Chapter Twenty-Six
Mika tears down the aisle as fast as his little legs can carry him, oblivious to the etiquette of the holy place. Somewhere else in the sanctum, Lilou wails.
And I feel like Wendeline has casually kicked out the pew from under me.
“A key caster.” I stare at the priestess. An elemental with all four elements. Very rare, very powerful, she had said. “No, I’m not.” She’s mistaken. I’m a basic human. A thief.
She smiles. “You forget that I was a tester in my former life. I can see these things.”
“You’re saying you tested me.”
“Yes. After the daaknar attack.”
I drop my voice until it’s barely audible even between us. “And you found affinities to all four elements in me.”
“Yes. Caster affinities.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was shocking,” she agrees. “I also tested Princess Romeria when she first arrived here, to see how powerful she was. Covertly, of course. I can confirm she only had an elven affinity to Aoife. And since the fates cannot gift affinities, the only possibility I have come up with is that Malachi somehow bound a key caster to Princess Romeria’s body. But there are none anywhere in Ybaris or Mordain, and certainly not one who has never heard of the fates or elemental magic. I don’t know where Malachi found you, or how he bound you to her body, but you are a key caster. An immortal key caster. You can create with your caster affinities and manipulate with your elven affinity. There has never been another one like you in our realm.” There is awe in her voice.
My head swims. “She said she couldn’t believe I didn’t know what I was,” I say more to myself.
“Do you mean the elemental that Malachi used to do this?” Wendeline asks carefully. “So, you do remember a life before waking up as Princess Romeria.”
I hesitate. It’s the first time I’ve admitted to remembering my life before coming to Islor. “I am Romeria. But I’m not from here.”
She inhales deeply and then nods. “Seers can see across dimensions and into other worlds. They’ve taught us that this is not the only world created by the fates, that there are others with different dynamics and paths of history. Places identical to ours and yet opposite, where humans rule and the immortals and casters skulk in the shadows, hiding their existence.”
“Yes. That’s where I’m from.”
A slow smile stretches across her lips. “I want to hear that story one day when we have time. I imagine it will be like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”
The toil that has clenched my insides for so many weeks unravels a touch. I’ve told someone. Someone finally knows my secret. Except …
“You’ve known allalong what I am?” I can’t help the accusation in my tone.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were not ready to know then.”
My eyes widen with a wave of panic. “Did you tell Zander?” Has he known all this time,too, and was simply testing me?
“No.” She punctuates that with a firm head shake. “He was looking for a reason to rid himself of you, one that would lessen his guilt for executing someone who had saved his sister. I feared what he would do if he knew how dangerous you are.”
“He would have killed me.”
“Any one of them would, if they knew. As would the Ybarisans and most in Mordain.”
Just as Sofie warned. Oddly, that brings me comfort. At least she was truthful about that. “What about now? Zander, I mean.” He doesn’t seem on the precipice of driving a dagger through my heart anymore. Far from it.
“There will be a right time to tell him, but it is not yet. He has other things to focus on, and he doesn’t need this as an added worry. You will know when that time comes.”
I take in the looming statues as the dust settles from the bomb Wendeline just dropped. “I can’t feel anything.” Except overwhelmed with relief that I can finally talk to someone about this.
“Not with the tokens you wear. The cuffs subdue all elemental power and the ring … is complicated. It suppresses the caster affinities you brought with you, but it helps channel your elven affinity to water, the one Princess Romeria possessed.”