Prince Nuwin’s mouth formed a surprised “O” when he looked down. “Oh, I hadn’t even realized. I suppose she and I are naturally quite comfortable with each other. It must have slipped my mind.”
He finally let go, and I brought my hand back to my side while I wondered what in the realm was going on between the two brothers. It was obvious that an underlying game was being played, but why I’d been brought into the middle of it, I didn’t know.
“Have you returned to take me home, my prince?” I gazed up at the Bringer of Darkness.
My heart hammered when he looked down at me. I told myself it was because of his sudden return and because he had the power to decide my fate. It certainly wasn’t his scent that rolled toward me or the way his shoulder muscles flexed when he turned in his fitted tunic.
“No,” he replied stonily.
I scowled, drawing on all of the anxiety and anger that had been swirling inside me since the morning he’d left. “Still no explanation for why I’m being kept here either, I presume?”
He glanced over my shoulder, toward the garden. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “You did it.”
He strode toward the glass doors and was outside before I could reply.
Nuwin and I shared a confused look before following him.
Outside, a look of excitement lightened the crown prince’s face as he moved from plant to plant, stroking each leaf, and testing their strength and flexibility. I watched in absolute bewilderment as the strength of his aura rose until it was a crescendo of epic proportions.
Taking a step away from the seismic energy that surrounded the prince, I crossed my arms and was about to demand that he finally return me to Mervalee Territory, but he turned to confront me.
A look of complete satisfaction covered his face. So much so that my words caught in my throat. In the same breath, a wave of his magic washed over me, and his illusion cracked and broke all around me.
My hair cascaded around my shoulders in soft waves, curling lightly and returning to its true pitch-black color. I gasped at the sudden change just as Nuwin’s breath sucked in.
“She’s like Mother?” the youngest prince asked in shock.
The prince nodded, his smile still in place.
Nuwin glanced back at me, his eyes widening as he reached up to stroke a piece of my hair.
The prince growled, low and deep, and his brother’s hand instantly dropped before Nuwin grinned. “But she’s wingless.”
“She still holds the magic.”
“What magic?” I finally said, volleying between the two of them as I reeled from the feel of the prince’s magic touching me so intimately when his illusion affinity had peeled away.
“The magic to save our continent, Ilara Seary,” the prince replied. “You have the ability to create orem, which means that you can save us all.”
CHAPTER 15
“What?” There was no way I’d heard him right. The words he’d just uttered were pure lunacy.
“Your affinity is the ability to create orem,” the crown prince repeated.
I blinked. Then blinked again before I finally found my voice. “I don’t have magic or an affinity,” I said patiently, in a way I often spoke to children who struggled to understand a topic. “And I most certainly cannot conjure orem. I’m a defective.”
The prince’s gaze cascaded over my black hair, his icy-blue eyes sharpening at my condescending tone. “You’re not a defective. Your affinity bloomed late, but it’s manifesting.”
I frowned, my eyebrows knitting together so tightly they felt joined. “That’s not possible. I’m twenty-four winters, a true defective. My affinity should have bloomed ten winters ago like all Solis fae at maturing age.”
“No, Nori’s right.” Nuwin’s eyes gentled. “It can happen like how it has for you. It’s rare, but it can. Our mother, the queen, was similar. She bloomed late and has black hair, although she has wings.” He shrugged. “But no matter, you and she are the same. She also has extraordinary magic, although her magic is different from yours.”
My jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? The queen doesn’t have black hair.”
“She does actually,” Nuwin insisted. “Her hair is hidden under an illusion to make it appear silver. She’s lived that way her entire life. Most in the continent have no idea of her true hair color.”
My jaw dropped so completely I was surprised it wasn’t on the floor. The queen has black hair? Truly?
But despite that unbelievable revelation, I inched away from him, from both of them, since I didn’t like the intent way the crown prince was staring at me or the wonder in Nuwin’s eyes. Despite the queen’s hair color, they were wrong about me. Totally and completely delusional. I was magicless, wingless, and defective. I didn’t have power, and I certainly couldn’t create orem and save the continent. Whatever that even meant.
I rubbed my hands up and down my upper arms. “Why do you think I have magic?”
The prince spread his arms wide. “This is why. I suspected you might when I saw you working in your garden at your home, and—”
“You saw me in my garden?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“A few days before I took you.”
My eyebrows shot up when I recalled a moment in my garden, after Vorl had attacked me, when it felt as if I was being watched. That had been real? The prince had been the cause of that feeling?
My eyes narrowed to slits as I put my hands on my hips. “You were spying on me?”
The Death Master shrugged, and I was itching to tell him that made him a total creep.
“I had to know. Your garden was the most abundant, vivid, bright, and flourishing patch of land that I’d encountered during my entire span of the continent. I didn’t think it was possible anymore to grow plants like that. With the orem diminishing and the crops dying, I no longer thought such life could be sustained in our climate.”
My entire body grew rigid, especially after hearing those fae females gossiping in Firlim’s market all those weeks ago, seeing the prince’s reaction to that gossip when we’d been in High Liss, and then hearing the rumblings of concern that had been whispering through the castle during the past month. “So it’s true? It’s actually been confirmed that our orem’s dying?”
Nuwin and the crown prince shared a veiled look.
“You might as well tell her,” Nuwin said. “Word’s getting out more and more. We’ve had several incidences since you left. If she’s to help us fix this problem, she should know.”
“You’re right.” The prince took a deep breath before addressing me. “It’s true. Entire territories’ crop lands have died out completely.”
My heart beat harder, thundering louder and louder with each breath I took. The orem was dying. Crops were withering. Solis fae were going to starve to death.
All this time . . . Tormesh had been right.