“You always wanted me to have a choice,” I said, realization dawning as I connected the dots. Because he hadn’t, because they’d forced him to touch people that he didn’t want, and he knew that pain deeply.
“You always will,” he said, sliding his hand around the back of my neck. He pulled me into his chest, pressing his chin down on the top of my head.
“What about you? Will Mab make you do that again? To hurt me?” I asked, horror dawning over me. If I was her daughter, there was no telling what she would do. If that was how she treated her children…
“Even her magic has limits and it cannot defy a mate bond. If she had tried to force me to respond to someone after you were born, she wouldn’t have been able to, and then she would have known that you exist. She cannot force me to be with someone now,” he said, pulling back to stare at me. “But there is a reason she cannot know about you until I’m strong enough to fight her. Why she can never have you in her clutches. She may not be able to force you to touch someone in the way she did me, but she could still use your body to punish me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“She could tear the skin from my bones,” I said, nodding my head.
“She could allow her men to rape you to punish me for keeping you a secret all these years. I knew I had a mate and never allowed her to have that information. I protected you, and she will hate that in ways you cannot understand.”
“She would do that even if I’m her daughter?” I asked, looking at Fallon. She exchanged my worried gaze, that bond thrumming between us. Whichever one of us it was, one of us was the daughter of that.
“Mab would only reproduce to benefit herself. It has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of love she has for her child,” he said, pulling back to look between Fallon and I. “Whoever it is, you will serve a purpose to her one way or another.”
32
ESTRELLA
“If all magic has a price, how do the witches pay it?” I asked, refusing to raise my hands to play with the swirling winter storm Caldris created in his hands.
He sighed, cocking his head to the side and flicking his fingers. The storm vanished into thin air, and I realized how desensitized I’d become to the sight of such displays. What had seemed impossible to me only a few weeks prior was now ordinary, almost unimpressive compared to the grand magic I’d seen him use. “They channel the nature around them, specifically the element or physical body of the very thing that they draw power from. In Imelda’s case, her power is very limited during the day because it is far harder to pull magic from something that you cannot see than if she tries to channel at night.”
“But how is that a cost?” I asked. The way she’d bound Fallon and I in our blood oath to each other, that magic had a very real cost. We were duty-sworn to uphold it or face the consequences of our betrayal.
“All magic is finite. If the Lunar Witches were to just take and take and take from the moon without giving, the power within it would eventually subside. Without giving back, the price in that case would be the depletion of the very magic they rely on, and they do not want that,” he explained, stepping around my side. I followed him from the corner of my eye, something about his relaxed posture and easy smirk raising the hair on my arms.
“So what do they give?” I asked. I’d never seen Imelda give anything in the rare moments she muttered an incantation. She didn’t do it often, using her magic sparingly and only when there was a moment that warranted it. Traveling alongside the Wild Hunt meant that most of her needs were seen to, even if she did still want to stab the Huntsman through the heart every time he looked at her wrong.
“It depends on the spell. As far as I understand, the witches’ magic is more like a barter. A life for a life, an eye for an eye. Someone has to pay the price. In an ideal negotiation, the witch is able to have her enemy be the one to pay that cost to the magic, which is why Imelda rarely uses it except to protect herself. Then at the end of a witch’s life, her soul returns to the power from which it came. It gives strength to the next generation of witches.” he explained, circling around my back slowly. I didn’t turn, allowing him to complete his rotation and emerge to the side of my other shoulder.
“When she revealed the mark on my arm, what did she have to sacrifice for that?” I asked.
“You paid that cost,” Caldris said, glancing down at the burn mark on my hand. I recalled the searing pain, and the way I’d wanted to weep as my flesh sizzled away. I nodded, running my fingers over the mark.
The Fae had a different kind of cost, exhaustion and the risk of over-pulling on the magic in the fabric of the universe. I didn’t want to think of what would happen if I pulled too much power before I was ready.
Would it burn me from the inside, scorching my soul the way Imelda’s magic had my flesh?
I swallowed, shoving the thought away and shaking my head. Caldris continued his leisurely walk around me, stopping in front of me and regarding me. “Are you ready to begin?”
I nodded as I positioned my hands before me. Cupping them and tipping them up to the sky, I sucked back a deep breath and met his inquisitive stare.
“Good,” he grunted, nodding slowly. He moved too quickly, pulling back his arm so suddenly that I barely had time to flinch away from the ball of snow that came barreling toward my face. It hit me in the side of the neck, the snow sliding down to sink into the neckline of my shirt.
“What is wrong with you?” I gasped, grasping my tunic around the collar and shaking it until the snow fell out the bottom, lighting a trail of icy fire down my stomach in the process.
“You aren’t responding to slow methods, so we’re going to take it up a notch,” he said, curling his fingers up toward the sky. The storm that gathered in his hand swelled, building momentum with every dance of his fingers that drew more power into it.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I said, taking a step back as he formed another snowball. His fingers continued to work around it, freezing it into a sphere of solid ice as my eyes widened in shock. “Caelum—”
He sent it spiraling toward me, spinning through the air as I ducked to avoid it. The next came quickly, and there wasn’t time for me to even think about drawing his power through the Viniculum.
“When Mab and her allies come for us, do you intend to duck and weave for the rest of your life?” Caldris asked as I darted behind one of the trees surrounding our little clearing. I pressed my back into the trunk, my lungs heaving. It was ridiculous to be so frightened of a few balls of ice, but something in the intent trickling through the bond was different.
Caldris was done playing games, and if I didn’t figure something out soon, he'd find other ways to force me to channel his power.
“I thought you were braver than that,” he mused, knowing damn well how the words would grate against my pride and my desire to be independent. I didn’t want to hide behind him and his men, lurking in the shadows while he fought for our freedom. “I thought you wanted to stand at my side as my equal, min asteren?” His voice was teasing as I pushed away from the tree trunk slightly. Clenching my fists at my side, I raised them and stared down at them. Willing the snow to come, channeling the cold and trying to sink into that golden thread that connected us.