Arcane Rising: The Darkland Druids - Book One, R Nicole [suggested reading TXT] 📗

“Your father bound your abilities,” she replied, “that much is clear. I do wonder if he included a little more into the ritual than he had intended, but perhaps he wanted it this way.”

“I don’t understand. He wanted me to be shy and awkward?”

“He was hiding you.”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. Dad…

Delilah’s Colours swirled. “Your father… Gordan. He was a gifted Druid. Perhaps one of the most powerful we’ve ever seen in this reality. His skill with portals was second to none.” She smiled, though the edges were tinged with melancholy. “He was searching for the way to the Darklands, though he never found it.”

“But he found a way to the Fae realm?” I asked.

She nodded. “How long he’d been travelling there, no one knew, but by the time we found out…it was too late.” Her gaze turned towards the door as if she was looking into the past. “He returned one evening with a newborn baby in his arms. You were swaddled so tightly and sound asleep, content to be in his arms and nowhere else.” I could have sworn a tear formed in her eye. “He came to me in secret and admitted the danger he’d awoken.”

“The Chimera.” Oh, Dad…

“What I’m about to tell you is what he told me that night.” Delilah sighed. “He’d been visiting the Fae realm for months, studying their ways, learning about their people…and he met your mother. His folly was love, Elspeth. Nothing more, nothing less. A forbidden love between Druid and Fae. It’s true they have their own factions and wars. Their own good and evil. Within their darker realms lie the Chimera. At their core, Chimera are power hungry fanatics and hunted them to the ends of their world for daring to challenge the fabric of nature.”

I sucked in a shaky breath. “When they found out what he was—”

“They wanted his power above all else,” she confirmed. “They took your mother and it was all he could do to spirit you away. He was pursued and followed into this reality…almost to our doorstep. The Chimera have hunted us ever since.”

“And the Witches made it easier for them.”

“Yes, though I believe they don’t know about us, let alone our plight.”

“So, did the Chimera came after my parents because of the prophecy?” I asked. “It wasn’t only the Druids who foretold this, was it?”

“Yes, Gordan believed so. We both knew what a child of both worlds might be capable of one day, but there was no way to be sure. You were barely three days old. Neither of us could abandon you, especially not your father. Together, we decided to bind your abilities, allow you to be raised as a human child away from all of this. Prophecy is a fickle art…as is the meaning of the words spoken.”

“Of course, it is.” I shook my head, still bewildered by the notion that people went to war over so-called prophecies. “Did Dad tell you who my mother was?”

Delilah shook her head. “He felt it better to keep her identity a secret. The less people who knew the truth, the safer she would be…if she was still alive.”

I sank back into the soft pillows on the couch, trying to let everything sink in. Darby was right, but there was more to it than a simple betrayal. It was like people always said—there were two sides to every story. I wondered what my mother’s side was, but all I had were the secondhand scraps Dad had told Delilah right before he disappeared with me.

“You let him go, didn’t you?” I murmured. “You helped him escape justice so he could hide me from the Chimera.”

Delilah dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her flowing shirt. She didn’t say it, but I took it as a confession.

“Who was he to you?”

“Gordan was my son,” she replied. “And you are Elspeth Odhweine, my granddaughter, named for my mother, Elspeth…Spirit Walker.”

Spirit Walker. The puzzle pieces began to click into place, though many were still missing. What I’d done yesterday with Rory might not be as Fae as I’d first believed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.

“We were uncertain of your reaction. Your Fae heritage is a mystery to us, Elspeth, and coupled with Gordan’s binding, we just couldn’t take the risk. If you’d lost control, there was a chance the expulsion of power could have killed you and drawn the entire Warren into death itself.” She smiled and placed a reassuring hand on mine. “Believe me when I say, this was not the way I wanted you to find out.”

I knew she was telling me the truth. I didn’t want it to be this terrible, but it was what it was. The Chimera hunted the Druids because Dad tried to find a way to get his people home but fell in love with a Fae along the way.

Through no one’s fault, I was a symbol of the calamity that’d followed. The prophecy was just the gleaming cherry on top—and a target to lay blame upon. It was a wonder Delilah had held her role as Elder to be honest, but I doubted the others knew that she’d helped us escape. I decided it was best to keep that revelation to myself.

What did I do now? Continue to train? Ask to have my powers bound? Disappear so the Druids and the Chimera could never find me? Was I meant to choose a side and wait for the black sun to rise?

“I have the power to help,” I murmured, remembering Dad’s words. “And when the Earth and her creatures cry out in pain, we should answer with our whole hearts.”

“That sounds familiar,” Delilah murmured.

“It was one of the last things Dad told me before he died.” I worried the hem of my jumper. “He was leaving to go fight the bushfires west of Sydney and I wanted him to say home. He embraced me and said those