Page 23 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
“Did you realize, when I left, that I’d finally figured out what it is you’re all trying to get out of me? Why it is you’ve been so careful to protect me without actually teaching me how to protect myself?”
Four pairs of Adam’s apples bobbed silently in the fae’s throats.
“You don’twantto use me,” I said. “You have no choice. Whatever stupid glamour you think I have…you’re afraid of it. All of you. You aren’t willing to leave me alone because you don’t want anyone using it. Not, of course, unless it’syou.”
It was Shiel’s turn to step forward this time. “You’ve got it all wrong, Aurra. We’re just—”
But Icarus, it seemed, saw his chance then. And he took it.
“You’re right, My Storm,” he said, the bluntness of his voice making Shiel’s lies shrivel with a hiss. He ignored the glare from the Lord of the Western Court and continued, his head dipping slightly as he fixed me with his steady gaze. “Try as Shiel here might to keep his plans for you a secret, I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that there was something special about you. Something…unique.”
Shiel stared on as if he could murder Icarus here, on the spot, but he said nothing. He and the others watched Icarus closely, their faces betraying nothing—though I knew where their thoughts strayed. It was the same place mine now danced.
How much, exactly, did Icarus suspect?
The lord of this court was now cocking his head as he looked at me again. “There’s a powerful spell over you, Aurra,” he said, after a moment of his own silence. “But it can’t conceal the power brewing beneath.”
A lump had started to form at the back of my throat.
“I think I know why Shiel so desperately tried to keep you from me.”
Hands were once again twitching towards blades. I saw the way all three of the golden fae refused to look at each other, and yet still, their posture spoke volumes. They were ready for this. This was the moment they’re prepared for, the moment when another fae lord spoke his suspicions of me aloud and our cover—however flimsy—was blown.
Icarus drew himself up, his eyes hooded as they drank me in. “There’s only one place a power like that could come from,” he said. Hands inched closer. Zev and Finch finally exchanged a split-second glance. “You, Aurra, I believe are a lost daughter of the most powerful court in this kingdom. You, My Storm, are one ofmine.”
Genuine surprise flickered across my face. The tension I’d felt stretching between the Lord of the Western Court and his men dissipated in a single instant, even as they tried not to show it.
“What?” Icarus asked, glancing from me to the other fae a moment after they’d once again managed to compose themselves. “Did Shiel not tell you?”
I had to fight the urge to let my jaw drop open—this time, because I had to consider the possibility that Icarus was right. After all, what evidence did Shiel have that I was this long-lost princess no one even knew was lost? A fragment of a blanket? A shred of another fae’s glamour? He swore he recognized it, but then, so now was Icarus claiming to recognize my own glamour.
“I don’t…I don’t look like a fae of the Wildness,” I said, at last, a sorry explanation for the complicated feelings now warring inside me.
“You, Aurra, don’t look like fae at all,” Icarus said, his continued bluntness refreshing compared to the circles I was usually expected to dance when trying to get Shiel or any of the others to tell me something. “But I think that has more to do with the same spell binding your glamour than it does anything else.”
“So…so how do I lift this spell and find out?”
“That,” Icarus said, cutting Shiel off before he could get in a word of his own, “may be a question for the Oracle, should that be the question you choose to ask. But there may be another way for you to find out what court you’re from.”
Something flickered across Shiel’s face again. “Come now, Icarus,” he interrupted, brows furrowing. “This is starting to sound like a thinly-veiled attempt to force us to stay in your court.”
“Well, let me do you the favor of removing that veil entirely,” Icarus said. “This is absolutely an attempt to get you to stay in my court a while longer. You think I would willingly step aside and let you take Aurra from me if there’s even the smallest chance she’s one of my own? Aurra is right. We’ve kept the truth from her long enough. Until either you or I can claim her as one of our own, she has the right to act of her own free will.”
Something soured inside me at his words.
Until either you or I can claim her.
Icarus spoke of my so-called free will only because he believed he had a right to it. The fact that Shiel hesitated at his words meant that he was right, too.
Icarus continued. “You know as well as I that Aurra can only ask one question of the Oracle. Let her stay here, with me, while we work to see if she’s a member of my court like I thought. If I’m right, then she can save her question for something simple trial-and-error cannot solve.”
That, it seemed, even Shiel couldn’t deny.
“What exactly are you getting at, Icarus?” he asked.
Icarus’ eyes shone as they only could when someone’s carefully laid plans were finally coming together. He held out his arm towards Shiel, his long claws glittering even here, in the dim light of my bedroom.
“Let us make a pact, then, Shiel of the Western Court. I promise to do nothing to prohibit Aurra from leaving if you promise to do nothing to keep her from staying.”
