Page 21 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
“Simply performing a magic pulled from one of the courts we left behind.”
Icarus didn’t look up. His gaze remained transfixed, wholly focused on that ever-growing light emanating from the crystals within the bowl.
“Pay attention, Aurra. This is the power of the fae without the strict boundaries the other courts put in place. This is what you, too, could do—if you so desired.”
The always-emanating power within Icarus pushed outward as he concentrated on the crystals, growing and strengthening with an intensity that drew every fae in the room to the edges of their seats, as if they too were pulled by their lord’s draw on the glamour.
Shiel half rose from his seat, but stopped, frozen in place again as the dull light inside the crystals suddenly erupted in a near-blinding flash. It took a moment for me to blink away the glow, but what I saw in its wake made everything else disappear. Icarus and his games, Shiel and his concern, even Finch’s insufferable inability to sit still or shut up for more than two seconds, all of that disappeared when I looked down into the bowl and saw Ada.
My sister.
I was so transfixed on the sight of her that it took me a long time to pay attention to anything else—let alone where she was, or what she was doing. But then as the shock of seeing her again wore off, the rest of it started to settle in. She sat at a desk, one hand pressed into her cheek as she let out a bored sigh. I couldn’t see much outside of her figure, but I didn’t need to know exactly where shewas.It was all too clear where shewasn’t.
Shewasn’thome with my parents.
She’d escaped. She’d been saved.
Whatever fate had in store for her was a mystery, but she at least now had a chance at something more than I’d ever been able to hope for her before. I’d left her, still, but I hadn’t abandoned her.
That realization swept through me with a wave of emotion so strong, I nearly burst into tears. I hadn’t known how much that fear had weighed on me until that moment. I lifted my eyes from the scrying bowl to thank Icarus—only to be frozen in place as I caught sight of the hand still hovering over the bowl, holding the window open between me and my sister.
The skin darkened before my eyes, blackening and shriveling until there was soon little more than a husk showing beneath the elbow.
Icarus didn’t seem to notice until my own shriek pierced the air. As if shaken from a trance of some kind, he suddenly glanced at his own arm and sat back, the image of my sister fading as quickly as it had appeared.
The blackened, ruined arm, however, remained.
Icarus’ face betrayed none of the horror that stretched across mine. He simply turned his wizened arm back and forth in the light, as if it was curiosity and nothing more.
Shiel was the one who finally choked out his own disgust. “See?” he blurted, glancing to his men, and then to me as his hand reached out to try and steady me. “This is what happens when you mess with magic that isn’t yours. If this is the kind of magic your court practices, then you wonder why the rest of the fae say you’ve been perverted by it, Icarus. Pay no attention to him, Aurra, unless you wish to be perverted by it, too.”
Even Shiel’s harsh accusations could do nothing to shake the dark fae, however.
“Funny how power works,” Icarus said, calm as ever. “There is a price to be paid, you know, but when you’re as powerful as I am, it’s rarely a price I’m unable to.”
As if to demonstrate, Icarus held out his hand again and sure enough—even as we looked on—the skin began to thicken again, the muscle reforming beneath as color began to return to the blackened husk it had become.
Shiel was on his feet now with Zev and Finch jumping up to stand at his side. They muttered curses, their eyes wide and their hands already on their swords, as if expecting an attack at any second. The rest of the faerie court was starting to press in, looking on in wonder. Icarus looked up at me as if expecting to see that same wonder now spreading to my face, but what he found instead made him freeze, too.
I was reminded of another vision I’d seen in crystal, of smoke and fire and an all-consuming dread, and this time, in my waking form, I couldn’t break free of it.
I shook where I stood. The convulsions wracked through me until my teeth chattered, and try as I might to force myself to still, I couldn’t.
Thiswas the glamour. This was that magic that supposedly ran through my veins.
It wasn’t a silly little magic trick that might allow me to turn into a fox or a bird or even a bear. It was a weapon, sharp and dangerous.
Thiswas why these fae were here. Somewhere, deep inside me, was a glamour that they wanted. That they needed.
The glamour that Icarus had shown me was dangerous and powerful. If he wanted mine, despite that, it could only mean one thing.
Whatever glamour lived inside me was even more powerful. Even more dangerous.
Icarus met my eyes for a moment, a single, terrifying moment, before I looked at Shiel and his men, at the rest of the court and the demons all watching, and I fled.
CHAPTEREIGHT
I didn’t knowexactly how I left Icarus’ courtroom. I ran until I found a door, dark and half hidden by some of those ever-growing vines, and simply plunged through it. I flew out onto a staircase winding as they did around these great trees and simply began to climb.
