Page 43 of Lunar Diamonds
The Sun of her time.
We stayed silent, letting Erin tell the story.
“She never left the mansion, receiving no visitors. She became a hermit.” Erin drew some shaky breaths. “For a little over four years. Until she left for a month. She told me she wanted to think outside of these walls, and that she would be back soon.” She licked her lips, her hazel eyes glistening. “Of course, I obeyed. I have served this family since the age of eighteen, taking over from my mother, who served your grandmother.”
Rosalind Aurora. Not sacred herself, but her mother Elizabeth had been The Star. A legend who, along with her siblings, took down an army of dragons conjured by a psychotic coven of witches. And that was after defeating a flurry of threats, each one an apocalyptic red herring until the fire-breathers showed up.
Even before Kane Kingwood created his shadowy spin off, there were those who used magic in nefarious ways. Conjurers of monsters, plagues, all manner of things. Which the High Coven always assured would never happen again under their suppression. So this new threat must be shadow-related. Maybe.
“I never questioned her,” Erin said. “I let her go, continuing to perform my daily duties, counting down the days until her return. And she did. Pregnant.”
My stomach flipped, my grip on my teacup tightening.
“Your father’s identity is a mystery, your mother offered me no information.”
Our father. Heat crept up my neck, my resolve threatening to break. So, the guy who’d ditched me and Mum for another woman wasn’t really my dad.
Keep up!
“Did you ever see him around here?” Isaac asked.
Erin shook her head. “There is no information on him whatsoever. And she forbade me from looking for him. Before you ask,” she directed that at Isaac as he leaned forward to say something, “I will never disobey her wishes.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t dig,” he retorted.
She responded with a sip of her drink.
Interesting way of giving her blessing for us to look.
“You were born first, Isaac, followed by Riley, then Preston.”
“I’m the big brother?” Isaac responded.
Making me the middle child.
“Yes.” Erin brushed her cardigan. “You were born during an eclipse twenty-five years ago, on February twenty-ninth. A few days after your birth, your mother began the adoption process.”
“Whoa. Hold on,” Isaac interjected. “The twenty-ninth? My birthday’s the twenty-eighth.”
“Mine too,” I added.
“A common practice for those born in a leap year,” Erin said.
More big reveals, although not as dramatic as the other stuff.
“Fuck. We’re only what? Six?” Isaac knocked back his champagne, then laughed. “Sorry. Carry on.”
Erin did just that. “Miss Juliet didn’t want you to suffer the shame of this house. At that time, House Aurora’s future seemed bleak, irrespective of your birth. The High Coven took almost everything from the mansion and were threatening to take you away next. So, you were separated, hidden under a cloaking spell Miss Juliet hid inside her mattress.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I saw how much she loved you, the way she cradled you. But things were so dire, the hate so potent. So global. That same day you left, she walked out into the sea, washing up on shore a few days later.” She closed her eyes.
I felt a flicker of grief for this woman I never knew. “She took her own life?”
Isaac moved closer to me again.
“Her sadness became unbearable.” Erin kept her eyes closed. “She’d lost everything, her sister dead, her brother abandoning her.”
Janet and Jonathon Aurora—The Star and The Moon respectively. Seeing as we studied some of House Aurora’s history in school, I knew a few details. Janet was killed by a shade while drunk in a pub, and Jonathon fled Coldharbour in disgrace. He’d been a bit of a pinup, the golden boy before the big crash.
Erin whimpered softly. “I wish I could have helped her, but not even the birth of you blessed sons helped.”
