Page 170 of Promise of Darkness
Power words meant to contain something within their circle.
“What’s wrong, little dove?” mocks the voice. It comes from the top of the rise. “Can’t you see me? But then, you’re looking with the wrong eyes….”
“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s smug, creepy ownerless voices,” I call.
Silence.
“Then come and find me.”
I don’t think I’m imagining the hint of a snarl.
“Who are you?” I demand, striding up the rocky slope.
“Has the mortal world forgotten me already?”
A figure emerges from the darkness, and I take a step back.
I expected to confront a horror, but the creature that emerges from the cowl is the most beautiful being I’ve ever imagined. The Mother’s skin gleams like moonlight on polished alabaster, and her eyes are as black and velvety as the night sky. Raven dark hair falls in a spill around her shoulders, though little horns peek through at her temples.
There’s an ancient sense of knowing in those eyes, as if the Mother has seen stars rise and fall over the eons.
As if she can see right through me.
Every thought, every hidden desire, every envious little shred of my soul.
“Ah, Daughter of Darkness. How apt that you should be the one who found me.” A hollow, guttural laugh echoes in the creature’s throat.
Daughter of Darkness?“Why would you call me that?” I ask suspiciously.
It’s one thing to suspect there’s the old blood in my veins, but….
“Do you not know who your father is?” the Mother whispers as she seats herself on the throne.
Every part of me stills. Only the quickening beat of my heart betrays me.
“Connall of Saltmist.”
A visiting noble from the Far Isles, one who was never seen again. Children are rare among the long-lived fae, but it only took one chance encounter for my mother to begin to bloom with me.
Or so she said.
The Mother sinks onto her throne, and this time I’m not imagining the smirk in her voice. “Is that what she told you?”
I still.
It can’t be a lie. My mother would not lie about that. She wouldn’t.
But I can’t help thinking of all the other lies, and her disappointment in me. “You were born to power,” the queen always whispered. “You disappoint me, daughter. You can barely light a candle.”
And I’d tried, curse her.
I’d tried so hard.
“Can you not sense it?” the Mother of Night whispers seductively. “You can feel the power here calling to you, can’t you? The power of the ley lines, the earth beneath your feet. The power that made this world. You can sense it on the breeze, luring you toward your destiny. No mere fae gave you that gift. No puling lordling spilled life into your mother’s womb. You were born with the moon in your eyes and the breath of the gods firing through your veins. You were born to rule the stars and consume the world. You’re so close to quickening that even the earth can feel it. Have you not felt it calling to you? Have you not felt it trembling beneath your boots?”
As if her words stir the power, I feel it pulling at me as though my boots are magnets. It’s a horrifying, breathless moment, and I refuse it. Irefuseit.
“No.”
