Page 94 of Curse of Thorns
“The Night Bringer?” I ask in a whisper.
“Yes. The Night Bringer was one.”
“But there’s another.”
The wraith nods slowly. He sniffs, watching the forest and the child running away from him.
“The only way we could win the battle was to trick the beings. We had one secret weapon: another being like them. She was powerful enough to cast a spell, binding them to one area forever.”
My eyebrows pull down.
“We succeeded in trapping one of the two beings. If I had been able to get them both—if the Night Bringer hadn’t figured it out just in time—we wouldn’t have had to dismantle my court. I wouldn’t have had to give away my own child, hide him away.”
“What does your son have to do with it?”
“Well, the spell that bound the Night Terror to the Schorchedlands was cast by two beings. One was that ancient ally I mentioned, and the other—me. It cannot be reversed without one of the two of us. The guardian will not bend and so the Night Terror cannot leave these cursed lands unless someone of my own blood with a very large amount of shadow power casts the reversal spell.”
“So your son...”
He nods. “My son had the ability to reverse the spell, and I knew the Night Bringer would come for him. So, I hid him away. No one knew where he went. The few I confided in, I told that I’d sent him to another court—he was young enough that he would adapt to the new element he was placed into. He’d no longer be a shadow fae and would no longer able to pass down the power needed to reverse the curse. The next several High Kings called us weak and began the political war that would eventually bring our incredible court to its knees. And my father let them because he didn’t trust me. He helped them by selling off children to other courts, weakening us. He must have known I’d kept my heir somewhere in the shadow lands because he pushed all of the most powerful children away.”
I suck in a breath. I knew females in my court had been forced into marriage in other courts. I knew this was to keep us weak. But I’d always thought it was because the other courts feared us and our power.
He’s telling me—it was for the good of the world.
“My father and the High Counsel knew the weaker we were, the less likely there would ever rise a child able to break the curse. Those are deeds I was never able to forgive. Deeds that drove me mad in my living years.”
“He was trying to save the world... by dismantling his own kingdom.” My heart aches at this story. What would I have done, in this situation? I try putting myself in his place. And I... don’t think I could have done it. It’s like breaking your own child’s leg because being able-bodied would put them at risk. It’s still not right. It’s cruel and unfair.
“And, perhaps, he was right. Because it almost worked.” He nods again to the forest. Where the image of his son as a boy shifts into an adult with a child of his own. And that child grows, to have her own. And that child grows to have his own.
“The Shadow Court passed to a new ruling family, another cousin chosen by my father, and my line was lost to all but me. I watched them from afar. Each child of my line I knew was at risk, but they grew weaker and weaker thanks to my father’s work.”
I narrow my eyes as one of the boys grows into a shadow fae I recognize.
“Until the Night Bringer got his hands on one of my children’s children’s children, and he died in the process of casting the spell. He wasn’t strong enough. Hundreds of years passed, and I’d thought it was over. There would never again exist a shadow fae with both the power and blood needed.”
A baby appears in the familiar fae’s arms. She gets bigger, her hair grows long and blond. Her eyes are big and golden, lovely but not very bright.
The blond shadow fae grows until she’s like looking in a mirror.
“Until me.”
