Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“Why would he want to ally with one of the Seven? Why help anyone who keeps someone like our father in power?”
Konner grabs the wooden chair from the desk and drags it in front of me before dropping into it. Once we’re eye to eye, he says, “There are many among the Seven who want a change, but few who are as brave as Sol. We could make it happen if Erith were out of the picture. Sol has been pushing for reform for decades and gotten nowhere because everyone is too afraid to stand against our father. And now that she has something of her own to lose . . .” He blows out a breath.
“You never wanted me dead.”
“I tried to tell you that before.” He shakes his head. “I need you too much.”
“For your daughter?”
He stares at me with wide eyes, and I can feel the panicked beat of his heart as if it were my own. When he finally speaks, his voice is a low rasp of desperation. “Anything for her.”
“Erith can’t be killed by anyone but me, can he?” I ask. “I can kill him, and when your daughter is grown, she could too—if he lets her live that long.”
He takes half a step back. “So you know?”
I shake my head. “Not enough. I’m just trying to piece it all together.”
He licks his lips and looks toward the window thoughtfully. “When the oracle told our father that our mother would give him twins, a boy and a girl, and the girl would kill him, only some of that information was new to him.”
“What do you mean? Had it already been prophesied?”
“Our father has never been satisfied with his lot in life. He was given the power of the Seven, and he wanted more. He was given the immortality of the fae, and he wanted more. Godlike power, godlike immortality. He would have done anything for that.
“Long ago, after Father had ascended to the Seven but before he had been named as patriarch and before there was any prophecy about him being killed by his daughter, he found an evil, ancient spell that would give him true immortality and magical power greater than anything we’ve ever seen. To this day, no one can prove what he did or what—or rather whom—he sacrificed for it, but I’ve had my suspicions for years, and I think the source of his sacrifice is the source of his greatest weakness.”
“What do you mean?”
He swallows, gaze still unfocused, as if he’s looking back into a time long ago. “I don’t think you were his first daughter. When I was young, Mother was not well, and Father would send her away for long stretches of time. To ‘heal’ her, he said. He wanted everyone to believe she was crazy, but I think he made her that way. I’ve found evidence that he sacrificed their firstborn—a daughter. He cast a spell for power and immortality well beyond what the gods would naturally gift the fae, but the crux of the spell was the unthinkable: offering his daughter, a mere babe, in exchange for the power he sought.”
My stomach pitches, then I shake my head. “He wouldn’t have been able to ascend if he’d done that.”
Konner holds my gaze. “Except he would’ve already been one of the Seven at this time.”
My heart feels too clunky in my chest. Like a smashed wheel that is fighting to turn. A sister. We had a sister that he sacrificed for nothing but power.
He gives a subtle nod, as if he can see my thoughts on my face. He probably can. “I think our mother knew that and that’s why she risked her own life to protect you when we were born.”
“What kind of horrible magic works in such a way?”
“The kind that is very old, very dark, and very ugly,” Konner says. “And anyone who wields it becomes the same. The hunger for power like that is a curse. There’s never enough.”
It might be a curse to him but it’s worse for the rest of us. He destroyed our mother. Killed our sister. And Elora is falling apart under his rule. “What can we even do in the face of that kind of power? That kind of evil? He’s a true immortal, then?”
“Close, but no one but the gods can be a true immortal. He can be killed, but only in two ways, the first being the sacred Sword of Fire, which Mordeus promised to return to him if he brought him back to rule from the Unseelie throne. His other weakness was a punishment for what he was willing to sacrifice. He could be killed by a female down his bloodline.”
“Any female,” I say. “Meaning that if he knew about Leia, he’d have her killed.” Imagining anyone hurting that precious curly-haired baby makes my chest ache. I can’t imagine having something that precious brought into your life knowing there’s someone who wants to take it away.