Resonant

Chapter 32

Zale

There was a week left of school and I was running out of time.

Though I was ready to move on from this part of my life, I needed more time. As soon as the school year was over, I'd be moving back to the castle with Astrea, while Fen had been planning to live in Luin and Arrowan's spare bedroom. He'd been through nearly two months of lessons with my former tutor, but evidently, he still wasn't ready to live in the castle full-time. I was trying to be patient and not to ask too many questions, but it was getting hard.

I didn't like to be away from him.

That was nearly the only real problem I had left to solve. My sisters were happy and settled, with Kyra moving forward with plans for her wedding in July and with Astrea finally removed from my father's influence. Oh, Euripides was furious with me for going against his wishes in securing Castiel rather than Benny as his future son-in-law, but the man did have one virtue; he didn't go back on his word. Even though he was upset, I had secured the alliance with Huron for him, so he legally signed Astrea's guardianship over to me.

I was drawing up paperwork to have her name officially changed from Adras to Astrea. I'd tell her about it after her finals were over.

Other than my fiancé not wanting to live with me, the only real problem I had left was my broken magic.

It was something I'd done a good job of ignoring up until now. I wasn't used to using magic in my everyday life, so I didn't miss its lack. I wasn't even sure when it stopped working, exactly. All I knew was that after Harlow's death, I had tried to use my Voice to get people to leave me alone, and it hadn't worked. After I accidentally enchanted Fen twice, I thought it was back, no harm done. But then, all my attempts thereafter had been unsuccessful.

Fen didn't know. No one knew. But I couldn't keep it to myself much longer. My mother would start preparing for my coronation in earnest now, and part of the ceremony included using my Voice to assert control over everyone in attendance, to make them bow to me. I couldn't let her set a coronation date until this was sorted out, and she was working on planning it right now.

It was a good thing I didn't actually have to teach this week. The students were taking exams for the first few days – exams I was copying from last year – and after that, they'd be free while the teachers and staff graded and wrapped up the school year. While my students worked, I buried myself in thick, dusty tomes about siren magic that I'd borrowed from the castle library.

The trouble was, I was the first of my kind. I was the only male siren in existence, and I had no idea what my mother had done to make that happen. According to every book I had ever read, men could carry the gene, but only passively; they couldn't manifest it. The chances of finding the answer in one of these books was slim, but I didn't know what else to try.

The bell rang and papers shuffled while students packed themselves up. The testing booklets were left on my desk as they left, and I didn't bother looking up from my reading. They didn't need me for this. I didn't look up until I felt Fen's excitement through our bond, and I felt him grow closer. He ran into the room with a massive smile.

"Zale, guess what!" he said, throwing his arms around me in a hug.

Fen's enthusiasm and his presence were soothing, but they weren't quite enough to pierce through my stress. "What?"

He stepped back and held his phone out to me, though his hand was moving too much for me to actually read the message he had pulled up on the screen. "Luin and Arrowan are taking a few days off! They're going to take the first couple to recover and spent some time together, but then Luin invited me to go to Alterrra with him! We're going to visit his family and go to this restaurant we used to love near where we grew up. Ah, I'm so excited!"