's a stampede of footsteps, and then the voices that were arguing now curse extravagantly as they near. I'd scold them for such bad fucking language if it weren't for m spinning brain and sudden upside-down stomach.
Gods I'm going to hurl.
"Saints, did you kick each other off the bed, or is it just more comfortable on the ground?"
I glare in the direction of Ethan's voice, swearing that I'll have him pleading for mercy the next time we train. Lance and Kat show up beside me, each taking an arm and pointedly ignoring my new display. Right after I sort my mind out, we're going to have a serious talk about their relationship. Also about how in heathens I somehow went from wearing my Jade suit to a loose top that smells faintly of Darius. Kat's doing, no doubt.
"Are you alright?" she asks. There's a slight tremble in her voice. I ignore her concern and try to get my knees to lock so I can stand.
"Oh, peachy," I lie.
"Glad to see a minor crisis and three days sleep hasn't dented your usual spirits" she mumbles.
"Three days?" I was asleep for three days. It felt more like an hour. And I'm pretty sure this is more than a minor crisis. "Where is she?"
"Tied to a chair in the sitting room," Lance answers, a little too sourly for my taste. I can't even begin to start listing all the ways how this is not my fault.
Once my legs lock, I try to start walking to the door. My knees have a different idea and I fall back to the ground. This time Lance picks me up, ignoring my snarl, and carries me to the sitting room where Ella is indeed tied down. It brings me joy to know that she doesn't look much better than me. Judging by the knots, Lance was the one to do it. He sets me down on the couch closest to Ella, then moves to stand behind her. As much fun as it would be to see everyone squirm while Lance and I get answers in a more cruel way, I doubt he'll need to lay a finger on her for her to tell me what I want to know.
Vlad helps Darius sit down at the other end of the couch. Either they're all scared that what did happen will happen again, or I smell like shit from sleeping for three nights by the way they all stand at a distance.
"You need not worry. The worst of it has passed."
I don't answer for a minute, taking in her features and finding the minuscule differences between her and my mother. They weren't identical, thank the Gods, but there is enough in my supposed aunt to still hurt to look at her. The angle of her eyes, the smaller nose, the lifted cheeks, her height, heathens, even the way her eyes roam over me in turn is such a practiced movement my mother always did. I always used to think it was her admiring my outfit, but then I grew up and realized she was likely scanning me for injuries.
But her eyes are slightly darker than my mother's. Her hair is straight where my mother's would fall in gentle waves when it wasn't tied in a knot. The color of her lips is paler, the fill of her body less, and the angle of her head too serpentine where my mother's was reminiscent.
She's not my mother.
"About that-" I keep repeating the mantra in my head while leveling a stare at her, "-care to explain what, exactly, I just doomed us into?"
She explains who she is and how she's from Thralia, a kingdom that has been long forgotten for decades, not to mention oddly easily so for how she details its extravagance and liveliness thanks to the elemental rulers. Mortals, let alone other kingdoms and their rulers have a tendency to always remember the powerful or where to find how to obtain such power. If Thralia had such wealth in its land and its rulers were the most powerful beings in existence, then how is it that the whole of Ker simply forgot about it? How did they disappear and gain the ability to never be mentioned only six decades later?
Lance gives me a look that says he still doesn't know, and he certainly doesn't trust anything or anyone from Thralia until we get answers.
She's only the Regent since she has no elemental powers and she can't take full responsibility of the monarch's position. My mother was Dawn Fira Clementine Veyron, and she was the Queen of Thralia for a short five years, her husband Kerrigan ruling alongside her. They tried and failed to produce heirs, which wasn't good. Apparently, the line of succession is weird. The next elemental Queen must always be a direct decedent of the previous female ruler, but the King is handpicked by the Spirits of the Living, ancient Thralian ancestors who watch over their people. They're not Gods, so to speak, just quite literally spirits.
"Dawn and Kerrigan were very lucky to be both in love and be chosen. It's rare that the spirits pair an already involved couple. They often view love as a complication more than a blessing. They choose those who would prioritize the elements over any other thing, as such power in the wrong hands could result in the end of all Ker and anything that lives. Dawn and Kerrigan were each suddenly wary of one another when he was chosen as the next Pater Princeps. They questioned one another's love where it wasn't ever before simply over the knowledge that if it came down to it, would they pick to save one another or the elements? I don't think either bothered to ask the question of what would it do to them if they were suddenly one and the same."
She then went on to explain the visions she had, and the plan my mother created to try and stop the spreading darkness. She left her husband and her people to start a new life across the sea at age twenty-five, all to keep her people, Kerrigan, and the elements safe. My parents were old friends, my father having been a traveler at a young age who ventured to Thralia at sixteen and stayed until he was eighteen, after which he returned here and to his family. When she showed up at his doorstep years later, pregnant and claiming to be in danger, he agreed to pretend to be her husband to keep her safe. Then they fell in love, had two children, and the rest of the story I know. At least, I think I do. The more I listened and the more she talked, the more I felt like I didn't know my mother at all.
"What about the pendants?" I ask, pushing aside my shaky knowledge of my own Gods damned mother.
"That was your mother and Kerrigan's doing." She says it with a slight hint of distaste.
"What do you mean?"
"In order for Xaxias to gain it fairly, he'd have to somehow produce an heir with the gifted Queen, and while that heir was....vulnerable, he'd have to...well..."
"In other words, he needed to get our mom pregnant while she still had powers and then kill the child before it came into its power," Lance states bluntly.
Gods and their Saints. My whole body quivers with the disgusting image. I've lived most of my life killing shitheads who had the same aims but for different reasons. To think my mother might've been - hivers run up my spine, tensing the back of my neck.
"Yes. After six years of living her new life and bearing another child only two years after her first, Dawn finally found a way to transfer her power into an object, which could later be given to anyone she saw fit for it. She wrote a letter to me about her findings, and when I told Kerrigan, he had the pendants made. Took him two years to track down someone who had magic strong enough to spell the pendants so they would hold the elements until they were meant to be released, and to find someone willing enough to travel to that person, and return the pendants to Kerrigan and Dawn once they were made. Nine months after the pendants left Thralian shores, Dawn received her pendant and she performed the ritual a month later. She didn't write to me when she was supposed to, so I started to panic. Then a month later, she wrote saying that the ritual was more painful than she anticipated and it took a toll on her she hadn't expected."
I did the math in my head. She did the ritual three months before her death. Three months that I remember her coughing and looking paler and walking less. I thought it was the autumn illness - it's what both our parents told us, that it was nothing more than the winter's cold coming early. I believed them, but they were lying.
"And Kerrigan? When did he do the ritual?" Darius asks still looking sick.
"Two years after her. I was supposed to take the pendant and keep it until Dawn's heir returned to Thralia, but Kerrigan's dying wish was that his would be given to a woman by the name of Amira Cartellieri. It wasn't until a cycle ago that I found that her real name was Adeline Rosendal. Having been isolated from the world, Thralia hadn't heard of the kind Queen, so I assumed the pendant was lost and prayed that the Gods didn't hand it to a lunatic. I didn't even put the pieces together until you looked at Prince Darius," she says to me. "But the power has been drained from the pendants and into you. You are Thralia's - and the world's - last hope. For years we've managed to keep Xaxias in Thralia, but when we found he had followers here that were beginning to stir...I came as soon as I could."
Something in the air has definitely shifted. Usually, it's like a chill on my skin, a whisper in my ear telling me to pay attention and look closer. Now it's as if the air is...thicker. Like it's all too easy to breathe. I look to Darius, knowing the mention of his grandmother's name probably dug a knife into his gut. He stares at Ella like she's a ghost that decided to show itself and its transparent form. Hearing that my mother is a foreign Queen who went into hiding is one thing, as is hearing that we now hold powers neither of us got the choice to take or not but hearing that his grandmother had been a part of this whole scheme for years?
No one else in the room seems shocked. They all advert their eyes away from him as if they're ashamed for committing the act they didn't carry out. I'm barely wrapping my head around all of this, but I'm choosing to avoid most of it because I know that trying to process it all will shatter my mind into a billion pieces. Darius already seems to be cracking like a lake frozen over as spring is thawing it.
I reach over and take his hand. The leaves around my wrist fall against the flame on his. I cringe at the sight of them, but ignore the stupid nuisances and try to get off of the subject of Aracely's involvement. The less he knows now, the better.
"Do you know who they are? His followers?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "No, but we know there are three main ones outside of Thralia and four within. I didn't want to come to you until I thought you were ready, but a letter was delivered to me saying that he and the others had set sail."
"How long before they arrive?"
"Two cycles, maybe."
"That's on the Elysian Festival." I look to Garrison and find him returning the concern, although I'd smile my I told you so smile if I didn't hate the fact that I was right.
"What about this?" Darius gestures to his arms. His hand has tightened around mine, but I don't draw attention to it. "Will it go away?"
"If you want it to," she says carefully. I hate careful words and give her a look that tells her that. "Of course, it comes with practice and the understanding of how the power works."
"Can you show us how to do it?" She nods, and he releases a sigh. I won't be relieved until these damn leaves stop itching me.
"It's better to do it on a full stomach and when you're back to full strength. You guys should eat, then rest for two more days," she suggests.
"Oh, thank the saints," Gabe sighs joyfully, already walking to the table and plucking an apple and an orange from a bowl.
"We may not have two days. Train us today," I insist.
"No. The healer said that your power feeds off your energy, and with yours being at a minimum, I'm not going to have you drain it. Unless you want to be asleep for another three days," she adds when I open my mouth to argue. I snap it shut. "Two days, then we'll train on Lunae."
I know better than to argue, especially when my neck muscles are straining to keep my head aloft. I hate having to wait, but she's right. Two days is better than three, and if anything does turn up, then we'll need to be able to at least run, and right now that doesn't even look like it's going to happen today.
We untie Ella, who I guess I can start calling Aunt Ella-
Nope, we're not quite there yet.
We eat, Darius still asking her questions about Xaxias and his followers, and how hard controlling these new godsforsaken powers will be. I know what he's doing. Distracting himself with a bigger problem than that of his grandmother's mysterious involvement. I can't say I'm not entirely surprised. Her constant state of travel made the perfect cover for her covert operation. No one would question it, and she probably told the whole town the story, leaving the secret bits out, of course. I, for one, just can't wait to get rid of these flowers that keep getting in the way of my eating. I've bitten into three already, and every time they grow back quick as a bunny. Kat seems to think it's a laughing matter for me to have to spit out the petals. I've come seconds away from murdering just about everyone in the room, so no, it's not a laughing matter.
After changing into my night mask and then eating three days' worth of starvation, Lance carries me back to the bed, Henry and Alex holding up Darius in between them. The Dozen follow us in, all looking grim and in need of rest themselves. They all have bags under their eyes, and I feel my eyes start to burn at the thought of them all sitting in here for days without sleeping.
Stupid, tired brain is weak and letting sentiment actually have a hand on the damn wheel. Go away!
"Wait, how long did you say we've been asleep for?" Darius asks looking around the room.
No one answers, and I suddenly have a very bad feeling. "Three days." I watch everyone's reactions but get nothing.
"Holy shit," Darius curses rather beautifully. "Where is he?"
"Where's who?"
"He's at his parent's house. Left last night," Garrison answers in the vaguest of ways, completely ignoring me. I want to punch him.
I do a headcount and find that there are only eleven of the twelve here. Based on the furrow of Lance's brow, he didn't realize that Osiris wasn't here either. So much for the years spent in observational training. I'm about to ask why in ten hells Ozzy is at his parent's house, but then I catch Kat's eye and she shakes her head.
Not now.
I want to argue, but the weariness in The Dozen's expressions has me holding my tongue. Ethan starts fussing, asking if we need anything or if our pillows need fluffing. I give him a hard glare that has him skittering back into the foyer but smile at his willingness to grovel. Who knows, maybe two days of having them answer every beck and call won't be so bad.