“Twenty-three years ago.”
A shockwave of emotions hit me at once. Denial. She had to be lying. No way did Cressida predict I’d be born on the fifteen of March or that I’d grow into the prophecy. Anger. If it was true, how could fate put something like this on a baby not yet born? And why wouldn’t they want me to grow up in this world rather than among Nelems to better prepare me for my role? I could have stopped this before it’d gotten this far. I skipped right past the next two stages of grief of bargaining and depression and landed on acceptance.
I would stop this before the war destroyed our world.
“I really am the prophecy.” I pushed away from the table as I let that sink in. Sure, I’d said it a million and one times. I even believed it most of those times. But something deep within me had plagued me with doubt, a fear that the Council had made a mistake, that the real prophecy had always been my mom and I’d been the consolation prize.
“The Council came to my mom when I was almost sixteen and told her what you just told me, didn’t they?”
“They came to her a lot earlier than that. I believe when you were eight or nine.”
Right around the time she’d declared I had some rare disease and put me on meds that kept my powers muted for over a decade. Had my mother, the woman who’d gone dark and terrorized me until the day she died, done that to actually protect me? “Why’d they come then? My mom said they came a week before I turned sixteen to take me away, and that she volunteered in my place so I wouldn’t have a target painted on my back.”
“They didn’t come to take you away, either when you were nine or when you were sixteen.” Stace stood and poured us mugs of freshly perked coffee before pausing at the wood counter, her back to me. I was in such a state of shock over all the bombs she’d dropped, I waited in numb silence for her to continue. “Katy, what I’m about to tell you is…very unsettling.”
Well, crap. As if my anxiety wasn’t already high enough. She returned to the table and set the coffee in front of me. The draw of the mug of nirvana was too strong to deny, so I slid the chair closer and wrapped my fingers around the mug, lifting it under my nose to pull in the delicious scent. I took a quick sip, burned the ever-loving crap out of my mouth, and set the mug back on the table. Maybe I’d just let that cool down before I lost the ability to taste anything ever again.
“It’s something I’ve known about for some time and haven’t found the right moment to tell you.”
“Now you’re scaring me.” We’d had lots of talks, heart-to-hearts, and the like. Hell, we spent the entire summer together. She’d had plenty of opportunity to tell me whatever news had her staring into her coffee to avoid looking at me. “Stace? What is it?”
“There’s a reason your mother and I never saw eye to eye.”
How did I know this would come back to that woman? “You mean more than her teaching you astral projection? Because that’s a pretty major thing you never mentioned.” And I never brought it up until now, having actually forgotten how Stacey Layden had create three other Staces that night at the party where my mom showed her true colors.
“She was a member of the Council. Did she ever tell you that?”
I gulped. How many more truth bombs did she plan to drop? “Nope. Must have slipped her mind.”
“We were both recruited into the Council around the same time, young, eager to make names for ourselves. The competitions started innocently enough. She’d finish her report before anyone else. I’d be the first to unravel whatever mystery the Council had the group working on. Soon, it was just her and me competing.”
“Sounds like you two were BFFs.”
Stace laughed and shook her head. “No, not even close. We ran in different circles and barely spoke to each other. When the competitions heated up, it forged an even greater wedge between us. So, no, we were never friends.”
Her smile wilted as she stared into her coffee mug. “Katy, your mother, she wasn’t well. No one knows this outside a small group inside the Council. Now that we’re both labeled dark and elemental enemies of the Council, I no longer need to follow my sworn vow to keep it a secret.” She drew in a deep breath and released it, as if freeing the air from her lungs somehow brought her strength. After a long pause, she lifted her attention to me.
What I saw sent my heart into palpitations. It wasn’t just worry. She always had that swirling in her dark gaze when she looked at me. It was fear, plain and simple. Not fear I’d lose my shit and set her on fire. It was fear she’d lose my trust.
“What vow?” I whispered, unable to do anything more.
“The real reason she left this world wasn’t that she’d fallen in love with a Nelem and wanted to start a family. It wasn’t to have a normal life. She’d been caught using her powers for personal gain. Several times. The Council gave her an ultimatum. Leave this world and start over in the Nelem world without her powers, or go to Carcerem. She made the wise choice and left.”
“How’d they mute her powers? I don’t remember her wearing an elemutus.”
“She did for quite a few years, but then out of the blue, she contacted the Council and said she needed her powers back to care for her elemental daughter. She claimed your powers were far beyond anything she’d ever seen and was certain you were the prophecy. They didn’t even
