I’m not sure how to respond. That’s kind of terrible. I’d be pretty pissed if my parents turned me into a sacrificial lamb.
“But the joke was on my father, because he never predicted I’d fall in love with Keryth.” As Zella sighs, she smiles a little. “The second I saw him I knew he was my fated mate, and he knew I was his. That’s just how it works, and you can’t change destiny.”
Love at first sight. It reminds me of the curse and how devious the witches were when they cast the spell. They made Kirian blind so he wouldn’t be able to recognize his soul mate. So freaking cruel.
“Keryth had no children to send in his place,” she continues. “Not that he would’ve done that. I guess he could’ve had his brother do it, but Keryth’s the kind of ruler who leads by example. He’s strong and he has a good heart.”
“So you ran away with him?”
“Not right away, no. I was only seventeen when we met. Fae females don’t reach maturity until twenty-one, and Keryth wanted to go about it the right way. After four years of stolen moments during trade deals, he and his men came back to my palace with me. He asked my father to agree to the mating. My father refused. After that, I was no longer allowed to go to Dawn and Dusk. In fact, I wasn’t even permitted to leave my bedroom.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” She chuckles before her face gets serious. “Well, I cried a lot, but that’s to be expected. Keryth, however, formed a plan to help me escape.”
“So romantic,” I say wistfully.
She nods. “Trying to keep fated mates apart is dangerous. Keryth was desperate, and desperate men don’t think about consequences. He flew to my room to retrieve me and I left with him. It almost caused a war between the kingdoms. It would have if…”
The pause is heavy and long.
Swiveling in my chair, I give her a look. “You can’t just stop there. I need to know how it ends.”
She blinks with her unbelievably long eyelashes. “It doesn’t end. It only continues. What I was about to say is—if my brother, Zarid, hadn’t killed my father, I wouldn’t be alive today. There’d be no Kirian or Gia.”
No wonder Kirian was vague about this story. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible about your dad.”
“As bad as it sounds, it was for the best. When my mother died, my father lost his fated mate and he was drowning in misery.” She shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but I can see the pain on her face. “Zarid still rules today. Although we don’t see eye-to-eye on how to run our kingdoms, we have a mostly functional treaty.”
I turn back around as she finishes the last curl, and I have to admit I look pretty, freckles and all. “Thank you for helping me. You did a great job on my hair.”
“The truth is,” Zella starts, “I have ulterior motives in coming here. There are things I want to say to you in private.”
Oh, boy. Here it is. I knew this female bonding sesh was too good to be true.
Feeling like a kid in the principal’s office, I swallow hard as Zella puts herself in front of me.
She takes a seat on the edge of the vanity, but what she says next surprises me. “I don’t want you to think I’m not proud of my son. It’s not Kirian’s blindness that bothers us—it’s the guilt. Our guilt. The soldiers who maimed the witches might not have belonged to the Night Realm, but the fault falls on all of us.” She takes a deep breath. “Our desire to break the curse is for our own benefit, really. We just wanted to set things right and lift the burden of our blame. Kirian is beyond amazing. He’s overcome so much, and we love him just the way he is.”
So this meeting is because of mom guilt, not because she disapproves of me.
Relieved, I ask, “Does Kirian know how you feel?”
She looks away. “I’ve never told him in those exact words.”
“I think you should. He’d love to hear it.”
Smiling at me, she lifts my chin. She turns my face this way and that as she studies my skin. I want to squirm under her scrutiny, but I force myself to stay still.
“Freckles are rare among the fae, but I have a powder that can cover them, if you like.”
I perk up. “Really? That would be great.”
“This is makeup made from stardust and a few other minerals.” Zella opens a compact, and I see a white iridescent substance under a fluffy ball. “It’s mined from the mountains in the Dream Realm.”
“Super cool.” Closing my eyes, I picture myself with porcelain skin as she blots my cheeks and nose. “Is it true what Keryth said about not being able to have children?” I ask as Zella swipes the puff over my forehead. “I mean, Kirian and me?”
“Faeries aren’t very fertile. Females don’t start ovulating until their twenties and they stop around age forty-five. It’s not impossible for a woman to get pregnant beyond that age—just very rare. It’s probably for the best. We live so long, if we were able to reproduce through our entire lives, Valora would be severely overpopulated. It is possible for a chosen pair to have a child,” she adds optimistically. “It’s just not as common. My brother—he has a son with his chosen mate.”
“That would be Kirian’s cousin Zander?”
“Correct.” Zella pauses her motions and makes a humming sound.
I peek at her through one eye. “What?”
“The powder isn’t working.”
I glance in the mirror and see she’s right. There’s a shimmer to my skin now, but no matter how much of the stuff she applied to my face, my freckles are still distinct as ever.
Sighing, I shrug. “At
