Chapter 25

The Mending of Abrasion

Everything that happened between my father reaching us and finally getting into a car was sort of a blur. I could kind of remember that most of my family had gathered in the little patch of woods where Yoan's headless body laid. I remembered people asking me if I was okay and what had happened. I remembered Kostya answering most of the questions for me and kind of needing to always have him in my line of sight. He never told anyone about what I had done, and I wasn't speaking either. I had no idea how I had done it, how I had suddenly controlled vegetation, but I knew that for a split second, I could have made all of it do anything I wanted.

It definitely wasn't reassuring.

I remembered my father leading me away from the dead body and being shocked at the damage the road had taken from our little altercation.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked when I was sitting in the backseat of a car. I wasn't sure whose but my father was sitting in the back with me and Pasha's mother evil-Yelena was driving with Kostyantyn sitting beside her, cradling his arm, his shoulder still bleeding.

"The hospital. You've taken quite a few blows. We want to make sure you guys are alright," my father said softly. He raised his hand a little, like he wanted to pat me reassuringly, but let it drop, deciding against it. "We have a doctor there, he's suprahuman. He takes care of us when we need help."

Those were all good comforting answers yet I felt anything but safe.

None of this felt real. I wanted to grab onto Kostyantyn's shirt or hold his hand, any kind of contact that would reassure me that this was real, that he was real and that he was here with me.

All of this felt like an illusion.

I had killed someone. A bad guy, but someone never the less. Someone I knew. A friend.

Yelena's voice broke my thoughts. "Your parents have been informed of the attack. They're on their way," she told Kostya.

"Oh joy..." he groaned.

The car got so quiet after that, it was so strange. Kostyantyn usually would have been joking around, filling the silence with his nonsense but he wasn't saying a word. He was probably freaking out as much as I was freaking out.

I doubted that I even understood half of what Yoan had been spewing. I still didn't fully understand what he was and why he had done what he had done.

My aunt drove us fast to the hospital, parking in front of the emergency wing like she was some kind of ambulance.

When we walked through the doors two burly men in suits and one stoic woman in a lab coat walked up to Kostya. I wanted to grab his hand again. I didn't.

"Your Royal Highness, if you may come this way," the woman said. He nodded and followed them.

I shot one last glance at his back before my father softly pressed his hand on my arm. "Come on, the doctor is expecting us."

Obviously, my father knew where we were going so I just followed him in a daze. Finally, we stopped in front the door to a doctor's office and Matvei knocked before just walking in.

A forty-something looking man with greying sideburns, glasses and the beginning of a beer belly got up front behind his desk, "Matvei! Good, you're here."

"Thanks for taking the time," Matvei told him.

"I cleared my schedule as soon as I got your father's call," the doctor replied. "Will the Brahe successor also join us?"

My father shook his head. "No, he's got his own doctor."

"Good, that's good. Wouldn't want to misdiagnose him and get beheaded," he joked. "And you are?" he added, looking at me.

"This is Oksana, my daughter," my father answered for me.

"Words that no one believe you would ever utter," the doctor joked again.

My father ignored the quip. "She was in a bad fight."

"Well, let's take a look at you."

The rest of the afternoon was spent painfully going through a battery of tests and scans and answering a bunch of useless questions. Apart from many nasty bruises and material for at least five years worth of nightmares, I was fine.

When I realized through my very loud stomach vocalisations that I was in desperate need of a burger my doctor looked at his pager. "Looks like I'll be needed a few minutes. I'll be right back with the final scans, but everything looks fine."

"Thank you," my father said.

"Anytime," the doctor replied.

The minute the doctor was out of the room though instead of requesting a seven course meal, I said, "We need to talk."

"Here?"

"Yes here. We're not pushing this conversation again. Not after what I've just been through." My ravenous stomach would have to wait. Anyway, it wasn't like starvation was a new gig for me. It was more like an old classic I had put aside for the last few months.

"You're right..." Matvei trailed.

"Is my..." I took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of myself. "Is my mother some kind of royalty?"

Matvei bowed his head, stared at his hands. "Yes."

Un-fucking-believable. "So she really is a princess?"

He looked up, guilt in his eyes. "Yes, she's the daughter of the Seer King and the Fae Queen."

The next question wasn't necessary, it had nothing to do with my father technically, but I still needed to ask it. "And she's going to marry Kostyantyn?"

My father frowned a little at that. "I heard rumours about it. I wasn't sure they were true."

"What really happened between you two?"

And after months, my father finally told me to true tale. "A little less than nineteen years ago I went to Russia to hunt for an ogre. It was the first time I was sent on my own. We didn't have a lot of intel, just a few tips here and there about children going missing. I mostly went to check because our family used to live in that part of the country. When I got there, that's when I met your mother," he smiled a little but kept going. "She was looking for the ogre too. That forest had been put under her protection. It was hers. I didn't know that though. She just told me she was a Forest Fae and that she was there to bring the balance back. We tracked the ogre together. She had a little cabin in the woods. I stayed with her. Nothing happened in the beginning. She was incredibly beautiful and smart and kind and I just figured I had no chance. Every time we walked in the forest together she would give the slightest brush of her fingertips to the trees around and they always looked more vibrant after that. All the animals were drawn to her. She was magical." My father's eyes shone telling me this.

"The ogre got wind of our little hunt and caught on to us. Or well, to me to be more specific. While I was on my own he caught me in a trap and brought me back to his lair. Your mother found us and she saved me. She killed it, but the ogre had roughed me up a lot so she brought me back to the cabin to take care of me. Honestly, I was in very bad shape. I actually thought I was going to die. I told her I was in love with her in my fever delirium. I thought I would never have the chance to tell her again. She told me that she loved me too. I got better. I stayed longer. I guess we conceived you then..."

He took a couple of seconds before continuing. "When I asked her to leave with me, she said no. I told her about my curse and that I could live with her here for a little while but we'd have to move on soon. She told me who she really was then. She told me we could never be together. With her status, her life would never be her own. People were already questioning her legitimacy ruling both Fae and Seer. She couldn't go to her parents with a Berserker by her side. There was nothing I could have said or done that would have changed her mind. So I gave her my ring and I left. And I thought I would never hear from her again..."

"Have you?" I asked him in a small voice.

He smiled at me, his eyes sad. "Well, our daughter is here."

"So, you've never seen her again?"

Matvei shrugged. "No. Whenever there are functions to attend at the Seer and Fae court I always manage to get out of it."

Again, un-fucking-believable. "You haven't heard one word from her since then?"

"Nothing," he breathed.

"You really loved her..." I trailed. I had sort of always known this, from everything he had told me, but it was like I had never truly realized it until now, how stupidly in love with my mother my father was.

"I love her," he pressed.

"Does it hurt when you look at me?"

"A little," he smiled at me. "But not in a bad way. I'm mad that I didn't have the chance to take care of you sooner. I'm so angry that you had to go through a hard life because I wasn't there. I regret never having the chance to raise you with her. She would have been a wonderful mother."

I snorted at that. "She sent me away and she never even bothered to look for me, to make sure I was okay. I think she would have been a shit mother."

Matvei frowned. "And I think that maybe it's time you give her a chance to explain herself."

My time to frown. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we should go see her."

Huh, what? "Can we do that?"

"It's not going to be easy, but yes, we can do that." I suddenly felt a little nauseous, from nervousness or from excitement or from disgust at my own mother, I wasn't sure. Probably all of those reasons. "I think it's finally time for you to have the answers I can't give you. It's time to go to Avalon."

This girl who's definitely not King Arthur says what?