As if reading my conflicting emotion and the sudden sheen of tears in my eyes, Li’ra’s brow furrows and she steps toward me, murmuring to me in Uriskal, her voice a gentle lilt. “Elloren, shushonin,” she says as she pulls me into an embrace, tears welling in my eyes as we hug each other tightly. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

When we pull away from each other, both of our faces are tear streaked, her expression mirroring my own—a mingling of grief and elation to be meeting family kept so long apart.

“And this is your uncle Wrenfir,” Fain says, gesturing to the Gardnerian with the spider tattoo and profusion of cats.

Wrenfir. My mother’s much younger brother.

Wrenfir extends his hand, smaller tattoos of spiders marked all over his fingers and the back of his hand. His eyes are lit with challenge, as he’s daring me to take hold of it. “Black Witch,” he says, smirking.

I take his spider-marked hand, the feel of dark, subterranean roots filling me in a shuddering rush. “Hello, Uncle.”

“Wren,” he corrects, firm but not unkind. “You can call me Wren.”

“I thought you were dead,” I say, voice rough over how many lies my brothers and I were fed. “They told us you were dead.”

Wren’s mouth twists into a bitter frown. “Of course they did.”

“They told you a lot of things, sweetling,” Fain says softly, his hand coming to my shoulder. “Come.” He gestures toward the table. “Sit. I’ll take a look at how the forest managed to bind up your lines and see what it will take to free your power and trace your fastmate. And then we’ll fill each other in on the truth of things.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE TRUTH OF THINGS

Elloren Grey

Noilaan
Eastern Realm
Two days prior to Xishlon

“This is a complicated binding.”

Fain’s eyes are closed as he concentrates on my wand hand, down on one knee before me. The Wand of Myth rests on my lap, its luminous green hilt emitting a faint, comforting warmth into my hand, its starlight tree pulsing in the back of my mind. My gray, kraken-bloodstained sleeve is rolled high as Fain’s water magic flows over my tangled lines in a cool, shivering rush.

“You can read affinities, can’t you,” I say, more an observation than a question. I’m leaden with both fatigue and a sizzling anxiety for Lukas that’s difficult to think around as I cling to the Wand’s ethereal tree as a grounding force. “I can read affinities, as well.”

Fain’s mouth quirks up as he keeps hold of me. “You get that from your mother.”

I straighten. “She could do that too?”