Love is Blind- Fenrys Moonbeam (TOG)

Chapter 5

I had refused to tell my story with everyone in the room. They'd likely hear about it later from Aelin and Rowan, but I didn't like all of those eyes on me.

Now, I sat in a private room with just the Queen and her consort. The former was sitting in the chair across from me, while the latter was pacing behind his mate.
"Would you please stop pacing? It makes it hard to keep track of you." Rowan only paused, then continued to pace.

Figures.

"You really can't blame him for being a little worked up. Now, tell us your story." I sighed and settled in for what was definitely going to be an interesting night.

"Let's see. When I was born my parents told me my existence must be kept a secret. That nobody could know I had been born.

So, after I Settled, I moved away. To Adarlan. A few years later, I revived a letter that both of my parents were dead.

It obviously upset me, so I stayed in my house for weeks. I didn't leave for anything. My neighbors began leaving food on my doorstep to keep me from starving.

In my grief, I forgot to keep my shields up..." I cleared my throat and got ready for the next part.

"On the night of my 28th birthday, I woke up to screaming outside my house.

I glanced out my window and saw that my entire village was being sacked. We were a well-known magic village, you see, so we were one of the first places the king checked.

I attempted to help my neighbors escape. I took down a ton of the king's men, and, as you can guess, they were not happy about that. So, when they finally caught me...they decided death wasn't enough for me."

My hands began to shake, and I quickly sat on them before continuing the story.

"They used iron whips, and lined the stitches with salt so they'd never heal. Then, they forced one of the witches they had in captivity to curse my eyes, so that the scars will never heal, and no healer will ever be able to fix them."

If my eyes weren't sewn shut, I know I would've been crying. My voice was wavering and my entire body was trembling at the memory of those iron whips hitting my face.

I felt Aelin stand and slowly walk towards me. She reached forward and touched the blindfold.

"May I?" I dipped my chin slightly.

I stopped being ashamed of those scars a long time ago, and only wore the blindfold to make people more comfortable.

Slowly, she untied the knot and let the blindfold drop. Both Aelin and Rowan gasped at what they saw.

I obviously don't know what they look like, but from what I've felt there are ridges of skin with harsh stitching lines through them, my eyelids stitched shut and hardly visible through all the whipping scars.

Rowan suddenly cleared his throat, speaking for the first time all night.

"Did you...did you have any siblings?" I let out a harsh breath through my nose. He wasn't going to like this.

"Yes, but I never got to meet him." The air turned tense.

"Why?" Aelin breathed.

"Because he was serving Maeve, and didn't know I existed." Rowan slowly began backing up.

"That's not...not possible..." I heard a shift and imagined he was running his hand through his hair. "You're my sister?!" I shrugged.

"Technically. Although you didn't even know I existed until a few days ago. I don't expect you to all of a sudden act like my brother or anything, in fact, if you just want to pretend this didn't happen I'd be fine-" I cut myself off as he began walking towards me.