Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,46
and touched my hand, brushing his fingertips over my knuckles. “I’d like to know the rest, if you’re willing to tell.”
A wry smile tugged at my mouth, but I finally looked up at him. “It’s not very exciting compared to life in Avilion.”
It’d be embarrassing to spill out the details of my life if he wasn’t really interested in hearing it. I was burning to know more about Robin, but there was no way to tell if he genuinely reciprocated the interest, or if I was just a master of misreading people.
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “But it was your life, so I’d like to hear it all the same.”
“You don’t have to ask just to be polite. If we’re partners, honesty should be our baseline.” Not to mention the lines between us already seemed to be blurring, and opening up to each other would remove what remained of them.
He stopped brushing my knuckles and took my fingers in his hand. “Then let me be honest, Briallen: I want to know how a dryad from Emain Ablach ended up in Avilion as a bike courier, and why you agreed to work for me.”
I made a face, my heart lightening. “Technically I was blackmailed, but you can call it ‘agreement’ if it makes you feel better.”
He smiled, his grin just a little crooked and all the more handsome for it. “It does.”
I picked up the wine glass and took a deep swallow. It was delicious, smooth as silk and flavored in a way that made me think of ancient pine forests and berries growing from the snow.
“Okay, then. Some of this Jack managed to dig up, and to be honest, I’m not really sure why.” Robin hadn’t let go of my hand, and it was incredibly distracting. “But he knows my mother is Pomona.”
Robin’s eyes flickered. “The Keeper of the Golden Grove.”
I nodded, suppressing the familiar well of bitterness inside me. My mother was famous. Those who wanted to become heroes traveled to Emain Ablach from across the world, hoping she’d look inside them and see something worth bestowing one of her precious apples on. “Yep. So, when I was born, it was just sort of assumed, you know… that I’d take her place one day.”
“All of my sisters and friends are proper dryads. They tend the island and the trees, like we’re supposed to do. But I was a complete disaster.”
“Disaster is a strong word,” Robin said softly.
I swirled the wine remaining in my glass. “In this case, it’s not strong enough. I’m the only Hesperides-born dryad who can’t grow an apple tree, but even worse, when I came into my magic… the trees I can grow are more like something you’d find in the Unseelie Court. They thrive in the dark, they’re thorny, and they choke everything else out of the garden.” I took another drink, my lips tingling a little in a pleasant way. “Well, I found all that out the day I came into my magic and killed half the orchards on the island.”
Robin made a slight, sympathetic grimace.
“Centuries of work, gone in a day. Some of the trees I ripped up and killed were my own ancestors.” I made myself take another drink before I lost the nerve to keep going. “My trees just exploded. They pushed everything else out of the ground, killed their roots… my mother was horrified, but that was nothing compared to how everyone else felt.”
“I think she was just thankful I hadn’t destroyed the Golden Grove, but after that, she was the only one who spoke to me. I went three entire years where nobody spoke to me at all unless it was strictly necessary. I went days at a time without hearing a single word from other dryads. It took us a decade of hard work to rip out all my trees and replant the orchards, but I still wasn’t forgiven. It wasn’t only my ancestors I killed, but everyone else’s, too. Even if I hadn’t meant to.”
Thankfully, Robin said nothing, letting me spill out my story uninterrupted. It felt like rolling an enormous boulder off my shoulders.
“When I was of age to come work here in Avilion and apply for permanent residency, everyone all but pushed me out the door. They cheered when I left the island. It felt awful, knowing everyone was celebrating that I was gone. A dryad who can’t tend the trees is not only useless in Emain Ablach, but an active danger.”