Page 73 of Children of Fallen Gods

“We will find a way,” I said, but Filias was already shaking his head and Vos had turned away. And still, I couldn’t shake the cloying, nauseating taste of sugar.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Aefe

When I woke, it took me several long seconds to realize that what we had witnessed in the House of Reeds had not been a nightmare. My memory came back slow. The monsters first. And then, the memory of what I had done — what I had let them see.

I lay there, unmoving.

I wasn’t ready to see how they would look at me. Siobhan already knew what I was, just as everyone in the House of Obsidian did. I had gotten used to that. But Caduan, Ishqa, Ashraia… it had been a long, long while since I had seen someone find out for the first time.

But I would need to face it eventually.

I opened my eyes. It was dusk. The others gathered around the fire, and every one of them turned to me as soon as I stirred. They had been waiting.

I sat up. Everything ached. There was a tenuous silence as Caduan offered me water, which I accepted, and food, which I did not. “Did you see?” I asked Siobhan, and I didn’t need to say what I was talking about. She told me that she, Ashraia, and Caduan had, too, been attacked by the strange Fey creatures. There had been hundreds, or even thousands, of them. Siobhan had sounded shaken when she recounted it.

When Siobhan was shaken, the world was a frightening place.

They had managed to escape, with a combination of Siobhan’s fighting skills, Ashraia’s wings, and some clever magic from Caduan — which he had used to raise the tidewaters and freeze it around the creatures’ feet. At that, I couldn’t help but shoot him a glance of surprise. Magic, at least in the Pales, was often ritualistic and slow. Not the sort of thing that was utilized in battle.

“Thank the gods that you were able to escape too,” I muttered, when the story was done, and Siobhan nodded.

There was a long, drawn out silence, all those eyes on me.

“You are an Essnera,” Ishqa said, at last.

“You arecursed,” Ashraia spat.

I flinched.

And there it was.Essnera. I hated the word — hated the way it had taken everything from me. But most of all I hated that it was the truth of what I was.Cursed. Tainted. Life-thief.

Could I argue with any of those definitions? That was what I was. A creature that stole magic from others, like a carrion bird. Scriptures told of people like me. Essneras were incarnations of corruption. Mathira, the mother of all souls, sheltered the bodiless spirits of all Sidnee away from the corrupted forces beyond her reach. But before birth, my soul must have slipped from her grasp, wandering out into the poison beyond her safety. It was very rare, and it was terrible.

“She saved your general’s life,” Siobhan said, sharply.

“By stealing our magic. That’s why the Sidnee sent her — to steal.” Ashraia stalked back and forth before the fire. Ishqa was still and silent as glass.

“That is not true,” I said. Even though I didn’t fully understand why my fatherhadsent me. “I am here because we have a bigger threat to worry about thanyou.”

“It is dangerous for her to be here,” Ashraia sneered. “The gods cursed her.”

Siobhan let out a hiss through her teeth. “That is a silly superstition.”

“Not so silly that your own Teirna doesn’t believe it,” he shot back. “I had been wondering. But now I understand why her title was stripped—”

“She is still a loyal Sidnee,” Siobhan snapped. “And a good soldier.”

I flinched. The truth of it was a stabbing pain, striking deep before anger overwhelmed the hurt. The anger was for Ashraia, because I’d be damned if I was going to let a Wyshraj brute speak to me that way. But the hurt — the hurt ran deeper. I did not miss Siobhan’s choice of words.“Still.”

Siobhan respected me, and I treasured that respect more than any precious gemstone. But that one word reminded me that she respected me inspiteof what I was. She still saw the corruption in me, still judged it, even if she thought my character was stronger.

Caduan’s voice came from behind me.

“Perhaps it’s easier for you to hate what you know than to hate what we just saw. But we don’t have time for you to make yourself feel better by tearing apart a false enemy. Aefe’s magic is the only reason she and Ishqa made it out of there alive. And who would have saved them if she didn’t have it? Thegods?”

He drawled the word, the sarcasm as sharp as a blade drawn across skin. I could not look at him, but I could imagine the intensity of his stare as it dismantled Ashraia, piece by piece, the same way it did me.

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