"What's that?" I asked my father.

We stood atop a hill, looking over an expanse of land. It could be called a plain if not for the rolling hills all around it.

Trees dotted the surface of the hills, but steered clear of the plain itself. It was as if someone had plucked a clearing from the middle of the forest and tucked it amidst these hills.

A small cottage rose in the middle. Ivy clung to the brown walls, covering the two windows, and hinting at a long period of neglect. What was once flower beds around the cottage were now patches of earth overgrown with weed and bushes.

"This is your mother's house."

I startled, not expecting his words. My father looked at the cottage with an impassive face. But his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Before I could ask any questions, he spurred his horse down the hill.

As we got closer, the cottage door distinguished itself from the walls. It wasn't covered with Ivy. In fact, it looked like it was being used regularly.

We dismounted. Noah went around the cottage, sniffing. The ground crunched under my boots, dry grass and rocky dirt. The walls of the cottage were not brown, but an assortment of gray, brown and reddish stones that looked weathered with age.

"Come," my father said, producing a key. He unlocked the door. Charles stood by the horses.

"Excuse me, your highness," Irene said, walking past my father. He raised his brows and let her through.

She went inside, checking the house for threats.

"Very thorough, aren't they?" my father said. "Whatever his faults, Arthur does take your safety seriously."

Too seriously, if he asked me. Irene walked out after a few minutes, her eyes looked slightly paler than their usual dark brown. I frowned. She gave a subtle shake of her hand. What was that about?

My father and I went inside.

It was one big space, with two doors. A kitchenette on one side, its counter stretching the length of one wall. There were no appliances, nothing but a sink and a tap. The living area consisted of two couches covered with white sheets. A reddish brown rug that had seen better days, and a gloomy fireplace. The air smelled musty, and the one window provided a meager amount of light due the ivy.

I touched the walls, the rough texture of stone tickled my fingers. So this was where my mother had lived. It was very sparse and utilitarian. Maybe it was because someone removed all unnecessary objects.

"Your mother lived here on her own several years before I met her." He removed one of the white sheets off a couch, and set it aside on the other.

"In the middle of nowhere?" I asked, taking a seat.

"There's a village a few minutes south," he said. "But your mother valued her solitude. She didn't care much for other people's company, safe for a number of very close friends and myself."

"What about her family?"

"She was from the south of the country. Her parents died when she was a child, in a vampire attack. She moved here a decade or so before I met her."

He leaned his hand on the fireplace mantle and stared at the dead hearth. Quiet blanketed us for minutes, my father lost in his memories. I didn't want to interrupt.

"I had stopped by the nearby village, looking for an old copy of a spell book. She worked at the library there. She was small, with her dark hair and eyes and her pale skin, she looked like a little pixie." He smiled, his eyes warming from within. "She kept mostly to herself. People went out of their way to accomodate me. She just stepped out of everyone's way with her head down and continued organizing books in one corner of the library. But she was an expert on spell books, so the owner called her and ordered her to see to my needs. I could tell she was miffed."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "She was adorable. And she had a spirit of steel, a fire that burned. It took me months before I convinced her to give us a shot."

"Was there a bond?" I asked.

"Yes. But she resisted it. She didn't like my status. She never did. But I won her over. We moved to the castle. She hated it; she hated the politics and the power games. But she loved me enough to bear it, for me." His smile disappeared. "Sometimes I wonder, if I had just let her go, if I hadn't pursued her, would she still be alive?"

The pain in his voice choked me. I looked away from his guilt-ridden face.

"Three weeks after we found out she was pregnant with you, she was attacked by a vampire in the castle," he said. "He was a new vampire, barely eight decades old."

That was quite young. "What was he doing in the castle? Vampires that age usually aren't allowed to wander on their own."

"He was there with his master. He was a guest of my brother's."

Alarm bells rang in my head. Aha. My father's face tightened, his eyes darkening. "My brother had the two executed after the attack. But it was too little, too late. The following days were the most difficult of my life. The vampire venom didn't affect her as it should have."

"Why?"

"I don't know. No one does. One of the castle physicians thought that maybe the vampire attack when she was a child had something to do with it. Perhaps she had ingested some amount of vampire venom then. A small amount that didn't affect her, but that helped her develop some sort of immunity. It's just a theory, no one truly knows. But even then, there were moments where I thought I would have to end her life."

The world's heaviest sigh escaped his lips, his shoulders lowering as if they held a great burden. "My brother stepped up and took care of all my royal tasks. He defended my decision to keep her alive even when voices raised demanding her death. When the castle proved too dangerous for her, I brought her here, then later took her to a small cabin on the northeast coast of the country. Robert was the only person who came along. She always got along with him quite well, and I've known him since I was a child. I knew he would never betray either of us."

"He never did," I told him.

"Did he not?" My father's voice was bitter.

"He always spoke well of you," I said. "And he missed Ireland. His promise to my mother was the only thing that kept him from returning to his homeland."

My father shook his head. "There is no excuse to justify taking a child away from their parent."

"Even if the child's safety is at risk?"

He stood straighter. "Do you honestly think I would have let something happen to my daughter?"

I spread my arms. "I was attacked just this morning in your territory."

"Yes, I'm aware," he grumbled. "And I will find whoever ordered the hit and make them regret ever setting their sight on you."

"What do you think about the attack on my mother?" I asked. "Don't you think it's all connected."

He sighed. "It is a possibility, yes. But there is no proof of it. There are many people who fear what the vampire venom does to our blood, and understandably so. Many people would have loved to end your mother like they would love to end you. I have no proof that it is anything more than that."

He simply refused to believe the worst of his people. I shook my head and stood up. Arguing with my father was an exercise in patience. He was set in his ways, his belief in his people was a veil on his reason, an arrogance that blinded him. I didn't have the will to convince him, nor the time.

"What's behind those doors?" I asked instead.

"Your mother's bedroom and a powder room." He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and worked to get two keys out. "I used to come here very often, but I made my visits infrequent after the first few years out of respect for Amelia. She hadn't said anything, but I knew it bothered her. Now I have someone coming a couple of times a year to clean and check on the place."

I felt a spark of sympathy for Amelia. Loving a man who pined after a dead woman would be heartbreaking. I wouldn't have been able to handle it.

My father gave me two keys. "These are the keys to the house and to your mother's bedroom. Keep them."

I frowned at the keys in my palm. "Why?"

"This place belonged to your mother, if anyone has a right to it, it's you." He smiled sadly. "It's yours now."

"Oh." I closed my fingers around the cold metal. He was giving me a piece of my mother's life. I had nothing of my mother's; uncle Robert had left with the clothes on his back and me.

I had never dwelt on the loss of my mother. My family had always consisted of only uncle Robert. Looking at my closed fist now, I guess a small corner of my heart had always longed to know the woman who brought me to this world and sacrificed herself so I could live.

And, begrudgingly, I admitted I wanted to know my father, too.

"Would you tell me about her?" I asked him. "Not now, just..."

"Whenever you want, my child." He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "Your mother would have been proud of the woman you grew up to be. I know I am."

I shifted on my feet and gave him a single nod. He sighed and stepped back. "Look around to your heart's content. I have to go now. You may come here whenever you want. This place is yours now."

He left, the heavy cloak of sorrow still wrapped around him.

Irene burst through the door seconds later, her eyes bright.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There's something in here," she said.

I looked around, stretching my senses, but I felt nothing. Irene's eyes turned pale blue, and I could almost see a faint shimmer behind her, the outline of nine fluffy white tails. She strode to one of the doors and tried the knob. It was locked.

"Something is in here," she said.

"Good or bad?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know. Some sort of magic keeps pulling me there." She looked at me. "My species is very magic-sensitive."

I unlocked the door using one of the keys. It creaked open, revealing a small bedroom with one window, a stool that served as a bedside table, and a small desk under the window.

I stepped inside. The bed was bare except for the clunky mattress, and all surfaces, including the bare floor, wore a thin layer of dust. I touched the desk surface. Grime, not dust. Unlike the living room area, the bedroom hadn't been cleaned in a long time.

The ivy-covered window provided little light. But my eyesight was no longer that of a regular fae.

Irene crouched, wrinkling her nose. Her tails swayed to an invisible wind behind her, and her skin gained an almost shimmer. She looked mythical. "There's something beneath the floorboard. Right here."

I crouched next to her. "Okay, we can peel off the floorboard. The problem is, what are we going to find? Will some creepy creature jump on our faces, or is it safe?"

"I don't smell anything alive," she said. "Just magic."

I took out a dagger. "Let's just do it."

"Wait," she looked at the door. "Charles! Come in!"

I raised my brows at her.

"Backup in case something nasty is in there. I don't want to explain to your mate that I let you get hurt."

"Let me?" I glared at her.

"Arthur is scarier than you."

I grumbled a curse under my breath.

"You too," Irene said.

Charles appeared in the doorway. He froze, his eyes fixed on Irene.

"What?" She snapped.

I cleared my throat. "He's mesmerized by your wonderful, fluffy tails."

The look they gave me bounced off me like dried peas on a wall. I grinned.

"There's some sort of magic under the floor," Irene explained, her hand moving in a hover over the floor. "I don't know what it is."

I swirled my dagger, impatient. "If we just tear it apart, we'll find out."

"You're not tearing apart anything," Charles said, crouching nearby. "We are."

I rolled my eyes. They acted as if the wooden board would shift into a dragon and tear off my arms. Beware, the magical floorboard.

"Right here," Irene tapped a floorboard with her nail. Charles pulled a dagger from his ankle sheath, edged the tip between the boards, and looked at me.

"Move back," he said.

"Really?" Now he was just pushing it.

"Yes."

I opened my mouth to argue.

"The sooner you step back, the sooner we'll get this over with," he said.

I rose and took two steps back. "Happy?"

"More, against the wall," he said. I gritted my teeth. I swear he was doing it on purpose.

I leaned against the wall and glared at them. Charles looked at Irene.

She flashed him her teeth. "If you tell me to step back I'm going to rip your arm off and feed it to you."

I stifled a laugh. Charles glowered but started working on loosening the floorboard. It took him a few minutes to peel it off.

"The hell?" he mumbled.

I approached. The ground beneath the floorboard was solid concrete. The smooth gray was interrupted by a pattern of engraved lines and circles. I had no idea what this was. Irene and Charles both looked like they smelled something nasty.

"Okay, what are we looking at?" I asked.

"You don't recognize it?" Irene asked.

I shook my head. Charles sighed. "This is one of the most basic spell patterns they usually teach magic apprentices. It's common knowledge."

Just had to rub it in, did he. "Well, I don't have the basic common knowledge that all immortals do. I was raised in a forest. So someone tell me what the hell this is."

"It's basically a hiding spell," Irene said, her eyes fading to dark brown and her tails melting into thin air. "Immortals' version of bank safe deposit boxes. Except instead of a key, blood is used to unlock it."

So my mother had a safe in her bedroom. That didn't sound unusual.

Irene followed the intricate lines on the concrete with a finger. "The thing is, the glyphs are slightly different from the basic hiding spells we're taught."

"Okay?"

She bit her lip. "So I don't think it's keyed to the blood of the spell caster."

So it wasn't keyed to my mother's blood. Why would my mother hide something in her room and key it to someone else's blood? "Whose blood can open it?"

"I don't know."

I looked at the concrete. "Can we just smash it open?"

"If you want to end up with a surprise," Charles said. "The safe is embedded with the caster's magic, if someone tries to force it open, or if the wrong blood is used, a countermeasure is activated."

"The countermeasure depends on the caster's magic," Irene said. "It could be an explosion, or the ground might open and swallow you up. No one knows except the spell caster. Anyway, it's not safe to try it."

If someone told me months ago that I would be getting a crash course in magic and spells in my mother's maiden bedroom, I would've laughed at their face.

I frowned at the concrete. Curiosity got the better of me. If it was my mother's magic, would it recognize me?

Arthur had told me months ago that magic was an entity of its own. If my mother had infused this safe with her own magic, then part of her still lived, in a way, as messed up as that was.

She had sacrificed herself to keep me alive and safe, surely, her magic would recognize me. I pushed my magic forward, until it saturated every pore of my being and enhanced my senses. The magic on the floor brushed against me, hostile at first, then it hesitated, before it turned gentle and beckoning. My breath caught. It felt so soothing.

Charles and Irene rose. "We should go back," Charles said. "The sire might know more about this."

I let them take two steps to the door before I slashed my palm with my dagger.

Charles whirled around with a snarl. I was already holding my fisted palm over the lines, my blood trickling through them.

Charles was beside me in a flash, pulling my hand away from the hole in the ground. "Damn it, Elle!"

I shrugged. "It's too late now."

Irene growled, looking at the ground like a snake would jump out any moment and bite our heads off. My blood pooled in the pattern, filling its lines and circles. "Back off!" Irene barked. "We should leave."

I stepped back before Charles could do it. He'd probably want to carry me out of the house and into the castle right next to Arthur. He was taking his bodyguarding job a little too seriously. "I'm not leaving. What's done is done, we might as well find out what's in there."

Charles looked at me. I pointed my dagger at him. "Try to carry me out of here and I will burn your ass to a crisp. Try me."

He cursed.

"Very eloquent," I said.

Magic sparked in my blood, burning through my veins. An invisible string pulled on it, stretching from the safe in the ground toward me. I could almost feel my blood in the safe, heating up with an energy that felt so foreign yet so familiar.

My blood glowed, its crimson light visible in the dim room. Charles and Irene crouched in front of me. The blood boiled, burbling pops echoing through the air seconds before smoke rose from it.

Then the ground burst into fire.

--- ---- ---

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