Page 144 of Hidden Kingdoms

“You just,seethings,” Alouette mimicked, rolling her eyes at me.

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?" I snapped at her, running my palms over my arms, my skin uncomfortable from the steady loss and sudden return of magik.

“Well, what things?” she pressed, ignoring my annoyance as I turned to Arden. His green eyes studied my face, a tiredness in him that hadn’t been there when we arrived.

“Did it work?” I asked tentatively, not wanting to have to repeat the experience.

“It did,” Arden replied, reaching for his pipe, clamping it between his lips before taking a long, steady pull. He breathed out the thick, cloudy vapour, and it twisted between us in a complicated pattern before it dispersed.

“And?” I needed him to say it, to confirm the thought that had been nudging against my conscience since the moment Kaius had spoken the words in the garden.

“And, your magik comes from Oraculum. Prophecy, the arcane arts, the divine rules.”

My heart squeezed, magik pulsing in acknowledgement as I absorbed his words. As they sunk within me and disturbed the deep well of denial that formed so much of my life.

Prophecy.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, long ago I must have joined the dots together. I just chose to ignore the full picture, even when it screamed at me from behind the fog I willingly wrapped it in. It felt right hearing those words from someone else, like something had clicked into place—when really nothing had changed at all.

Now I faced the reality that I was trapped in a kingdom I didn’t belong—with people who may not even want me for much longer.

“Did you see?” I asked, thinking of the memories I had dredged up from Alouette’s questioning. Ones that still lingered close to the surface.

“Some,” Arden said softly, as he took another drag of his pipe, holding the smoke before he exhaled.

“I didn’t believe it.”

“Youchosenot to believe it.”

“Yes.” He was right; it was easier to take what Briar said as crazy ramblings than accept the truth. To let Nanna guide me away from things I was most drawn to until I was so far from them, I could ignore the pull they held.

“Those around you, they knew.” It wasn’t a question. “You’ve spent your life rejecting that part of your magik, yet it still pushed through.”

I hung my head, the heat stifling as his words rooted beneath my skin. A ruffle of feathers filtered from the roof far above our heads, and as I looked up, a single black feather drifted down into the fire where it was quickly consumed by the lashing orange tongues that licked at the brickwork. The room cooled a fraction, and I pulled my eyes from the flames, their image dancing across my sight for a moment longer.

“What about now you’re here? Has that changed?”

I opened my mouth, a lie ready and waiting to be spoken. To deny any ability I had, like I’d been doing my whole life. But where would that leave me—just as confused as I was when I walked in here. If I wanted the answers I deserved, then that meant telling all. Risking that part of me to these people.

“Yes.” I twisted the golden ring on my finger.

“I can only help you if you open up, my dear. I want to find you your truth.”

The mix of smoke from the flames and Arden’s pipe filled my lungs as I breathed deep. “I see things.”

Well, that’s a stupid start.

Alouette scoffed as she grabbed some berries that I was sure had all been eaten earlier.

“Like the future?” Her eyebrow lifted tauntingly.

“No. Not the future,” I snapped at her, as she popped the red fruit into her mouth, eyes glittering in my direction.

“Then what?” Arden questioned and frowned slightly, because he had a point.

What was it I even saw? There was no rhyme or reason. I had no choice in what I saw or how I saw it.

“Mostly dreams,” I began, starting with what was most familiar. “It was always just flashes of images, nothing I could hold onto. I even kept a journal to try and make sense of anything, but it’s hard to write about something you can’t really remember. But then it changed.”

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