Yours is she? “She needed to rest…”
“Oh, is something wrong? Maybe I should go to her. I remember when I was carrying you sometimes I’d be sick for days.” Mom rose from her seat to put action to her words.
“No need, she’s not ill, just tired.” And thank heaven you can’t read my thoughts.
She opened her mouth to question me further but I spoke up before she could. “I actually came here because there’s something I wanted to know.”
“And what’s that?” She took her place next to my father’s side and they both looked at me.
“It’s about Sabrina, about her parents to be exact.” They exchanged a look between them and I didn’t miss the subtle shift in the air.
“Why are you suddenly interested in this?”
“Does it matter?” Why do they both seem so uncomfortable?
“That was a long time ago…”
“Mom, you both saw the way Sabrina acted when she came to dinner that night. Had I not been there who knows how far she might’ve gone. You also heard the story of how she forbid my wife to enter the throne room. Even if Natalia is ignorant of the facts, Sabrina has lived here her whole life, she knows that it was an offense worthy of death.”
“I won’t blame you entirely. For too long I let her errant behavior slide because it was of no importance to me, but now that my wife is here I will not allow her even one toe over the line. You can choose not to tell me, it would just mean me having to pay a visit to the hall of records, which might start tongues wagging…”
“It’s not that we don’t want to tell you it’s just… that was such a dark time.” I didn’t answer but waited for her to go on. “Back then your uncle was betrothed to the fairy princess Hyacinth, she’s your wife’s ancestor.”
“It would’ve been the first such marriage. Others had come together over the years, but none had ever been mated as they were. It would also have meant everlasting peace between the kingdoms. Though things were not as strained as they are now, there were always border skirmishes and little uprisings here and there.”
“But out of nowhere there was a great outcry, those who never said much of anything before, who wouldn’t dare go against the monarch were suddenly up in arms. Her parents were among the ringleaders. It’s still not known how it got started, but it was eventually traced back to beldam.”
“As you know, the hag race is the only true enemy of our people. No one knows where the animosity between our two clans begun, but it’s been this way since the beginning of time. They’re partly responsible for spreading the rumors among the humans that paint us as blood sucking monsters, something that was laughable in the beginning before anyone realized the impact it would have on subsequent generations.”
“Anyhow, her parents got caught up in the melee along with so many others. By rights, she should’ve been killed but she was just little more than a babe at the time and I pleaded with the monarch to spare her life.” Mom started to tear up and dad took over the storytelling.
“It was only after all had been said and done that we learned that they’d all been under the influence of the hags. It’s still not known how they even came together, but her parents were the first ones to succumb to the spell.”
“No one knows the entirety of what happened, how the mating became what it did, but it’s widely believed that the two were part of the same whole. The hags had somehow interfered with the mating. Your grandfather did try to keep everything contained, but word got out somehow and the fae demanded the heads of all involved, including your uncle’s.”
“But as you know, your uncle was never implicated and has lived out his life in misery. And though we destroyed all the others that had been found to have taken part in the unrest, it was still not enough to appease, and so we have the situation you see today.”
“So the hags were behind whatever went wrong.” They both nodded in agreement. Their words only solidified what I had come to believe but I’d needed verification before my next move. I’m more convinced now than ever that Sabrina has been following in the footsteps of her parents, that it was she who was now colluding with beldam. But to what end?
Did she too expect me to kill my mate during the mating? And now that that’s behind us, what more can they be after? From what I saw the other night it doesn’t look like Sabrina has any plans on giving up anytime soon.
I was about to say my goodbyes when I felt the change in the atmosphere, a dark presence that did not belong. I was already running when I heard my son’s voice calling to me in a panic and my dragon took flight in anger when I saw through his eyes the peril his mother was in.