Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3) by Katerina Martinez (novel24 .txt) 📗

knew she would not be able to let you go. It was the one thing she understood full well she was too weak to do. The last thing she did for you was lay a human glamor that would last a lifetime, only to do that, she had to give up her own near-immortality. She knew she would die soon, anyway. It was an easy choice.”

“What happened then?”

Toross smiled, as if remembering a fond, but sad memory. “She told you she loved you, that she would always be watching over you… and hoped you would never return to this dangerous place.”

The tears came, now. I pressed my face against the furry blanket to wipe them away. I didn’t open my eyes again. Instead, I just sniffled and sniffed.

“By the time I returned from the human world, your mother and father were… dead. They had died together, quietly, side-by-side and hand-in-hand in the shadow of a tall tree. Burning her body was the hardest thing I had ever had to do.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure I could speak, but I knew he wanted to hear my side of the story. He needed to know why I was here, and now that he had told me what my mother’s last wish was, he wanted to know more than ever. How long could I keep the truth from him? What would that even accomplish?

Toross reached for my shoulder with his hand and gently squeezed. “I have not enjoyed revisiting this either,” he said. “I had hoped… against hope… never to see you again, but you are here.”

I nodded, still silent.

“I need to know why,” he said, “What brought you back here, where you have been, what you have seen. It’s important.”

“I know,” I said into the blankets. “Could I just have a minute? Please?”

He let go of my shoulder and stood. “I’ll be outside,” he said. “Take the time you need.”

I heard his footfalls as he walked through the woolen curtain between this room and the rest of the tent. I let myself cry, now, allowing my full range of emotions to come spilling out. Gullie had been in my hair the whole time, silently listening. She fluttered to my ear and soothed the back of my neck, as she had done many times before.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered. “I’m here…”

“I know,” I croaked. “I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

That minute I’d asked for turned into a couple of hours, although I had no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed. My eyes were puffy and red, my nose was sore from all the sniffing, and my chest hurt like all hell. No matter how much time passed, the pain never seemed to want to fade, not even a little bit.

It was Mira who broke the silence of hours, gingerly entering my tent with a plate of food in one hand and a drink in the other. Melina was with her, standing over her shoulder, watching to see if I would let them both in. Meekly, I nodded, and the girls came and joined me by my bed, sitting on the floor beside me.

“I thought you might be hungry,” Mira said.

I shook my head. “I’m not, but thank you.”

“You need to eat.” She plucked a piece of fruit from the plate and handed it over.

It was warm, and cooked, and it smelled… is that Lerac fruit? Vaguely I remembered, in another lifetime, Mother Pepper liked to make pastries using Lerac fruit because they smelled and tasted a lot like apples, but they were fae fruits. That made them more special, somehow.

The memory reminded me of home, and had I been in another state of mind, that may have made me feel better. Instead, the memory made me pull the blankets up to my eyes again and shut them tightly. Then I sobbed a little longer, quietly, trying to keep it to myself.

“Neither of us know what happened,” Mel said. “Toross came to find us all of a sudden, said you might need someone to talk to.”

I didn’t reply.

“What did he say to you?” Mira pressed, then she lowered her voice. “Was he inappropriate with you? Because I’ll kill him if he did.”

I shot her a mortified look. “Gross, no,” I said, shaking my head, “He’s my uncle!”

“Your… what?!”

I paused. “He really didn’t tell you?”

“We have been told practically nothing since we got here. The Prin—Colin—has been told even less.”

I perked up. “You’ve seen him? How is he?”

“Better. Recovering. He asked for you and I… well, I didn’t know what to say.”

He asked for me. I wiped my tears on the blanket and tucked it under my chin. “It’s probably best that you said nothing.”

Mira brought the fruit to my lips. “Don’t make me force you to eat.”

Reluctantly, I opened the side of my mouth and allowed her to feed me the fruit. I didn’t chew, not right away, not until Mira’s eyes widened and she did that thing with her face when she was mad where her nostrils would flare, and her lips would press into a thin line.

I chewed, then swallowed, and even though I wasn’t numb to the taste, I didn’t get any enjoyment from it. It felt empty, bland. When I finished with that piece of fruit, Mira sat back down on her knees.

“Better,” she said, setting the plate down, “But don’t expect me to feed you the rest. Now, sit up and eat.”

“And tell us more about this uncle thing,” Mel asked, “How did that happen?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Out of nowhere, it feels like,” I said, “I almost don’t believe it.”

“You think he’s lying to you?”

“No. I just… he told me my mother was the Alpha before Ashera, that she fell in love with a human, but she had to give me up because she didn’t want me, a half-breed, growing up here.”

“Smart,” Mira said, “You would likely not have survived Arcadia, even among these people.”

“That’s what Toross said. Apparently, the