Rowans Choice

Chapter Forty- The Heir

I let go of Sycamores hand as we arrive in the bright and airy room of a grand home.

"Where is this" I ask him curiously as I spin around on the spot and take it all in.

He didn't really need to answer me though, because as I inhaled I could sense the familiar scent of Willow. I was swaddled in comfort immediately.

"You've been here before" I note, Knowing Sycamore could only take you where he had been before.

"I came here to speak with Willow when I knew I would need a guardian. She was the only person I trusted with the Oaks future and that of the child"

I shake my head, this whole scenario felt very familiar to me. Willow being forced to guardian the next Queen.

"Where did Andy have her" I ask.

"Here... in the Spruce. It belongs to Olamoore. It was the only place I knew to take her that would be safe. It is on the outskirts of Windlere and under restrictions from outsiders. It had a guard and a staff that belonged and were loyal to us only. Willow has only ever used two branches of this entire place. I had Andromeda and her mother placed on a branch on the opposite side of the Spruce. Private and separate. I made a plan with Willow for her to take the baby the moment it was born. She would present that child as her own if anybody asked"

I shake my head and tears fill my eyes as I look out of the window to the changed landscape. The moors of the South West, covered in a fog, a little cooler than Olamoore. The place my child had lived and existed for five years... unbeknownst to me.

A tear rolls down my cheek as I think to Andy, she thought her child had died... and she was holding all that pain inside of her, never uttering a word of it, only that I had left her. I sob and hold my fist in my mouth. She thought I left her there exposed and vulnerable, and she believed she had been assaulted. A wail escapes the fist in my mouth and I drop down to my knees, the wave of grief and horror... I felt it. Inside of me my magic retold a story. Andy's cells that had merged with mine, they echoed the horror and the pain she had gone through. I clutch my stomach and double over.

Sycamore comes to my side and places a hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off and turn away.

"I'm sorry" he confesses as he tears up himself.

"The scar on her stomach" I ask.

Sycamore nods and wipes his face clean "the birth was ... she ... she almost died herself" he stutters with the memory. "She was too young and too new to her magic, and the baby... it wasn't just any baby... it was a royal baby. The power of the child was too much for her...we had to cut her open and remove the child before it killed her from within"

I shake my head and run my hands over my face as I felt that, the tearing of my stomach, the blood gush away, the rip of a child from inside... and then silence... a bright light... the after rushing at me with speed.

"She could have died" I cry out. "And I would have lost her... and I never would have known would I" I shout.

He shakes his head "no... you most probably wouldn't"

"I want to kill you" I confess with venom.

He resigns himself to it, and he stands and waits. "Do it" he asks me "do it now and make this right. A life for a life"

I slowly stand to my feet and walk to him, taking him by the neck and lifting him to my height so our eyes are locked "This one is Andy's... I won't take it from her. Your fate is now with the sixteen year old who you stole a fate away from...see how you fare with her"