"I still wonder about it," I said.
His brow furrowed, eyes searching my expression. "Wonder about what?"
"Whether you're the villain in my story."
~~~~~~~
Mara Monroe is at the center of a war she wanted no part in.
But with her new throne she fac...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Sorry, what?"
Cedric's voice conveyed the shock that I felt as we both watched Thea. The younger girl was trembling, and trying to hide it too.
"Um... what does she have to say?"
Thea swallowed. "It's a little scattered, but she has—had the same ability as you, Mara. Her father was human and her mother was fey."
Cedric's eyes widened and he looked at me for confirmation. I already knew that much about her. I wanted to know how she controlled her power, how she used it, what she knew about the cauldron.
"Will you ask her if she left the summer court? And why?"
Thea didn't say anything, but paused for a moment as if she were listening to the answer. I wasn't exactly sure how she was capable of communicating with the dead, but apparently Camellia could hear my questions for herself.
A few months ago I was riding the subway to class and now I was communicating with the ghost of my old ancestor the night before I rescued my half-sister from a horde of vampires.
Needless to say, if I were to apply to grad school, I'd have a hell of a good personal statement topic.
"She said she went to the Winter court. Escaped to the Winter court," Thea paused, her face softening at whatever she was hearing, "apparently, the Summer court was not always as welcoming as they are now to half-mortals. She had friends in the Winter court who hid her."
"How did she... you know..." I asked, trailing off awkwardly.
Thea grimaced. "That's not usually a question you want to ask—"
She was cut off abruptly, but not by anything that Cedric or I could hear. Whatever it was, she seemed intrigued. I was growing irritated at this method of communication. While rationally I knew that there was no other way to hear what Camellia had to tell me, I was irritated that I had to wait for Thea to hear the news and report it.
"She was tricked. Betrayed. One of the friends she made in the Winter court sold her out to a... I don't know how to pronounce the name," Thea swallowed, "but she says that she was sacrificed to appease a lord of... Anoon, a man named Aron? Aaron? Does that sound familiar to you?"
I shook my head at the same time Cedric was nodding. Thea and I looked at him for an explanation.
"Arawn," he said, changing Thea's pronunciation only slightly, "he is the Lord of Annwn in legend. A collector of abandoned souls. He presides over the Sluagh na marbh— the host of the dead," Cedric added, noting the confusion on Thea's face. "If Camellia was sacrificed to him, it meant that her soul joined the host, scouring every realm for other unforgiven and restless dead souls."
I swallowed. Andras and I discussed the Sluagh when he took me to the frozen waterfall. I'd dismissed it as myth, as did he, but here was the truth of their existence. Not only a scary story to tell human children to convince them to go to church or to scare a fey child into behaving.
"She was sacrificed because of her power. Because of Essence," Thea waited a moment, "and sacrificed by Eminence."
I swallowed, averting my eyes from the man with shadows that lingered by his shoulders. Betrayal seemed to follow the powers that we inherited.
"Long is the day and long is the night, and long is the waiting of Arawn," Cedric murmured, as if repeating a piece of scripture.
Thea winced. "I wouldn't say his name."
"What?"
"Camellia says that invoking his name can summon him."
"But those are the last rites the fey speak when there is a death." Cedric's brow furrowed.
Those were the words I heard him speak to the knights that attacked us in the woods. I hadn't realized what they were, but he gave them their last rites.
"His name is spoken in the last rites to alert him to a new soul that he can collect for the endless hunt," Thea said automatically, then shook her head. "What the hell is the endless hunt?"
"The endless hunt, the wild hunt, Sluagh na marbh, the host of dead. All the same thing. Bad omens that precede wars, famines, illnesses. All to collect the souls."
"Cheerful," I added.
Thea stepped forward as if she were pushed, stumbling a little bit catching herself.
"Camellia says that you're in danger, Mara." She swallowed. "Um, apparently Ara— er, sorry, the lord of Annwn... he's after you now. Searching for you."
The three of us were silent. Only the sound of the fluorescent light above us flickering and the occasional cricket filled the void. The words hung between us, till eventually I let out a frustrated sigh.
"I guess he'll just have to get in line, won't he?"
We stood outside with Thea speaking for Camellia for what felt like hours. At least until the sky started to turn a lighter shade. Cedric did most of the talking, demanding answers from both Thea and Camellia.
Like me, Camellia's powers only started to awaken after she came into contact with her counterpart. With Eminence. Like me, she trusted Eminence. Like me, she was betrayed.
By the time Thea told us that Camellia departed, all three of us were weary with the weight of the news. Cedric and I's moment had been all but forgotten with my ancestor's history. A history I seemed doomed to repeat.
The first Eminence and Essence, the story that Cedric told me, ended in betrayal and death. Camellia's story ended the same way. Was I foolish to hope that mine wouldn't?
When we finally went our separate ways, I found that it was difficult to look him in the eyes— my Eminence.
