put the last slice of pizza in the microwave, while Alasdair began to fry bacon.
“The Fae are also not known for their empathy: each is essentially selfish, concerned only with his or her own pleasure. They certainly can be cruel. Rania, as a result, had no one to teach her to care, and no one particularly to care for. This might have been bad enough, but Maeve had a plan for the child’s future and ensured it would come to fruition. She distrusted the influence of the child’s mortality. She had slipped a shard of ice into the palm of the infant as soon as she had seized her from the witch’s hut. Being a magickal spell of its own kind, that shard of ice worked its way ever deeper into Rania until it reached her heart. Once there, it froze her heart solid, making her incapable of sympathy for any other being.”
Hadrian paused for a moment, reading that passage again in silence. Rania’s solitude and her ability to even keep Maeve’s bargain was the result of a kind of spell. She’d been trapped by Maeve from infancy and had never had a chance of choosing otherwise. He looked up to find her watching him, her eyes wide with surprise.
The Dark Queen had manipulated her, and here was the proof.
“Do continue,” Sebastian urged in a bored tone.
“The shard of ice had done its damage by the time Rania came into her ability to change shape. She was clumsy with these transitions at first, for there was no one to tutor her in the endless twilight of Fae, but she persisted and mastered her powers in time. Once she had become an adult, adept with her skills, and cold of heart, Maeve put the rest of her plan into action. Rania knew little of Maeve’s true nature, for the Dark Queen had been the one most likely to show her kindness. She knew she owed Maeve a debt for raising her, too. Rania trusted Maeve, just as the Dark Queen had planned.
Maeve told Rania the tale of her brothers’ enchantment, showing them to her in a vision, then offered Rania the opportunity to free them. There was enough emotion left in Rania’s heart that she felt an obligation to her own kin, a desire to please Maeve, and a need for some family of her own. She took Maeve’s bargain, agreeing to make thirteen assassinations for the Dark Queen in exchange for the freedom of herself and her brothers.
She had made twelve kills when she felt the spark of the firestorm, when the kiss of the ice dragon drew Maeve’s splinter of ice out of her heart.”
Hadrian fell silent and the three Pyr looked at Rania. “Is it true?” Balthasar asked.
“I think so,” she said. “The parts I know are true, so the rest must be as well.”
“A splinter of ice in your heart?” Alasdair said, grimacing.
“She tricked you,” Hadrian said to Rania.
“Even more than I’d realized.” Her heart was in her eyes. “I saw the splinter of ice,” she told him, putting out her hand and tapping her palm with her fingertip. “I didn’t know what it was. It came out of my palm after we first met, after we...” She blushed as Hadrian grinned in recollection of what they’d been doing. “And then everything felt different.” She shrugged. “It was as if I could feel for the first time ever.”
“Not like that,” Sebastian said. “It was that. But you’re missing the most salient detail.”
They all turned to look at him, mystified.
He raised his hands in exasperation. “You were the wrong child. You weren’t the promised tithe.” Rania and Hadrian gasped simultaneously. “Maeve adores technicalities, especially when she can break a deal because of one. I would dearly love to witness the moment that she realizes she’s in your debt, for putting that splinter in your heart and compelling you to act against your will, with no justifiable cause on her part.”
“I didn’t enter Fae willingly,” Rania said slowly.
“You were seized, and enchanted,” Hadrian said. “Against your will.”
“Who would volunteer for such a fate? No, she was wrong.” Sebastian shook his head as he mused. “What would she owe you for such injustice?”
“You were in her thrall for a thousand years,” Hadrian said.
“Twelve assassinations,” Rania said.
“Not to mention a splinter of ice in your heart,” Alasdair reminded them.
“I’m thinking the breaking of the curse on your brothers would be a good start,” Hadrian said.