Page 122 of The Forsaken Heir
“There is strength…inside you…daughter of wolf,”the voice said again, floating into my ears and through my brain. I could almostfeelthe words rather than hear them.“Tell us…if you were given…reign over us…what would you do…with that power?”
Again, I found myself floating in the bright, white magic of the wellspring, the strange hallucinations having vanished. Despite the fact that Iknewthey’d been visions, I felt a certain amount of catharsis. For years, I’d thought back on that moment when my family had sent me away, and I’d done my best to shove all those thoughts aside. The “could haves” and “would haves” had been too much for me to take, and eventually, I’d buried it. The realistic vision here had given me a way to act out my desires, violent and belligerent as they were.
The gift the wellspring had given me was beyond anything I could have ever asked for. Nothing in my life had given me such freedom. It had been like a decade of therapy wrapped up in a few minutes. The only thing I could think of that had hit me as hard was meeting Aurelius.
“I would give control back to you,” I said. “This isn’t something anyone can or should control. It should be a symbiotic relationship, not a master-and-slave situation,” I explained.
“You would not…attempt…to use our power to…create an inner wolf…for yourself?”
“What? Of course not. I’m enough. I don’tneedthat. I don’twantthat. At this point, it would only be self-serving and show my parents they were right all along. Absolutely not. I would not use you for something as trivial as that.”
Before me, a thin wisp of the ethereal magic formed into what looked almost like a finger. It snaked toward me and touched my chest, right above my heart.
“We see…that you…speak truth…daughter of wolf. Welcome, and be one with us.”
In less than the blink of an eye, the wellspring pushed me up toward the surface. As I floated upward, I sensed a strange kinship with this thing. This source of all magic in the world, was the source of the magic withinme. Even though I couldn’t shift, that didn’t make me any less of a being created by magic.
It felt like I was rising hundreds of feet, like the ancient magic was encasing me. When I was beginning to think I’d never get to the top, my toes touched a slight incline. I put one foot before the other and walked out of the wellspring.
My head crested the surface, and even though the wellspring wasn’t made of water, my hair hung in limp, soaked curls and the robes stuck to my body as if I’d climbed out of a lake. The fae were still chanting, and thin, almost imperceptible filaments rose from the wellspring and touched each fae on the center of their forehead.
The wetness that saturated me vanished the instant my toes left the wellspring. As though a light switch had been flicked off, the thread that connected the fae to the source of magic disappeared, leaving them reeling and clutching their heads.
“Are you all right?” Delphine asked as she rushed toward me and wrapped me in her arms. “We were so worried. You were in thereforever.”
“What?” I frowned. “It was only about ten minutes.”
“No way.” Vincent pointed at the sky. “Way longer. They had to talk me out of jumping in after you.”
“That doesn’t…” I trailed off as I glanced up and realized the sun had made a full circuit across the sky, and was now arched toward the western horizon. I’d been inside the wellspring for hours.
“Oh my god,” I said. Had it really been that long?
“Brielle Laurent.” Achakos walked toward me, looking somewhat distraught and confused. “The wellspring has spoken.”
“It has,” Sahalie agreed with a bright smile. “You impressed it. It says you declined a great gift, though it didn’t say what. Not only did you survive, but you were able to make a connection with it. Something only fae have ever done.”
I leaned against Delphine, suddenly exhausted. “I only did what I thought was right.”
“True.” Sahalie held up a finger. “Though, within the wellspring, our innermost desires come forward. Even those that we think are well hidden even from ourselves. You did well. Honestly, I kinda thought you might die.” She shrugged. “Very impressive.”
“You’re a little bottle of sunshine, aren’t you?” I said, doing my best to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“Did that upset you?” she asked, tilting her head to the side like a confused kitten.
“Enough, Sahalie.” Kaskawan said. “The wellspring has spoken. Lady Brielle, you are to be trusted. Your request is granted. We’d like to?—”
Kaskawan’s eyes widened in shock as another tendril of magic crept forward from the wellspring, the finger of luminous magic angled straight toward me.
“What’s it doing?” I asked, forcing myself not to take a step back.
“I’m not sure,” Kaskawan said.
An instant later, the finger tapped my forehead, and my vision went black. Then, like some movie being projected into my mind, a vision played across my consciousness. Aurelius, hanging from ropes attached to the ceiling, his body bloody and cut, dried blood crusting on nearly every inch of him. The sight of it broke my heart, yet even though he was in pain, his face was a mask of stoic strength, as though he’d gone through hell and was prepared for more.
Another vision flashed by, this time of Freddy, sneaking into Aurelius’s cell, feeding and caring for him, before hurrying away.Warmth and love for my younger brother surged through me. It meant my parents and Bastienhadn’twarped him. He still held the flame of gentleness in his heart.
A third flash, and I found myself behind Freddy again, but this time he stood in what looked like the waste treatment facility on the edges of the Laurent territory. I remembered it well. When we were kids, we used to race our bikes there. At least, we had until everyone but me started to shift.
