Page 23 of A Blaze of Fire
“Oh, really?” I replied as nonchalantly as I could. “Which element was it?”
“Fire,” he answered immediately, then peered over his shoulder at me. “I find it strange.”
I furrowed my brows. “Why?”
“She’s a halfling, which means her fae parent must have the fire element if that’s what resonates with her the most. As the head of the fire elementals, this concerns me.” He turned his attention to the rack of weapons arrayed behind him.
I gulped and thought fast. “I’ve also been working with her a lot. I could have influenced her first choice.”
“Possibly,” he murmured. “Who did you say her mother was again?”
“I didn’t,” I replied a little too quickly.
Kazimir peered over his shoulder at me and smirked. “Of course … my apologies.”
“Why is it strange that her fae parent could have been a fire elemental? What does it matter?”
Kazimir grabbed a blade from the rack and swung it in the air close enough to make me take a step back. “Do you think he could possibly be Unseelie?”
It was a stereotype that most fire elementals were Unseelie, but I guess it was one into which Kazimir was falling.
“So what if he’s Unseelie? Why does it matter now?” I asked, honestly confused about the direction of the conversation.
Kazimir slowly strode toward me, blade in hand until we were inches away. “Because the King wants to know who the fae was that spawned the halfling,” he whispered, his face deadly serious.
It took everything in my will power to control my expression and fight the urge to blurt out the answer. If the King wanted to know, there had to be a reason behind it. I just didn’t know what it could be.
“Why are you coming to me with this?” I whispered back.
“Regardless if the father is Unseelie or Seelie, we have to find out. Now that your brother is in our court, you have a Seelie connection. You’re close to the girl. Find out who her father is.”
“She doesn’t know,” I muttered.
“But her mother does.” He smirked and tapped the blade on my shoulder, a thinly veiled threat.
“What will the King do with this information?” I dared to ask.
Kazimir shrugged. “I don’t know. Reward him, kill him, who knows? The fae made something he shouldn’t have. The orb should be inside the King. Now we just have to wait to see if the girl will be useful or not.”
For the love of the fae, this was a complete and total nightmare.
12
VIOLET
Nights like tonight, I missed Netflix. There were no TVs in the Fae realm, no cellphones or radios. There was no entertainment and I was dying of boredom. The only thing I could do to fight the tedium was see how quickly I could flick out a flame from my pointer finger and extinguish it. Over and over again. All of this while lying in bed. If I wasn’t careful, I could set this whole place on fire.
I wondered what Ansel was doing and if he was okay. He didn’t seem okay earlier. He seemed tortured. I hated I had to be so cold with him, but Alec was right. If anyone found out about us, who knew what would happen? My main goal from the start of this nightmare was to protect him, and that was what I would continue doing.
A knock sounded at my door, pulling me from my morose thoughts. I slid down from the four-poster bed and walked to the door, opening it slightly to get a peep at who it was. Standing outside the frame was Alec with Rook standing off to the side, standing guard.
“What are you doing here?” Instead of answering, Alec pushed the door wider and let himself in. I shut the door behind him and grumbled, “Fine, just let yourself inside.”
“I hope you aren’t going to be sneaking off in the middle of the night to meet up with my brother like some lovesick teenager,” Alec remarked dryly. He stopped in front of the balcony, the curtains blowing softly toward him.
“Of course not. What do you take me for?” I stomped toward him. “Also, I’m bored, Alec. I can’t be locked in a room without some form of entertainment. Blame it on the new generation and its insatiable need for technology.”
Alec peered over his shoulder at me. “You didn’t tell me what happened in training today.”
