Destiny: A Story of the Fey Read Online Free PDF Page B

naked, to the floor below.
    Esmerelda’s mother gathered her child in her arms and backed away. The father placed himself in front of his small family, arms out.
    “You came from the Black King, didn’t you?” the woman said. “To punish us by stealing our child.”
    “It’s not about you,” Solanda said.
    Esmerelda peeked around her father, eyes wide. Solanda had never, in her entire life, been so conscious of her nakedness.
    “Wh-what do you want?” the father asked. He was trying to sound brave. Like most Nyeians, he was failing.
    “I had hoped to take your daughter, but it seems that she prefers this place, even though you treat her as less than house pet. It seems, for reasons I cannot understand, that she loves you.”
    “Of course she does,” the woman said. “We’re her parents.”
    “As if that’s a divine right.” Solanda stopped on the middle stair.
    The family cringed below her as if they expected her to strike them with a lightning bolt. She didn’t have that kind of magic. They had seen the extent of her powers, but apparently they didn’t know that.
    “She is a child,” Solanda said. “She is to run and play. She is to have friends of her own age. She is to have comfortable clothing so that she can move without tripping. She is supposed to get dirty, to rip her skirts, and fall on her behind. She is to have some joy in her life. Do you understand?”
    “I thought you Fey were supposed to leave us alone,” the mother said. “I thought —”
    “Be quiet,” the father said.
    Esmerelda clung to her father, her curiosity moving her closer.
    “You will give her those things,” Solanda said, “or I will take her from you. Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” the father said.
    “You can’t do this,” the mother said. “You can’t change our customs. The Black King promised you wouldn’t.”
    “A promise made to a conquered people is worth nothing,” Solanda snapped. “You will do what I say, or the child is mine.”
    “Mommy.” Esmerelda reached for her mother. Solanda’s eyes narrowed. Couldn’t she see that her mother saw her only as a thing to be trained, to be forced into the right and proper life?
    Probably not. It was too sophisticated a concept for her. The same innocence that allowed Esmerelda to accept a cat’s speech, allowed her to believe that she was loved.
    “Do I take her now?” Solanda asked.
    “No,” the father said. “We’ll do as you say.”
    “But our friends —”
    “Shut up,” the father snapped. “Do you want to lose her?”
    For a moment, the mother’s gaze met Solanda’s and in it, Solanda saw something she recognized, a coolness perhaps, a calculation. How would that woman have answered if she had been asked who would love me then? Would she have dodged the answer like Solanda had? Or would she have heard it at all?
    “She will stay with us,” the woman said. She sounded resigned.
    Solanda felt a hope she hadn’t even known she had die inside her. “Then I’ll watch. You will treat that child as if she is more precious than gold. And if you fail, even once, she’s mine. Is that clear?”
    “Yes,” the father said.
    But Solanda did not take her gaze from the mother.
    “Yes,” the woman said.
    Esmerelda had stepped to her father’s side. She was still holding his leg. “Are you Goldie?” she asked.
    Solanda gave her a small, private smile. “Only for you.”
    The little girl slipped behind her father again. Her answer was clear, too. She would stay, no matter what. And Solanda had done all she could.
    So she Shifted back to her cat form. For a moment, she watched them all, tail twitching, then she ran up the stairs and into Esmerelda’s room. She stopped for only a moment, knowing she would never return.
    She leapt onto the windowsill, and sighed. She had just lost her excuse for staying on Nye. She was bound to the Black Family. She had to do as they wished.
    Rugar wanted her to go to Blue Isle.
    Where a Shifter awaited her