Rowans Choice

Chapter Thirty Eight- Aspen

Aspens branch was quiet until I arrived upon it. The magic that intensified with every step made the walls shake until they began to crack against the pressure.

A maid screamed as she left his chambers and ran for her life, his butler too hurried away from me.

The guards outside his door didn't look like they knew what to do.

"Step down" I ordered, in a tone and voice I didn't even recognise.

The guards moved aside and I blew open the doors.

Aspen sat up in his bed and the colour drained from his face.

"Rowan what's wrong" he asked panicked.

I stepped inside his room and shouted back to the guards "have everyone evacuated from this branch"

"What... why, is there a threat" Aspen asked.

I turn back to him and bite my lip until it bleeds into my mouth. "You" I inform him.

"Me" he asks.

"Monster" I scream, as my magic flies at him, lifting him and throwing him against the wall as I had done Sycamore. This time though I took Aspens arm and I snapped it with a crack before he could even beg.

His blood curdling scream makes me smile. "Music to my ears" I say softly "a Rapist in misery"

"Now for the other" I inform him lifting my hand to inflict the break.

"I didn't hurt anybody... please Rowan you know me you know I wouldn't ever do such an evil thing" begged.

I walked over slowly and looked upon his handsome face, his blonde facial hair glowing with the light below it, the magic searing against the flesh of his neck. His light brown eyes are my mothers... and it's confronting to see them... to see her look back at me as I was about to darken them forever.

"If you could only read my mind" he cried "you would know I didn't"

I drop him instantly. He falls down to the floor screaming as he landed on his broken arm.

"I can" I remind myself. I could have the answers in two seconds... but I would have to break my promise to Andromeda to do mind magic.

Whatever I saw would break me in some way, but I had to know... if I was about to kill my brother I had to be sure he was the monster I killed him for being.

I pull Aspen to his feet and grab either side of his temple. I didn't know exactly how this would go, but I remembered how it happened the first time. I dig my fingers into his flesh, he looks to me confused before his eyes roll back and flicker. I can see his mind, every memory flickering past as I searched for the day I needed. I hunted it down like a blood hound and had it in seconds.

Aspen finds Andromeda and I in each others arms, naked, he panicked. He grabbed me up and covered me in my dress, Andy too. He couldn't take us both so he decided to take me first and come back for her. He's worried, his mind filled with all of the ways my father would punish us, and all of the ways this gossip could destroy our reputation and our Kingdom. He wanted to marry Andromeda, he wouldn't be able to if she had her reputation destroyed. He places me in my bed and returns to Andy, he looks lovingly at her and brushes her cheek with his hand, he's overcome with love for her, and despite him looking over her before he drew his eyes away, he didn't touch her. There was no assault. He covered her to carry home safely, he would put her to bed too and not say another word about it. Sycamore though, he comes out of the trees before Aspen can lift her, with accusations which make Him
Sick. He wouldn't hurt Andy.

"He wouldn't hurt Andy" I say out loud as I release Aspen. He slides down the wall and slumps onto the ground, his eyes still rolling back in his head.

"Aspen" I call out as I drop down and take his head placing it onto my lap.

"Guards" I call desperately.

After a delay they come running.

"What did I do" I cry out.

"My Queen" Jay asked with panic as he saw my brother in my lap, his life slipping away.

"Get the healers" I cry out "now"

***
Healers come from all over the Oak, healers of every type, but they cannot fix the mind no matter how hard they try.

Andy arrived right as Aspen was placed into his bed, the room showing evidence of the violence that had occurred.

"What the hell is going on" she asked as she came rushing to my side. "Sycamore is unconscious...and Aspen" she says horrified, as she looked to him in the bed. "He looks like he did ten rounds with a giant before befalling the same fate. Rowan, the entire Oak has been shaking"

I can't even speak. I can't look at her. I know her story now, I know more than she even knows and I feel horrifically guilty that I can't look at her and tell her everything right now. I feel like I'm suffocating on the question that's sending me spiralling into insanity. Who did Andromeda merge with ...if not?...

"I have to go" I say rushing past her.

She grabs me as I rush for the lift and forces me backward with a face that was full of worry and non understanding "Rowan what's wrong" she begs me.

My eyes are as wild as my heart feels right now, as raw and burned out as my soul feels. She sees it and steps back, scared of the stranger looking back at her, terrified of what's occurred.

Sycamore stumbles out of the lift, his head bleeding and his skin as pale as ash. "Rowan please" he begs.

"You survived" I observe disappointedly.

"I did. Please let me explain"

I grab him and push him back into the lift with me. "You're coming with me"

"Rowan" Andy calls after us.I have the lift sent upward and away from her "Rowan don't leave me like that"

I can hear it in her voice, how she is going to break not knowing... but I can't tell her a little and not a lot. I had to take all the answers to her, she deserved to know it all... Her daughter was alive, and I needed to discover everything about her before I could reveal that truth. It would turn our world upside down.