Page 41 of The Fae Lord

I have seen the face of our salvation, my mother writes, her words leaping off the page with startling clarity. A child, born of a healer’s womb, with the power to turn the tide against the coming darkness.

My breath catches in my throat.

I read the entry ten times, committing it to my memory.

As soon as I saw the child, I knew who she belonged to.

Magdalena. The healer who came to me from the Leafborne clan after Raylon’s death. She came unasked, and I remember wondering why someone would do such a thing. Make such a long journey out of pure kindness.

She spent days with me, making tinctures and singing me lullabies. She was kinder to me than I ever remember my own mother being.

Now I know it was fate who brought her to me.

Now I know why we spent so many hours talking, with her counselling me through my grief.

It was all for this. So the child growing in her belly could save us all.

Bile rises in my throat as I read the next passage, my fingers clenching the edges of the book so tightly that my knuckles turn white.

I did not want to hurt her. Magdalena was sweet and kind, and clearly longed for the child she carried. But I did what I had to do. What fate had asked of me.

I found an ancient spell, a ritual of dark magic that would change the child forever, mould her into the weapon we so desperately need. The elves held the spell, of course. In their library. The price for taking it was one I am not willing to put on record.

I do not want it remembered.

But I do want a record of what I did to Magdalena. In case I was wrong.

In case, instead of saving us all, I condemned us.

Would you like to know how I did it? If you’re reading this, I assume you would. Either because things have gone horribly wrong or horribly right.

It was easy, really.

I am the Lady of Luminael. Everything comes easily to me.

She had not visited for a while, but I sent word that I’d like to see her before her baby was born. She arrived, belly full and round, wearing a yellow headscarf and carrying a bunch of poppies.

I remember thinking how quaint it was that she would bring a lady a bunch of flowers.

I sniffed them, and put them in a vase.

She seemed pleased that I liked her offering.

After our usual talk and walk around the grounds of the citadel, I suggested we retire to my study for tea.

And that is when I drugged her.

She didn’t suspect a thing, and didn’t notice the strange taste or colour of the water. She just drank and talked, hand constantly resting on her belly.

When she finally passed out, I took the empty cup from her fingers and set it down on the table.

Then, as she slept, I performed the ritual.

A drop of my blood.

A bead of my sweat.

I mixed them with the powder the spell dictated, then I filled a large glass syringe and injected it into the child growing within her womb. With this magic, and the dark words of the incantation, I shaped her and twisted her, until she was no longer a mere fae, but something more. Something extraordinary.