Page 60 of Cold Hearted
“My mom. My people.” My breath shuddered and Zander just held me. In my darkest hour he didn’t press me, he didn’t run, he just held me. A few minutes passed and my breathing slowed, the tears dried up, and I felt like I could finally process what I’d just seen.
That purple crystal. It was Master Duncan’s. It helped the user project reality into someone’s dream state. That wasn’t a dream I’d just experienced. It was real. My mother, our home, it was all real.
I pulled away from Zander and wiped the remnants of my breakdown off of my face. Then I took a steadying breath and told him everything about the dream-vision.
He frowned, pulling my hand into his and tracing small circles on my palm.
“What hurts the most was she knew. She knew we were mates.” The anger was back in my voice.
Zander sighed. “I mean, it makes sense when you think about why the curse happened in the first place. Fate has a sense of humor, I guess.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? How did the curse start?”
I now questioned everything I’d been taught.
He frowned. “How do you think it started?”
Okay, me first.
“The founding Ethereum lords wanted power and a land of their own, so they stole the magic of Faerie and encased it in their hearts. Then they created the mirror world, taking all of the unseelie with them so they could force them into slavery and hold dominion over them.”
Zander made a strangled sound as if he couldn’t breathe. “No, no, no.” He shook his head violently. “That’s what they tell you? Of course they do. Otherwise, how would you come here and kill us?”
I frowned. “Zander, I’m feeling really emotionally raw right now. I just need the truth.”
He nodded, picking both of my hands up in his and meeting my gaze. “Balazar Warrick was one of the most powerful Winter kings Faerie had ever seen.”
I knew the name, but I hadn’t known he was king of Winter.
“He was offered the hand of the Summer princess in marriage, but he refused. He’d already fallen in love… with a nymph.”
I gasped, thinking of Nysa. “Was that allowed?”
I wasn’t sure how it worked if a seelie and unseelie were to try to have children.
He shook his head. “It was not. He said as king he could marry whomever he wanted. But the noble courts of Faerie were repulsed, and the Summer queen was beyond livid with the rejection of her daughter. An uprising began, they took his throne, killed his beloved, and banished him to this world, and all of the unseelie with him. His three brothers offered to accompany him and make sure he was safe.”
I wasn’t sure I could handle this story. Shock after shock rushed through me. “But… they banished him here? The Faerie royals?”
Zander nodded, gesturing to the world before us. “This, my little bird, is a prison. For the Warrick lord, his brothers, and the unseelie he loved.”
It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard.
“And the curse on my world?”
“Balazar was a powerful man. As they were banishing him, he pulled the magic of Faerie into himself and his brothers as keepers. It was so powerful it turned their blood black. He told the royals they were not deserving of it. In return, the Faerie royals cursed him, but it backfired. That’s all I know.”
I yanked my hands from his and jumped up, pacing the dirt in the dead of night by the dying fire.
“They cursed him? No. What do you mean that’s all you know? You don’t know how the curse backfired or what we can do to fix it?” My heart pounded against my rib cage.
A seelie fae royal king and a common nymph… it was unheard of and yet extremely romantic. Balazar had declined the hand of a royal for love,and I could see why. I understood now. Forbidden love. I was caught up in my own version of it right now. Zander might not be a unseelie, but he wouldn’t be considered fit for a royal princess of Summer. The reason the unseelie all disappeared from our world made sense now too.
The mirrors were portals into a prison. That’s why they only worked one way. Anyone sent through the portals weren’t ever intended to return. That’s why the heart of an Ethereum lord, a heart filled with the magic of Faerie, was needed to return. My mind spun.
“Where did you hear this story? Who would be able to tell us more?” I asked.
Zander stood, chewing the corner of his lip as he was seemingly lost in thought. “My father, who is dead now, but he heard it from…” His face went slack, and he slammed his palm across his forehead. “Why didn’t I think of them sooner?”
