"I still wonder about it," I said.
His brow furrowed, eyes searching my expression. "Wonder about what?"
"Whether you're the villain in my story."
~~~~~~~
Mara Monroe is at the center of a war she wanted no part in.
But with her new throne she fac...
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I almost laughed at the dryness of his joke, but I bit my lip, keeping it contained. There was relief in my shoulders and my posture sank against the wall.
A flicker of relief settled in my belly at the knowledge that whatever power I had inside of me was good. At the same time, that flicker of relief turned to sadness, knowing that he held the other side of the coin. I didn't focus hard on that flicker, rather I shoved it down on top of everything else.
"Where did the link come from? Why does it exist?"
"I sent you a vision some days ago. Speaking about a cauldron. Do you recall?"
I nodded. "You were speaking with a woman— the queen of spring."
His eyes flitted to mine, he must have heard something in my voice. Something in my words that I didn't mean to say. Because his eyes became more than the teasing they had been. Heavier. Darker.
"Never fear," his voice was rough, the sound of it crackled against my skin, "You are still the only Queen I bow to."
With great effort, I resisted a shudder. His voice sent strange rivulets of feeling down my spine as did the gaze that now held mine. I looked away, clearing my throat and effectively cutting off whatever reaction had just occurred.
"You met with her to discuss..." my voice sounded strange, even to my own ears.
"You've heard of the Pair Dadeni, right?" he asked, his lips and expression back to his natural state of distracting— not the heightened distraction they'd been just moments ago. "I assume you've learned about it in your studies with Bayard."
When I didn't answer, he continued,
"Most of the stories and myths about the Pair Dadeni are true, but almost all of them leave out the most important part. It is a cauldron of great power, once belonging to a fae named Ceridwen."
I recalled the story now that I could focus on the words rather than the voice that spoke them. Bayard spent a few lessons discussing artifacts in mythology that were a real part of the fae history. Regrettably, I tuned those lessons out most of the time.
In my defense, I was trying to learn how to run a kingdom in a very short period and learning about a magical soup bowl didn't seem that helpful at the time.
"It brought people to life, right? Or created life?"
"Very good," Cedric smirked in response, "but it is limited in its power. The sorceresses that used it were only capable of bringing back those fae that had already lived once. The Pair Dadeni did not grant the power of birth... merely rebirth. You can see how that might be advantageous to someone waging a war."
"An army that never dies."
My thoughts ran rampant with that information. Someone— no, not someone— his father. Cenred, with the power of the Pair Dadeni behind him, would be capable of massing an army that could take on all of Elphame. There would be no separate kingdoms, just one united under his reign of fear and blood. I thought again of that gate of iron built in front of the Autumn keep by hands that must have bled to make it stand. This time, when I shuddered it was from disgust.
