Page 13 of Spells of Shadow and Blood

As happy as I could be, anyway.

Until it all came to a screeching halt.

One night Zion and I were sitting around the fire reading. I had the Grishina grimoire stuffed into a fantasy book about unicorns to hide the cover, my legs propped up on the arm of the settee. The front door to the cottage burst open and Zion was on his feet in a heartbeat.

In the open doorway stood Annelise.

My mother.

And she wasn’t alone.

A baby was held within her grasp.

TWELVE YEARS OLD

“You thought to bring her here?” Zion asked, incredulous.

He and Annelise were arguing.

I’m not sure what she had been expecting. For me to run to her and pull her into my arms, happy to finally see her again?

No. I hadn’t seen her insevenyears. I barely remembered her. As far as I was concerned, I only had one parent.

“I had nowhere else to go, Zion.” Annelise’s voice was pained.

I remained on the couch, feet propped up by the fire. I flipped the page to feign reading, but I was eavesdropping on their argument in the kitchen.

Annelise held the baby to her chest. I had never seen an infant so small…she had to be only a few days old if not hours. She brought the child to the fire, cocooning blankets around her to warm her. They continued to argue as if I weren’t even there.

“You’re sure?” Zion asked, running a hand through his inky black hair.

“Look at her, Zion,” Annelise replied, exasperated.

“She is your spitting image, Bird.” He smiled. The baby did look remarkably like Annelise for being so small. “Cursed with your magic, too.” He ran a hand down his face.

I perked up at this.

The child was a Stormshade?

How was it thatIwasn’t born a Stormshade, but this measly little infant was?Iwas born with the wrong magic, different from everyone else in my bloodline, but my mother’s love child wasn’t? How was that fair?

I glanced from the book propped up before me to the infant by the fire. Despite being so young, she had a head full of auburn hair. I sneered, returning my gaze to the book.

Annelise had left us and come back with a child. It certainly wasn’t Zion’s child, so who was the father? As if plucking the thought from my mind, that was the exact question Zion asked next.

“Osiris’?” All he said was the king’s name.

Rumors had reached as far as Siraleth that the Dark King Osiris had taken a lover and planned to make her queen. I had never imagined it was my mother. I thought she would be too anxious to get back to us. To her family.

Annelise nodded solemnly. Zion shook his head.

“Annelise, you had to have known the risk… ”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I thought the child might be like Donika. A Nightshade.”

I peeked at her over the edge of the book. Tears tracked down her cheeks. Her strawberry blonde hair was windswept, still pushed into the back of the hood on her cape. Her fingers were red with cold as she held them out to Zion, pleading.

“Can we please stay?”

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