Page 169 of Devoured

“That’s okay! No. No, thank you.” I yank her back down, clutching her wrist before she can terrorize the poor creature. “What about the faeries?” I add quickly, hoping to distract her. “Do they live here?” I wave a hand at the cottages in the distance.

It works.

Her gaze brightens as she sits up on her knees. And then I realize—it must be a horribly lonely existence to know so much and never tell a soul. “Yes! The stars who fell had to go somewhere, after all. That’s why they closed the forest first. They wanted to remain close to Castle Severi without directly interfering. Those who arrived at the battle with me were Evander’s men. The others remained here, at their earthly homes.”

“Will they stay here?”

“For a time. Until they’re certain everything is secure.” She exhales rather dramatically. “As you know, the threads of life are ever-changing. But right now, we’re confident the castle can become safe once more. As it was hundreds of years ago. A new age of peace and prosperity.”

“Thank god.”

“Thank the stars,” she corrects.

When she picks up another rock and weighs it in her hand, obviously contemplating launching it at the froglet again, I ask, “When you said you lied to me, what, exactly, did you mean?”

Lyra blows a lock of hair from her face. “Ah. That.” She scrunches her nose in an almost juvenile way. “Do you remember the evening after your first transformation into wolf? In the antechamber?”

I grimace. “You mean when I almost drowned in the moon pool?”

“Yes.” She winces, and at least she seems apologetic. “I—well, the stars and I—we couldn’t tell Queen Sybil everything. That choice would lead to a series of very dangerous events. You see, because of her sister’s fate, Sybil knew there was something different about you. She knew those purple eyes meant you were strong, but she wouldn’t know how to use them unless I read your true prophecy.

“If I did that, then she would have tried too hard to change the past. She would have broken the fabric of reality. If I lied and made you seem too weak or too ordinary, she would’ve cast you aside. Abandoned you to a lesser pack. And if you weren’t in the castle, then you wouldn’t be there to stop what was to come. That potential future was perhaps the worst of them all.” She sets the rock down, balancing it atop another, bigger rock. Both fall, and she sighs. “Time can be a real pain to manage.”

“You’re telling me.” The thought of all those outcomes makes me sick. If this is the future that went right… god, the others must have been awful. My heart thuds painfully against my ribs. “What about my true prophecy, though?”

“I didn’t embellish your worth, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t make you sound stronger than you are. The prophecy itself was true to word. I just… fudged the details of your power. Sybil didn’t need to know everything.” And then, in a darker voice, almost otherworldly but not quite as ominous as usual, she repeats, “Vanessa Hart is a Truthseer. The push and pull of the heart will entangle itself in a web so deep, one might not emerge, but once untangled, legacies will rise. Kingdoms will unite. Greatness beckons.” Then she cackles wildly—almost rabidly—and gestures a lithe hand toward the faeries in the distance. “Kingdoms have united, wouldn’t you say? Greatness has beckoned. And the legacies… well, they’re still to come.”

I sit forward, limbs tight with nerves. “So what was the lie?”

Her eyes shut, and she shudders. “Truthseer,” she breathes. “You have never been a Truthseer.”

But—my heart skips a beat—“That doesn’t make sense. I’ve been discerning truths from lies for months—”

“Yes, you have that ability. You were granted gifts from the Orion constellation, after all. An incredibly powerful faerie family. Most of you can discern truth from lies as naturally as you breathe air.”

“Then—”

“There are some powers that are not typically passed down from the stars. Too dangerous for any werewolf to have.” She inhales deeply. “You are and have always been a Truthweaver, Vanessa Serafina Hart. You were a Truthweaver born under the Orion constellation, and I am so sorry that I couldn’t tell you as much before. You do not simply see the truth—you speak it into existence. You weave the threads of life just as much as I do. And that power is easily corrupted in the wrong hands.”

A Truthweaver.

I have been a Truthweaver all along.

It is not something that Cora honed. My powers are not something Cora broke inside me, beat me into submission to use. They have always been mine. The thought eases my pulse. I am a Truthweaver.

“If Sybil had known, she would have ruined so much,” Lyra whispers. “I didn’t want to lie, but I had to.” She seems heartbroken in her admission. Guilty or regretful. But I take her hand, and I hold it between us. I don’t let go.

“It’s okay, Lyra. I don’t know that I would’ve been able to handle that responsibility at first. Hell, I was horrible at Truthseeing for months. Can you imagine if I’d been able to do this?” I think about that for a moment, about the girl who was locked in that sterile room and wanted to die. About the girl who ripped into the throne room and attacked Evie on sight, then vowed vengeance. She had so much hate in her heart.

It was better this way.

“How did Cora know?” I ask. “If Sybil couldn’t figure it out, how did Cora know what to do with me?”

Lyra withdraws her hand, grasping it to her chest instead. “Cora’s life was long before you met her. She traveled across the world in the hope of burning it down. She entered the dreams of many, using her powers over and over. She learned too much. But as soon as she saw your eyes in Sin’s mind…” Lyra flashes me an apologetic smile. “She knew no one with that sort of power could ever just be a Truthseer.”

Cora mentioned it. At the massacre, the Ascension Rite that never completed, she told me the truth. I just didn’t realize it at the time.

“Our dearest Bitten, transformed through my son’s own soul, with a gift more deadly than you yet realize—with powers more deadly. Those purple eyes aren’t purely aesthetic, darling.”