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"I…don't…know…how," I stammer, the words hard to get out. My insides feel like they are about to explode out of my body. I fall to my knees, then on my face.
"Release it," Aiden cries out angrily.
My vision is blurring, I can feel blood streaming out of my ears and my nose. There's a loud buzzing in my head, a symphony of deafening broken instruments that threaten to drive me mad. I push myself to my knees, my heart is beating a hundred miles a minute and just when I've accepted that this is the end, a bright burst of golden light comes bursting out of me, incinerating the trees just outside the circle, and releasing the horrendous pressure inside of me. My back wretches open and the wings that first made their appearance during my captivity with the Reverend, and that I had somehow forgotten about, come bursting out behind me, pushing me face first back into the ground.
"Oomph," I say awkwardly as my heart starts to slow down and the buzzing in my head slowly dies down.
My wings flap disjointedly as I sit up and survey the damage I just caused. All of a sudden, I hear a slow clapping sound. It's Aiden, and he looks like I just gave him the gift he had been waiting for his whole life.
"She had that all along," he says, almost to himself.
Shaking his head, he walks over to me and helps me to stand. He looks fevered, his eyes still wild from what I assume was quite the adrenaline rush-almost getting killed by my golden beam of destruction. He takes a long look in my eyes and then suddenly picks me up, pulling me close and spinning me in a circle, laughing with happiness. His mood swings are giving me whiplash.
"You're incredible. An absolute marvel," he tells me ecstatically, still spinning me around in a circle.
I wobble for a second when he sets me down and his grin just grows bigger.
"That was magic I'm assuming?" I ask him, and he laughs at me again.
"That was more magic than I've ever seen," he corrects me. "Now that we know it's still there, we can start to harness it."
"I need to rest," I tell him wearily.
I can still feel drops of blood dripping steadily from my ears and nose, and the front of my dress is soaked. I also feel a bone deep tiredness as if my body used up every last bit of energy. There's also the fact that I still have long black wings that are now dragging behind me, as if they too are tired and don't have the energy to stay afloat behind me.
Aiden seems to notice how I look for the first time, he also seems to notice that my wings are now out. He circles me, dragging a fingertip along a feather. I give an involuntary shiver. It feels invasive, and strangely personal that he is touching my wings, and I want to yank them away from him and pull them protectively back inside of me.
Surprisingly, I feel, and hear, a large crack, and that's exactly what happens as they suddenly retract back into my back. Aiden's examining me closely as if he can read how much uncomfortableness I was feeling.
"It's curious," he tells me. "But Fairies don't have wings."
I gape at him in astonishment, feeling a little bit lonely at the thought that I am an anomaly. I have just found a place that I supposedly belong after a lifetime of not belonging, and now it feels like I'm being told that it's not actually true. My exhaustion overtakes my hurt feelings though and I feel myself start to black out. Aiden must notice because he catches me right before I fall back.
It's been a month since we wed and He's kept to his end of the bargain. Every night we go to our chambers together and then He reluctantly goes out a side door to sleep in a different room. I made clear when we married that our marriage would be in title only. He has warned me that at some point that will have to change, but for now, He is obeying my wishes. I practice my magic in secret, trying to learn all the things that mother hadn't taught me while she was alive. 'If I could just get stronger, then all of this would go away' is the mantra I repeat to myself as I practice in one of the west tower rooms.
Beckham seems to be around every corner, across every room from me, always watching, but never speaking to me. It feels like torture having to see him so often and I wonder if that is his intention, to punish me for what I've done.
"I think we should stay in my palace for the rest of the year," He says randomly one night during a dinner that is usually silent. I look up at Him, momentarily panicking at the thought of leaving Beckham, of leaving my home. That lapse of keeping my emotion hidden must have been what He was looking for.
"You promised you would be my wife," He tells me angrily. "Yet I know you've held onto those feelings for that ass. I've heard the palace gossip, how he's been seen around you no matter where you are. You might not be letting me into your bed, but I'll be damned if you will be letting anyone else into it."
"Leaving the palace was not part of our deal," I tell Him sharply.
"I'm making it part of the deal," He says with a smirk, snapping His fingers abruptly. He must have had some kind of signal set up because the doors to the dining room fly open and no less than five guards come dragging someone who looks to have been severely beaten. I gasp in horror and rise from my seat when I see that the badly beaten man is Beckham.
"Sit down," He says sharply before I can run over. I glare at Him in rebellion. "Madoc has an iron sword against your lover's neck right now, if you take another step I'll make sure that the sword gives him an eternal death."
I'm shaking with anger and horror, desperately wishing that it wouldn't damn the entire kingdom if I used my powers right now. Beckham makes an anguished sound that is cut off by the heel of Madoc's boot connecting with his stomach.
"What do you want?" I ask Him, still trembling with rage. I've already lost everything, I can't lose Beckham as well. I can feel the power swelling up within me and I have to tamper it, not sure what will happen to everyone in the room if I don't.
"You know what I want. We'll go to my palace for the rest of the year, you will devote yourself to me, and I will let him live."
I feel my heart shatter into more pieces than I thought it had left.
"I'll go, just don't harm him anymore or I'll go back on everything," I tell Him, my voice breaking with tears. He knows it's a hollow threat. I care about our world too much to risk His plague spreading more by reneging on our deal.
He seems to consider it seriously though.
