Shades of Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #16) - Alexandra Ivy Page 0,81
went to town and got yourself pregnant?” She tried to make the words teasing. Instead they came out like a croak.
“Not exactly. I left the village determined to discover a man who could give me something very specific—”
“Ew.” Chaaya shook her head. “TMI.”
Keyrah ignored the interruption. “Eternal life for my daughter.”
The low words caught Chaaya by surprise. Whirling back, she stared at her mother in confusion.
“Eternal life?”
Her mother sent her a gaze filled with an emotion Chaaya wasn’t ready to accept.
“I couldn’t change destiny, but I could do everything in my power to offer you an opportunity to survive.”
Chaaya hesitated before asking the question she’d tried to ignore her entire life. “Who was my father?”
Keyrah’s expression softened, as if the memory of Chaaya’s father stirred the same sort of melty emotions that Chaaya felt when she thought of Basq.
The sight was…unnerving.
“I thought he was just a mist sprite.”
“But he wasn’t?”
“He was much more.” Keyrah smiled. A small, secret smile. “Aer happened to enter a glade where I was resting. It was only later that I realized he had been brought to the precise spot by his own fate.”
An ugly sensation twisted Chaaya’s heart. “A pretty story for a one-night stand,” she sneered, then she slapped her hand over her mouth. Okay. She was bitter. And it hurt that she’d never heard her father’s name on her mother’s lips when she’d been young. But for the first time, she was beginning to accept that Keyrah hadn’t handed her over to the witches without regret. It was becoming increasingly obvious that her mother had tortured herself with the decision she’d been forced to make. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
Her mother waved aside her apology. “You’re angry. And I understand if you hate me.”
Chaaya swallowed the annoying lump in her throat and concentrated on what her mother had just revealed.
“Why do you think it was fate that brought you and my father together?”
“We spent several weeks in a small cottage.” An unexpected blush touched the older woman’s cheeks. “He was extraordinary. So kind and gentle. When I knew I had to return home, he handed me the spear and said I was to make sure you had it with you at all times.”
Chaaya discovered exactly what Basq must have felt like when her aunt had removed the ground from beneath his feet. Her stomach lurched toward her throat before it crashed down to her toes. And she didn’t know if it was because she’d discovered her mother had actually had feelings for her father or because the spear had been given to her by the mysterious male.
She glanced down at the weapon, her brow furrowed. “My father?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers stroked the ebony shaft. “But the glyphs are druid.”
“They are,” her mother assured her. “Aer used magic to create them. He promised they would help to protect you. He also promised that the magic would disguise the fact you were not entirely human.”
Stunned, Chaaya lifted her hand to touch the matching glyphs that ran down the side of her neck.
“Is that why you tattooed the same marks on me?”
“Yes. It strengthened the spell he placed on you.”
Something shifted inside her. Something huge. Not just because she was beginning to understand who she was and why she’d become a martyr to the cause. But she also understood her place in history.
She hadn’t been randomly sacrificed because no one cared whether she lived or died. Fate had chosen her.
“I sensed I was different, but…” She shook her head in bemusement. “A mist sprite. Did you ever see my father again?”
“I went in search of Aer many times, but I could never find him. Even the cottage disappeared. No doubt it was for the best, but…” Her words trailed away in a sigh of loss.
They shared a silence, both grieving the past that had demanded so much pain.
“Why did you drive Greta from the village?” Chaaya at last asked.
Keyrah’s face abruptly hardened. “She tried to kill you.”
“Me?” Chaaya widened her eyes in surprise. “Why?”
“She’d tried to take your spear more than once, only to be thwarted when the magic scalded her hands. I assume she thought killing you would break the spell so she could claim it as her own.”
Chaaya held up the spear. She’d assumed it was just a weapon. Sure, it had magic. And she looked badass when she was using it in a fight. But she’d never considered it might be worth killing for.