Through a Masked Maiden's Eyes

Chapter 10: Inherited Destiny

I gasped taken aback by the information. “What?”

“Yes, you’re mother was the late Queen of the fairies. She was also part enchanter.”

I looked at her confused, “What do you mean? The enchanters were wiped out after the battle of Balmentia.”

Awa shook her head, “No. The enchanters were a branch of fairy that was blessed by the dragons themselves. Fairies have the natural gift of compulsion but the enchanters were on an entirely different level. When they walked into a room if they didn’t want to be seen you didn’t even know they were there. The females were greatly protected because of their ethereal beauty and men often wanted to posses them. The last enchanter was Ina’s great-great grandmother, making her the last living person with the most potent enchanter blood. Now you and you’re younger brother the current Prince of the fairies, Seaton Donne, are.”

I took a deep breath, absorbing the facts that explained why men wanted to posses me; I knew it wasn’t in my head. It also explained why it was so easy to get Hawkeye to give me the price I wanted, and why it was so to keep Ryman from gaining any connection to the water. But one question nagged painfully at the back of my mind forcing its way out of my mouth brokenly. “But why was I given away?”

Awa sighed, “Your mother had a wild side which is how she met your father, and she was betrothed to a man but was in love with your father. She had you with her forbidden love before she was found and forcibly married to her promised. She found your parents, who had just lost a child in childbirth and gave them you to raise. She wanted you to be trained so she added the stipulate about the other children being born because she knew they would try for another child. “

I sighed, that explained why they always looked at me with a mix of love and sadness in their eyes. I reminded them of what they had lost. I shook my head that was only half of my heritage. I braced myself, why was my mother forbidden from being with my father? I swallowed at the thought, my tongue forming the question before I could change my mind.

“Who was my father?”

“Your father was Zarrack Lyondell, the Alpha over all the shifters in Infairna.”

I took a deep breath, “No… but that would mean that I…”

“Yes you are half fairy and half shifter, with ties to both water and fire. I couldn’t’ tell you because, well the prophesied are hunted. There are those that would kill you because they resent the control of the dragons as well as those that would do it because they thirst for the violence of war.”

I stood up and began to pace around the room taking in this information.  

Awa laid down and rested her head between her paws, her large yellow eyes watching me process this like she knew I would.

 It did explain my red hair, how I could hear heart beats, and why I enjoyed meat more than most besides shifters, why part of me acknowledged submission when Ryman exposed his throat to me and most importantly it explained my nervous tic. Shifters are able to learn the forms of animals around them but they also take on some of their characteristics. I put on a brave face because then no one would know I was afraid or nervous; it was a defense mechanism, a way to deal with a perceived threat.

“If I have ties to both water and fire, then why have I only ever used water?”

Awa sighed, she had laid her head on her paws while I was pacing and she muttered out something.

“What did you say?”

She lifted her head, “I said, you were born in Oceana so water was always around you; you simply learned it by being exposed to it. When I take you to Infairna you will observe and learn fire as well while we travel to find the fire pendant before we go in search of your mate.”