Page 148 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
I steadied my breathing and watched his hands. No, not his hands but his eyes, but yeah, also his hands.
“The dragons have been playing god since they helped wipe out the mages,” Death said, his fingers twitching around the hilt. “While a dragon’s magic is incomparable, they are simply dragons. The ones the fae call Elders assisted the fae in slaughtering the mages, and then while the fae’s magic was diminished, the dragons replaced their memory to one that was far more convenient to them.”
He feinted, making me believe he was about to strike, and grinned when I fell for it and stumbled before I could center myself.
“The dragons rewrote the fae’s history,” he continued. “Not only did they erase the fae’s gods, but they warned them against using their primal instincts. Told them it was dangerous, that it would drive them mad. Rather than allowing the fae to lean into their instincts, they made them fear it, all so the dragons could keep dominion over them.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “When Elias allowed hisprimal instincts to rule him, it was as if he wasn’t even there. Like he was a different person.”
“Because he’s suppressed it for so long, that raw power overcame him,” Eiran said. “If he were to channel it regularly, like his ancestors did, it would be his greatest weapon. To beat her, he must release who he is and sink deeper into his instincts, but you, Theodora, as his mate, can summon him back.”
“You mean. . . I can’t ask him to do that.” To risk who he was to fight a mage who was thousands of years old, all on the chance I could bring him back. Absolutely not.
“You won’t have to,” he said. “He’ll do it when the time comes to protect you.”
“No.”
Sparks flew as I deflected his approaching thrust. I hacked my own blade down, but tired with aching arms, he unarmed me with a quick maneuver.
“No,” I told him again, anger making my burning limbs shake.
I sought out the vibrant colors that vibrated around Elias. He didn’t move but seemed to have frozen in place along with the others.
“It is fate.” He held my gaze. “He will be your realm’s salvation, and you will be his.”
“Let my realm burn or freeze or whatever,” I seethed. “I won’t risk him.”
“In not telling him the truth, you risk him.” Patient, pitying eyes watched me. “Allow him to learn to lean into his inner beast so that when he fights Leanora, he may win.”
“And I’ll bring him back?” Although I wasn’t cold, I wrapped my arms around my chest. “Do you promise?”
He drew down his sword. “I cannot make that kind of promise.”
“Yet you spew out how he’s destined to save my realm and how I’m to save him,” I countered.
“That is one way the fates may turn. He could also fight and die, all of your kind dying with him.”
At least I wouldn’t have to suffer a life without him.
“Is that what you want?” He drew one brow up. “To die with him? Or do you want to live?”
Live. I wanted a full life with him.
“Then tell him the truth and give him a chance to win. Trust that the fate that brought you together wants you to remain together. As I said, Theodora, you and Elias were written long ago. You in the human realm so that Elias would cross through the veil and set everything in motion.” He paused and swung his sword around before making it vanish. “This is how his history will be righted. How Leanora’s ancestors will have the vengeance that has been due to them for far too many years.”
He made it sound so simple, but nothing about this was simple. It wasn’t just the fate of my world that hung on the line, but Elias’s life. Our life together could melt away before it ever took place.
“You called Leanora my ancestor,” I said. “How am I related to her?”
Apparently finished with our training, he sat on the ground with his legs crossed. I joined him. While his features were relaxed, he held himself upright and rigid.
“The mages knew of the upcoming massacre years before it took place,” he said, his voice sure and unhurried. “They knew even if they tried to outrun it and hide, they’d be found.Their deaths were inevitable. But they decided they wouldn’t go willingly. You know of Leanora and her brothers. Before they were born, when fae and mages were allowed to cross through the veil, their mother left a newborn babe in your realm. That baby grew and had children. Those children grew and had children of their own. On and on it went until you were born. Despite thousands of years that separate your births, she is your family. And despite the many humans your mage ancestors bred with, magic lives within you. You are a mage, Theodora.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek as I took in what he said. At the impossibility of it all. At the horridness of it. The idea of being related to such a vile, horrid woman, or mage, made my insides tighten painfully.
If he knew, would Elias see me differently? Could he look past that ugly stain in my family line and still see me?
“The remaining brother she uses and drains magic from is also your family.” He rested his laced hands on a bent knee. “I wonder, Theodora, if when the time comes, will you have mercy on Alastor?”
