Page 7 of A Courage of the Chosen

“How is this possible?” The Seelie next to Lady Calder breathes. “Màiri died with her father.”

“That’s what you were led to believe,” I reply. Her muted-blue eyes run over my face as though she’s trying to determine any similarities between me and Granny. “Màiri escaped into the human world where she remained, hidden with my grandfather until it was time for her to return. It was there she gave birth to my mother.”

“Wouldn’t that make you half human?” The man next to Hume asks.

I shake my head. “My father was Seelie.”

They don’t need to know he was Dorche. I don’t want them to question what that means. Honestly, I don’t want to question that myself.

“Lies,” Hume hisses.

I give him my full attention. “I’m telling the truth, Hume. I didn’t know about my heritage until after I arrived in Elfayne. It was kept secret to protect us.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient,” the man on Hume’s right scoffs, his face rounded with years of indulgence and a belly to match.

“It’s the truth,” I repeat, as I fight to keep my back straight under the force of their distrust.

Lady Calder narrows her brown eyes on me. “So you’ve said.”

“How are we to know what you tell us now is the truth? You expect us to just believe you?” The woman next to her joins in.

The council begin talking over one another again, and Hume levels a smirk in my direction.

Reyne steps forward as my shoulders slump downward the smallest amount. “Be quiet, you fools!”

Surprisingly, they listen. Maybe because the voice that tumbles out of the small Seelie is distinctly like her father’s, or the fact she openly insulted them. Either way, it works.

“You might not believe Elsie. But what about me? You all know me, many of you have dined in my home as friends. Do you doubt me?”

Teakwood eyes rest on me. The gaze belonging to a Seelie at the far end of the table with reddish-brown hair, and an air about him that tells me he’s a man of fact.

“Is there any way to prove your claim, my lady?” he asks. He was the only one who offered questions instead of trying to cut me down moments ago.

“Of course there isn’t, since she’s clearly lying. Raghnall has served this realm for too long. We are his loyal servants.” The Seelie rests his hands on his protruding belly as he says it, almost smugly.

I glance over my shoulder to Rach and Reyne, and they both give me a single nod. Leaning back in the chair, I close my eyes and ignore the way they all stare at me. I dip into the well of power in my chest, feeling the siren song of my light lulling me toward it.

I don’t fear it like I did when I first started training. I am my power, and my power is me.

“You are in control.” His words wrap around me the same way I wish his arms would.

Arms that might never hold me again.

Static energy starts to build, my body hums, and a few gasps sound from the gathered council.

When I open my eyes again, mist is coiling around my forearms with streaks of light crackling through it. Light wielding is passed down through a family. Not consistently, but this is the only way to show them I’m at least related to Màiri, since she and Murdoch were the last light-wielders.

I brace my hands on the table, and magic lazily curls across the surface, smoother than water. Each of them watches as it snakes by and I push more of it out. The energy in the room gathers as I free-fall further into the well of power, the bottom of it a presence I hadn’t noticed before, since the Craobh Beatha granted me more than I naturally possessed.

My body grows taut with the need to use more. I drop and drop, my light glaring brighter, throwing the room and the faces of the council into starker relief.

I’d promised Granny I would avenge her. I would make them suffer the same way our family had. It’s never left me, this need for revenge, but I’ve channeled it into new paths, working with the rebellion to bring an end to all of this. As I sit facing the people closest to Raghnall and Tavish, that desire roars back to life, the bloodthirsty beast prowling in my soul, calling for their blood.

They might not have committed the same crimes, but they could’ve done more to stop it. If they had opened their eyes, they’d have found the truth.

That seething part of me is unrelenting, and its voice is different than before, sharper and more savage than when I used it to fight Tavish on the battlefield. I try to chain it, force it back to the recess where I keep it, when something icy surges back. Cold and fathomless, and stronger than anything I’ve felt before. My beast rejoices in its presence, and draws it closer as it gathers strength and pushes against the shackles.

I snap my magic back to me, and fold my hands on my lap beneath the lip of the table to hide the way my fingers tremble at what just happened.