Chapter 20

He brought them a dozen feet from where the small home had once stood. Releasing her hand, he stood there staring at it.

Aireese walked slowly around the crumbling structure, with careful steps, giving it a respectful space. “Did you make this home for her?”

“I did.”

“Was Ava born right here?” She glanced at him, and he could see the hesitance in her eyes.

“No.” He pointed to the tallest trees in the area where he had found Avaline that night.

She stood there looking where he pointed for several seconds before moving closer. “Who did you choose to raise the baby?” She paused. “It wasn’t one of us.”

“A lostling with a good heart.” He followed her slowly.

She glanced back at him. “Did they love her?”

He nodded. “She had a good childhood.”

“Good.” She continued walking. When she reached the trees, she put her hand on the one surrounded by smaller ones.

“Aireese, it’s been too long, you won’t…”

“I know.” She let her hand drop. “I know I won’t feel her here now.” She looked around them. “It’s lovely here, peaceful.” She nodded. “I can see why Avaline chose here.”

“I think they used to meet here.” He wasn’t certain about that, but why else would Avaline come here and expect her beau to show up?

“It would be a safe space, so they weren’t found.” She said quietly and started walking back to where they started. “What happened to the home?”

He sighed. “I’m not entirely certain.”

She stopped and looked at him. “How often did you check up on her?”

“Often.” He had come at some point almost daily for her entire life. It may have only been for a moment, but he had still done it.

“It was here one day, gone the next?”

He nodded and watched her go closer to it. She stopped and looked down at the flowers that Ava had brought. Despite having no memory of what happened, Ava always brought an offering. He knew she sensed the loss but had no idea why or who.

Aireese knelt and put her hand on the earth beside the flowers. She closed her eyes, and he dreaded when they would open and turn to him. “Someone died here.” She said it softly.

“Yes.”

Opening her eyes, she clasped her hand in her lap and looked up at him. “Firo, it’s a strange thing. When I was looking for the magic that was blocking Ava’s memories—I felt your touch. Your magic. Do you want to tell me how that came to be?”

He didn’t but knew it wasn’t an actual question. He squatted down and rested his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know exactly what happened here that day.” He’d wished a thousand times he did. “I felt her anguish pierce me like a blade and came here immediately.” He looked at where the home had been. “She was lying where you are sitting now, crumbling with grief and terror.” He motioned to the part of the wall covered in nature’s blanket. “The building was in a million pieces, as was the woman that raised her.” He stood up because he couldn’t sit that close to it and explain it. “I picked her up and carried her from here and put her into a restful sleep for a time.” He looked toward the river where she always sat with the fire. It had been there. “I don’t know how an angel’s magic develops, but I know ours comes over time, and I think, possibly, it was the combination of the two—” He looked back at his princess to see she was solely focused on his every word. “Something set her off, and I’ve been terrified all these years that it would happen again.”

“So you blocked the memories.”

He nodded. “I did. I would again today if it happened.”

She stood up. “And you’ve spent all these years watching to do it again if it happened.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You can’t just follow her forever and cover over any memory of bad things.”

He scoffed. “She killed the woman she knew as her mother. The one that cared for her since she was a few days old. That’s a little more than a bad thing.”

“I know, but you understood what I meant.” She turned and looked back at the ruins. “She comes here every year?”

He nodded. “Yes. For the last fifteen years.”

“So her memories are coming back. Slowly. They must be, or why would she come here?”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “I know, I’ve thought the same.”

“She should be told, and then her memories freed.”

He snorted. “You think that even after what we just found out? The possibility that she comes from an angel of destruction.”

She sighed. “We need help.”

“Help? From whom would we go to get this help?” Firo had spent two decades trying to figure out who he could seek advice from, and there was no one.

“There has to be an origin of why halflings are forbidden from being in Fa Terra and why they are…”

“Loathed and feared?”

“Yes.” She nodded and then turned around and looked at him. “I bet Amyas knows. Or, knows who does.”

Firo opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head. “It’s enough that she knows that Avaline had a child. Any more could endanger all of us.”

Aireese laughed. “I don’t think the elders, especially someone as old as Amyas, are afraid of anything.”

She had a point. The elders would never have to worry about the royal guard punishing them. He recalled a few stories from before the existence of law holders attempting to gain access to Cenyerly Valley, and they hadn’t faired well. If the traps weren’t deterrent enough, the elder’s magic would make anyone stop and think whether they wanted to step into their territory. He turned and paced away. “I don’t even know how we would go about asking her.”

“I find the truth works well.” She came up behind him. “We will get information, and then you need to tell Ava what happened and what you have done, and after that, I will remove the magic and release her memories.

Dropping his head forward, he put his hand over his face. Doing that was sentencing him to be alone and possibly hated by the one who was meant for him for the rest of his very long life.

“First things first. You go make sure Ava doesn’t find any magical idiots, I’ll go the Alterealm Royals and see about getting that video for Amyas.”

He’d forgotten about that. He nodded. “All right.”

“Now go. I need a minute here alone.”

He glanced at her, she was looking back at the ruins. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. No one could control Avaline, and we all knew it.” She motioned to where the home had been. “And there’s no way to know what magic or power Ava has or how it develops, so that’s not on you either.”

“I did what I thought was right.”

She turned around and looked at him. “Now, I believe you did right. Taking Ava to my mother would have ended badly; she was overwrought with grief.” She looked over at the group of trees where her sister had birthed her niece. “Keeping Ava here to have some semblance of a childhood was a wonderful thing, Firo.”

“I did it for purely selfish reasons. She was meant for me, and I couldn’t let her go.”

Her eyes filled with unshed tears. “I know. Now go, leave me to myself.”

He inclined his head to her and then vanished himself back to his quarters. He, too, needed a moment alone before he went back to Ava.