CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

SLADE

Age 8

“Slade!”

My shouted name is louder than the birds’ song, startling a few into taking flight.

I turn to look at the estate through the branches of the tree, and when I bend one back, one of the buds under my hand puffs out a cloud of blue. Ahead, the black stone building is stained with lines of white from all the times it’s rained, the top of it flat except for the square chimneys standing up like stacks of blocks.

My eyes drop down to the sloped grass where she’s walking up the hill toward me. I huff out a sigh and let go of the branch, more carefully this time so that I don’t get hit in the face with another puff from the tree buds. They smell good at least, but they’re awfully messy.

I turn back to the pin bird sitting on my finger. She’s just a nestling, tufts of down covering her spindly body, but her eyes are open and she coos low in her throat. “It’s alright. You’ll grow your real feathers soon,” I tell her. In a few weeks, she’ll have a plume of them at her tail for her to show off, each one as thin as a pin, the ends as sharp as them too. “Then you’ll be able to fly off with the rest of them.”

My name is shouted again, so I gently place the bird back in its nest before I swing my leg over the branch and start to climb my way down.

When my bare feet land in the grass, I look up at my mother standing over me with her hands on her hips. Her black hair is in a long, loose plait, and she’s wearing the same red-colored clothing as me, except she’s in a dress. “And what do you think you were doing up in that tree?”

I shrug. “Nothing.”

“Mm-hmm,” she says as she wipes off some of the blue powder that landed on my shoulder. “I suppose you weren’t climbing up there and playing with the birds again.”

My face is in a frown when I turn it back up to her. “I wasn’t playing. That’s baby stuff. I was monitoring.”

My mother’s lips twitch. “Of course,” she says, green eyes flicking down. “And your shoes?”

Another shrug. “It’s harder to climb with them. I didn’t put them on because I didn’t want to fall.”

She shakes her head, but all sternness has left her expression as she kneels down in front of me. “Well, I certainly can’t have you falling. And how are the birds this morning?”

“They’re good,” I assure her, feeling excited again now that I can tell she’s not angry. “There’s a little nestling, but I think its mom left already, so I’m gonna help teach it to fly.”

The shape of my mother’s green eyes crinkles as she smiles. “If anyone can do it, you can. You’ve always had a way with them.”

Her hand lifts and she combs her fingers over my hair, but I jerk my head away and press down on it. “I combed it earlier.”

She laughs and then fixes my upturned collar. “Come on. It’s time to eat.”

When she reaches for my hand, I tug it away. “I can’t hold hands anymore. I’m eight,” I tell her.

“Oh, right. Of course,” she says, though the side of her mouth has lifted up into a smirk. “I guess I just miss holding my son’s hand.”

I don’t want her to feel bad. It’s not that I don’t want to hold her hand, it’s just little kid stuff. “You could hold Ryatt’s,” I tell her. “He’s only three, so that’s alright.”

She gently pats my cheek. “That’s a very good idea.”

Together, we walk away from the copse of trees, passing by the birdbaths and the line of point-shaped shrubs. I look at the estate at the bottom of the slope, but I don’t want to go inside. I’d much rather stay out here with the grass and the birds.

There’s nothing wrong with the house, really. We’ve got forty-three rooms, a load of fancy things, and a bunch of servants too. None of the other families in the city have a house as big as ours with as many horses as we do.

But I hate it. I’d rather live in the smaller houses on the city streets. Because then I wouldn’t live here. With him.

We’re almost to the back door past the gardens when a figure appears in the doorway, and I immediately jerk to a stop, my mother stopping next to me. My father stands there, red shirt buttoned all the way to his neck, not a crease out of place. His bald head cuts into a thick brown beard, and his mouth is already pinched with irritation. It usually is whenever I’m around.

His black eyes skip from her to me, and I stop myself from swallowing. He’d see me do it, and I’m supposed to always be something called stoic. I think it means not to feel.

My mother reaches down and takes hold of my hand, and I don’t yank away this time. My sweaty palm is held tightly in hers as she takes me the last few steps until we stand in front of him.

“I didn’t know you were coming home tonight, Stanton.”

“I was able to cut things short with the king,” he replies.

His attention drops down to my bare feet, and it makes me want to scrunch up my toes and try to bury them in the grass. My heartbeat turns quick when he gives them a withering look before snapping his eyes back to my mother.

“I see that you’ve been shirking your motherly duties while I’ve been away, Elore.”

My head instantly drops, eyes finding my dirt-smeared feet while shame falls on my shoulders. If I knew my father was coming home, I never would’ve come outside without shoes. I never would’ve even come outside at all. This past week that he’s been gone has been the best time I’ve had in a long time. My mother has let me come outside every single day, and I even got to skip my weapons and history lesson yesterday. The last thing I want is for my father to be mad at her.

“He was just having a run in the gardens,” she tells him, her voice calm and nice. She always sounds like that, even when Ryatt is throwing a fit, and he throws fits a lot. “Fresh air is good for a growing boy.”

“His studies are good for him,” my father snaps. “Now take him inside and get him cleaned up. We have guests, and I’ve already ordered dinner to be brought in within the next twenty minutes.”

After he turns on his heel and walks away, my mother hurries me inside. She goes with me to my room where she helps me get ready. I don’t complain once, even when she runs a wet comb through my hair. By the time I’m dressed in fresh clothes and she’s collected Ryatt from the nursery, our twenty minutes are almost up.

Inside the dining room, Father sits at the head of the table, and there are three other people sitting to his left. One of them is my Uncle Iberik. His land shares a border with ours, and he’s older than my father. The two of them do business together a lot, though I’m not sure exactly what kind. I know my father owns ships at the harbor, and I hear them talking about blacksmiths a lot, but other than that, I don’t know. Yet unlike my father, Iberik lives alone and never had any heirs.

The other two people sitting at the table aren’t familiar. It’s a male and female, both of them with the shiniest hair I’ve ever seen. The female has red hair and eyes that look like bricks, nearly the same color as the empty fireplace at the left of the room. The male has a brown beard like my father but with slightly bucked teeth. Both of them have piercings through the pointed tips of their ears, jewelry dripping down them like teardrops and chains.

My mother sits to the right of my father, while I help Ryatt into his chair before I take my place between them. There’s a set of red flowers in a centerpiece in front of us, but it partially blocks the people, so I’m glad one of the servants put it there. It makes me feel a little more hidden.

The talking at the table doesn’t stop as we sit, and I’m glad about that too, because the last time Uncle Iberik was here for dinner, all he did was talk about how I should already be going out on hunting trips by myself and that it didn’t do well to raise a soft son.

Uncle Iberik eyes me and my brother with his usual scowl. I want to scowl right back, but there’s a prickling sensation between my shoulder blades that distracts me before I can get in trouble for being disrespectful.

As soon as we’re settled, a servant comes over and sets plates in front of us, and I see Ryatt scrunching his face. I reach over and put his napkin on his lap so I can catch his eye. When he sees the look on my face, he quickly loses his scowl and picks up his fork. He’s a picky eater, and when Father is gone, Mother lets us choose what to eat. But he can’t be picky now.

Ryatt takes his first bite of boiled spinach and doesn’t make a word of argument, and I let out a little sigh of relief before I pick up my own fork. I was so worried about my brother getting into trouble that I didn’t pay any attention to what anyone was saying until my mother goes stiff beside me.

“I understand, of course,” the unfamiliar male says, fork and knife held in either hand as he speaks and eats at the same time. “It’s a valid argument.”

“Of course it is, Tobir,” Uncle Iberik says to the male. “It’s what the loyalists maintained for decades and why, ultimately, we won the war. I for one am glad that we put a stop to Oreans coming and going into Annwyn and for the old king’s campaign to destroy the bridge. It needed to be done.”

I can’t help but glance over at my mother to see how she’s reacting to this conversation. Her eyes are on her plate, the grip on her fork tight.

I’ve had history lessons about the war and the breaking of the bridge, but those are mostly boring, and my tutor always talks about how bad Oreans were. He talks about how they were using up all of Annwyn’s resources and starting fights, and how they wanted to take land here for themselves so they could have long life.

I much prefer it when my mother talks about Orea. She is Orean, after all. She was one of the last to come through on the bridge. Sometimes, when she’s putting Ryatt and me to bed, we can get her to tell us stories about it. She always looks different when she’s talking about her world. Softer and sadder.

I know she misses it.

“To be sure,” the red-haired female says. “And the Oreans that are still here are very lucky in my opinion. They were waived from the law and are allowed to stay and given long life in the process. Not to mention the fact that some Oreans have magic because they bred with us for hundreds of years. They should be thankful.”

“Quite right, Netala,” Tobir says next to her before shoving a thick piece of meat into his mouth, his fork clanging against his tooth.

Netala tilts her head, mean eyes cutting across the table, and I see how her gaze lingers on my mother’s blunt, rounded ears. Ryatt inherited that from her. I used to be so glad that mine were pointed like my father’s. It was just one less thing for him to pick on.

“You have magic,” Netala says.

I see my mother glance at my father. He doesn’t usually like for her to talk about her magic. I don’t know why. Her magic is the best.

“She does,” my father answers, adjusting in his chair. “My Elore is remarkable.”

“What is it she can do?” Tobir asks, watching her curiously.

My father looks over. “Show them, Elore.”

Beneath the table, I see my mother’s knees lock together. “I’m not sure if I have the calling for that right now…”

The look on my father’s face makes her words dry up like dew in the desert. She casts her gaze back to Tobir, and my brother and I watch in awe as her eyelids flutter closed. When she opens them again, the green of her eyes is gone, and in its place, pale irises churn with some type of ancient scrawl, the letters so tiny they’re impossible to read.

Across the table, Netala gasps. “Her eyes…”

“Elore is a diviner,” my father says smugly. “She divines words from the gods and goddesses.”

Netala’s and Tobir’s eyes widen in surprise. I personally have only seen Mother do this a couple dozen times over the years, but I know my father makes her use it when we aren’t around.

I watch her face, watch the way the scrawl spins in her eyes, the way the rest of her face has gone calm and relaxed. Ryatt is watching just as closely as I am, and excitement leaps in my belly. I love watching her do her magic, but I know it tires her out. Soon, the words stop spinning, and her strange gaze sharpens on Tobir. I hear the fae male suck in a breath.

“The red-cloaked bearer shall give you two truths and a lie. You will believe the wrong one.” Her voice is deeper, not her normal speaking voice, and just like the other times I’ve heard her make her foretellings, goose bumps go up and down my arms.

Then, Mother blinks quickly, and the strange words disappear from her eyes, the green in her irises fading back into view.

Tobir’s brown brows are knotted deep into his skin. He stares at her for a second, like the words are replaying in his head. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demands.

“Elore’s foretellings are not always clear to us at the time of speech,” my father says.

“Sothis is why you took an Orean for yourself, Stanton,” Netala says. “Was she able to predict the outcome of the war?”

Father shakes his head. “Elore’s magic only works on people, not worldly events. Some foretellings can be as inconsequential as buying a bushel of spoiled apples, and some…more significant.”

“Ooh, I am curious what she predicted about you,” she says to my father, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.

Beside me, my mother goes stiff.

Anger slides over my father’s features like slime under a slug, but he wipes it away quickly. “She has not made one for me as of yet,” he says lightly, but I’m not tricked by it. He might try to sound calm, but there’s something sharp underneath that makes me squirm.

Netala nods, taking another bite of her meal. As she swallows, her eyes lift. “It is a very impressive power, Elore. Your ancestors must have bred with very powerful fae. Tell me, you were one of the last Oreans to come into Annwyn, is that right?”

My mother tips her head. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Part of the agreement for my support in the war was that I was able to bring in a last batch of Oreans,” my father explains. “They make up all of my groundskeepers and servants. Very efficient. They get long life, and I get a long-lasting staff.”

I try not to scrunch my nose up. I hate it when he talks about my mother and the others like this. I scratch the back of my forearm, trying my best not to let my anger show up on my face.

My mother’s lips go thin, so I reach over and place my hand on her leg under the table and pat her like she does for me sometimes when my father is making me upset. She glances over at me, and her face softens for a second.

“Stanton, your sons are the spitting image of Elore,” Netala says, and even though she’s smiling, she doesn’t look nice.

I don’t like that everyone keeps talking about my mother instead of toher, either. It’s nothing new, though. Most fae that my father has over are rude to my mother. It’s not her fault that my father saw her in Orea and brought her here. It’s not her fault that she’s Orean, and I don’t see why it matters anyway. Just like I don’t know why it matters that Ryatt and I are only half fae. She just proved that she’s powerful in her own right. Her magic is better than most of the fae in the city, so they shouldn’t be mean to her.

I shove a bite of meat into my mouth, chewing through my anger, but I immediately grimace just like Ryatt does when he eats something he hates. The food tastes off, like it’s been left too long. I try some of the boiled apples instead, but it’s overly sweet and mealy, like it’s started to go bad. Yuck.

“They do,” my father says. “But it is not a bad thing. Elore is very beautiful—and her magic is impressive. It’s why I chose her.”

My mother twitches. The back of my arm itches again.

“I hope they don’t take after her completely,” Uncle Iberik says with a laugh, hand swirling his cup of wine.

Tobir keeps chewing away. “Mmm, yes. I’ve seen plenty of fae and Orean pairings where the child doesn’t develop magic. Dreadful.”

“My sons will both have magic,” Father says, voice like a whip to punish anyone who should say otherwise.

“Of course they will.” Netala smiles. “I’m sure they’re more fae than Orean, at any rate. Elore herself has been fae-blessed as a diviner. And you—you’re The Breaker. The most powerful fae in the kingdom, aside from the king.”

I look over at Ryatt as he squirms in his seat, and I want to do the same.

The Breaker. That’s what everyone calls my father, and for good reason. Because his magic does just that—it breaks.

I’ve seen him break rocks, break fingers, break a lame horse’s neck. I’ve seen him break a roof, making the whole thing cave in.

His magic is scary.

Before he retired, he used to help break whole cities for the king. It’s why he got this estate. It’s why we have forty-three rooms and Orean servants. It’s why he was allowed to go for one last trip to Orea to bring people back with him just before both he and the king broke the bridge and ended the tie between our worlds. It’s why he was permitted to choose my Orean mother.

But just because she lives here and has two half fae sons and amazing magic doesn’t mean that the rest of the fae will ever look at her as an equal.

The three of us continue to eat dinner while everyone else talks, even though every bite of food I take tastes gross. I eat it anyway, because no one else is saying anything, and I don’t want my father to notice me not eating.

Finally, the servants come in to clear the tables, and I set my fork down, feeling queasy but glad to be done with it. All of the servants are Orean, just like my mother. I think she feels guilty sometimes that they’re serving her.

One of them, a man named Jak, comes to collect my mother’s plate, and she turns her head up to smile warmly at him, and he gives her a smile right back. All the servants love my mother. I don’t know if it’s just because she’s Orean like them or if it’s because she’s so kind, but when my father isn’t home, it feels more like they’re family than our servants.

Luckily, the adults decide to go into the parlor for pipes and drinks, so my father excuses my mother to take us to bed. Even though we’re free from being around his guests, I’m still feeling mad and gloomy. My mother’s brows are pulled down, and Ryatt is scowling.

But when my mother brings us into our bedroom, we get ready for bed, and then she sits down in the chair set between our beds and tells us a story about Orea. About a place split up between seven kingdoms. About a land where people didn’t even have power until fae came. And it doesn’t matter that Orea doesn’t have magic of its own, because hearing her talk about it makes the whole place seem magical anyway.

When my eyes get tired, I shift on my pillow and yawn. “If the bridge of Lemuria weren’t broken, I’d take you back to Orea, Mother.”

I’m too sleepy to open my eyes, but I think she sounds both happy and sad when she replies, “I know you would, Slade. I know.”