Illuminance (The Unraveled Fate Series Book 2) by Kara Douglas

Author:Kara Douglas [Douglas, Kara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Ellerry’s cottage offers a space of reprieve from the massive failure I experienced in Woodland training. Her presence is warm and peaceful—comforting. We’ve spent the afternoon discussing the races of fae, but it devolved into a free-for-all for all my questions after the third cup of tea.

“Are fae only allowed to marry within their race?” I ask.

“Not always,” says Ellerry, “but they usually choose it, yes. But soulbonds can be made across all races.”

The tea cups hanging above our heads clink together, a soft breeze pushing them together. Ellerry doesn’t seem to mind, half of them are chipped and cracked anyway.

I reach up and steady one of the clinking mugs before saying, “Soulbonds?”

She nods, her gaze gentle.

“Soulbonds are a gift from Eurydice.” Ellerry’s eyes gleam with awe at the mention of Eurydice. “The Goddess of the Moon forms our souls and it’s only her that allows us to be reunited with our other half. A fae’s Essence can be intertwined with another. Two halves of a whole, separated by two different bodies. One’s mirror soul is their match in every way possible. Their Essence is equal in power and strength.”

I feel like she’s leaving more out. Why does she look so sad?

“Is that a bad thing?” I dig for what’s being left unsaid.

“It can be. Not everyone could find their mate, and even then both fae had to choose to become bonded.” She looks down and folds her hands in her lap. “It was excruciatingly painful if one half rejected the bond, leaving the other to drift through their existence hoping they’d change their mind.”

“Not everyone could find their mate?” I press further. She’s saying it like it was all in the past. “Do they not exist anymore?”

I scan her features for a hint of what’s bothering her but find none.

“A mate hasn’t been found since the split of the Valon Empire,” she says with a sigh. “When Crea and Penyth were formed as kingdoms, the pull of mates just…disappeared.”

“No one has had a mate in three hundred years?” I ask.

Ellerry shakes her head. “Magic is fickle. It needs balance, and when that balance is thrown off—when the empire split—it warped the purity of magic, of the land.”

“So when the Valon Empire became two separate territories, it affected magic?”

Ellerry stands and sets a kettle above the fire. She plucks two mismatched mugs hanging from the ceiling and sets them down in front of me.

She nods. “In more ways than one. The war was long and suffocating for the empire,” she explains. “Countless amounts of both fae and humans died. We were fighting an invisible enemy without knowing how to fight back. When the last human king was successful in sealing off half of the empire away from us, it left our magic broken. No one could pass the Zenovia Mountains with the curse the king put on those lands. It’s nothing more than a haunted sea of mist and rocks to confuse and trap those that enter it.”

She stands to remove the whistling kettle from the fire and pours us both a cup of tea.

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