hate small talk. I only know to trust myself. I don’t understand the relationship you and Carrick have, and it’s not that I don’t understand it… it seems odd, weak, and overbearingly complicated. Affection makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t like talking about things much deeper than burgers, because I’ve never talked about deep things before. I have nothing to offer you at all.”
I take in a breath and let it out, not attempting to take her hands again. “You have the world to offer me, Zora. You’re my sister, and I love you. I need nothing more than for you to be here, safe and happy.”
“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help against Kymaris,” she says, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth while ignoring my statements of sentiment. “I didn’t do well at all today.”
“Your magic is what we’ll focus on,” I assure her. “If you can create wings to fly, your magic is powerful, Zora. We’ll get it figured out, but it might take time so don’t get frustrated. God knows it took a while for me to figure mine out.”
“But your magic is from an angel,” Zora points out with a hard look. “Mine is from a deranged Light Fae prince who is twisted dark and evil. I’m not sure that’s something we want to mess with.”
“Maybe not.” She makes a damn good point. “But we’ll be careful and test it slowly. Regardless, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I didn’t bring you here to help fight. You don’t even have to be anywhere around when this goes down. We can have you stay in Faere with Nimeyah or I bet you could even stay here in Semper Terra.”
“No, I want to be there,” Zora says adamantly. “I want to see Kymaris taken down.”
I grin. “Now that is totally my twin talking. I’ve always had a bit of vengeance inside of me. Wanting to see someone get their due when they’ve wronged me.”
“That bitch is the reason I was taken,” Zora snarls, and her eyes flash with fury. She’s breathing hard as if her emotions have winded her. “She’s the reason I was raised in Hell when I could have had this. She has to be defeated.”
“She will be,” I promise gently.
Zora gazes out over the bay, taking in breaths to get herself calm. Her hands are shaking, and she grips them together hard.
“Zora,” I say softly to get her attention. She doesn’t look my way, but her body jerks slightly from my tone. “How bad was it there? The truth.”
Because for all that I’ve learned about the worse-than-third-world conditions and funky animals to eat, it hasn’t really told me anything about why Zora is the way she is.
Slowly, Zora swings my way, and I can see the doubt warring in her eyes. Should she give me the absolute truth? Zora hates being thought of as a victim because any time I make faces of sympathy when she tells me things, it makes her bristle, and she’ll immediately denounce her life as being a hardship.
But I know I’m missing so much of the story.
I have a feeling, if she tells it all to me, that I’ll probably end up wishing I’d never known.
Zora brings her feet back up on the chaise and lays back, closing her eyes. I study the odd but beautiful bright white of her eyelashes as they lay against her skin. It’s a clear sign she doesn’t want to talk, but then… she starts talking.
“My earliest memory is after I’d learned to walk. The Dark Fae couple I stayed with hated me trying to get into everything. If I tried to climb on a chest, they’d knock me off it. If I tried to leave my pallet on the floor and climb on their bed, they’d push me off. After a while, I learned to just stay on the floor. For meals, they would toss scraps down to me.”
Okay, it’s going to be way worse than I expected. But if she’s brave enough to tell it, I’m brave enough to listen. I mimic her actions and lay back on the chaise, face to the sun, and I close my eyes as I listen.
“I learned to talk by listening to them because they never engaged me in conversation. I didn’t really understand who Amell was when he came to visit, but when he did, they treated me differently. The female would pull me on her lap,