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Follow the light
Descend into the dark
The harrowing pass decides it all”
Was Kazimir losing his mind trying to find me? Had he lost his own light, falling into darkness, to find me? Ruslan had been there long before he found me at Este Castle, his childhood as frightful as mine. My head spun with these unansweredquestions, fighting with my heart over the correct choice. Throw my traitorous body into the mix, and it was a real shitshow.
Ruslan stirred beside me, and I decided I wanted to hear the whole truth about his childhood. I knew snippets from Zuriel, and pieces that Ruslan threw out like a trail of breadcrumbs. But if I were going to commit to Ruslan, I wanted to know every horrific detail of what had created this manic Dragon.
“Ruslan, will you tell me what happened to your siblings?” I whispered.
He tensed beside me, and I reached out my mind to grasp his emotions. Anger, guilt, shame, loneliness, and pride wove over each other, crafting a web so thick and complex, I was certain breaking through would be impossible.
“How do you know about them?”
“Zuriel.”
He released a serrated breath, struggling for control. As I sent him peace, his shoulders relaxed under my hand, and he turned to his back, pulling me against his chest so my head lay against his slow-beating heart.
“I had eleven siblings, all born within a few years of each other, but my mother was the only one who did not survive the birth. We were all mixed differently, some with stronger Demon blood, others with different Shifter blood, even a few Mages. I was the most mixed, however, and that is likely what killed my mother. Even my grandparents were gone by the time I was born. So I grew up under the care of Rares and others in the tunnel who took pity on me. But Rares’s only goal was to create the strongest Félvér for my father. We were the final batch of his years of hard work, and he crafted killers from us as soon as we could wield blades. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when they announced a competition to the death for the place as heir apparent.
“It was not an all out battle. No, the competition started thesecond Rares and my father departed. It was as much psychological as physical because some of my siblings were extremely close. They wanted to see who was strong enough to overcome familial bonds and love to take what they wanted. Lucky for me, I didn’t care for most of them, having spent twenty years fighting for my place, while they rejected me every time I tried to find comfort with them.
“So, I turned them against each other. I had them start killing each other, cleaning up behind them as they fell one by one. Each of us slept with knives under our pillows, if we slept at all. There were no rules, no breaks, no mercy. It took two weeks for my brother Damir and I to become the finalists. It took another week to trap him in a fight. I left Radence, knowing he would follow, and he caught up to me in the foothills, near one of my favorite spots to sit and read. We fought brutally, first on the ground, then in the sky. We pulled our talons out, slicing as we dove through the air. He caught my thigh as I clipped his wing, and we both tumbled to the ground. My femur snapped in two as I landed, and I laid on my back, waiting for him to end me. I wish he hadn’t taken time to gloat, that he would have killed me and ended my suffering. But because he taunted me one last time, I gathered enough magic to move behind him and slice him in two with my talons.
“I had to fly back to Radence, and I fainted twice from pain and blood loss. My father almost lost all his children that day, and if it weren’t for Drazen spotting me as he swooped among the mountain tops, I would have died. He brought me to Rares, who healed me, then three days passed before I woke. My father named me heir the next day.”
I lay in stunned silence, the weight of his trauma sinking into my bones and settling alongside my own. He ground his teeth, and his darkness fought against the light I pushed into him. He wanted to remain apathetic, detached from what he had done,what he had suffered. Instead I showed him what he had longed for his whole life – acceptance. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling his head to my bare chest, and threw a leg over his back. He wrapped his arms around my small waist, crushing me against him, and I pushed and pulled with his darkness, giving him the space he needed to feel. His breath was uneven and heavy against my chest, and wetness pooled there as I heard a sniff.
My fingers trailed through his hair, scratching his scalp in soothing circles. “I am so sorry no one was there for you Ruslan. I am here now, and I am not going anywhere. I love you.”
And with that last confession, he broke down in my arms.
Years of emotional turmoil were released from the cage he’d built around the memories that haunted him, and his breathing remained ragged as sobs choked him. “I can’t lose anyone else, especially not you, Izidora. All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved, and know the person who loved me wasn’t going to leave.”
Tears burned and overflowed from my eyes at his fervid words, brushing against the raw wound that I shared. I swiped them away before they could fall on Ruslan, but the male must have smelled the salt, because he picked his head up and caressed my cheek with a calloused palm. “I love you, sprite. You are everything to me.”
“I love you, Ruslan.”
“Say it again.”
In the low light, his gray eyes still glistened, so I did. “I love you, Ruslan. You make me feel alive. You understand me.”
His brow softened, and I smoothed his hair away from his face as he settled against my chest, still clinging to me like I was the air he needed to breathe.
Questions still burned in the front of my mind, and I needed to ask them so I knew how to proceed. “How did King Azim keepthis secret? If the other realms knew this had happened… they would have intervened.”
“The High Lords have a vested interest in the program too. My father has shared his power and riches extensively with them. Their offspring are Félvér, so they support the cause of strengthening the magical ability of Iron Fae. Not to mention, it is certainly a more progressive stance than the other realms take on magical purity and maintaining power. Our borders are tightly controlled, and no one enters or leaves without us knowing. When we host Béke, like this year, only the trustworthy ones are allowed to roam Radence.”
“So King Azim only wants to create more powerful Iron Fae?”
“He believes that the Goddess turned her back on the Iron Fae, giving them the least power. He wants to grant wings to future generations and strengthen our magical abilities beyond elemental magic. I agree with him to an extent – but I think every race should mix as they wish instead of Rares playing God. I have spent hours pondering the Goddess’s logic on separating powers among races to create balance rather than allowing it all to unfold naturally. Perhaps that’s what we are meant to bring to this world.”
“That makes sense to me, too,” I replied. “When we traveled through the Night Realm, we stopped at several large hotels where some of our traveling party could enter these lounges, while others could not. I never wrapped my mind around why only the noble houses were allowed in there, or why they felt the need to be separated from their people in such a way. If the Goddess wanted balance, shouldn’t she allow every Fae the same opportunity? I wanted to change that separation the second I could. No one deserves to be treated differently for their power or their name.”
Ruslan kissed my forehead, beaming with pride. “My thoughts exactly.”
“How many Félvér are there?” My curiosity was piqued, and Ruslan seemed open to talking about it since his emotions were exhausted.
