Chapter Eight: Awakening
587 Words
"Unmake lies," I repeated. "What does that even mean?"
Mira's expression was grave. "It means the gift you've had all your life, sensing when someone lies to you, is only the dormant fraction of what a fully awakened Seer can do. History records it as forcing a compelled truth. A person standing before a true Seer, once the gift is awakened, cannot maintain a lie. The words simply... fail them."
"That sounds like a fairy tale," I said, though my pulse had picked up regardless.
"So did fated mate bonds, until you felt one snap into place," Rhys said quietly.
Point taken.
"How does it awaken?" Kaelan asked, leaning forward, something sharp and urgent in his expression that I couldn't quite name.
Mira hesitated. "Historically, through crisis. Grief. Betrayal. A moment where the truth matters enough to break something open." Her eyes moved to me, careful and searching. "Judging by the timeline, Ivy, I suspect yours may have already begun the night you were rejected in front of two hundred witnesses."
The room went silent.
I thought back to the ceremony the way I'd been able to read, with total clarity, the exact moment Kaelan's disgust outweighed his fear of his father, the precision with which I'd understood every calculation crossing his face. I'd assumed that was just my ordinary gift, sharpened by adrenaline.
What if it hadn't been ordinary at all?
"If it's already begun," I said slowly, "what happens when it finishes?"
"That," Mira admitted, "I don't know. No fully awakened Seer has been recorded in six decades. The throne made certain of that."
Kaelan's hands had curled into fists at his sides. "Which means the moment my father or Serrin realizes she's already awakening, they won't wait for legal channels or treaty language. They'll move to eliminate the threat outright."
"Then we don't give them the chance to realize it," Rhys said. "We keep her here, protected, and we"
"No." The word left me before I'd fully decided to say it, surprising even myself.
Both men turned.
"I'm done being something people fight over and hide away," I said, voice steadier than I felt. "If I really can force the truth into the open the truth about the Seer bloodline, about whatever happened sixty years ago that the throne is still killing people to bury then hiding isn't protection. It's just a different kind of cage."
"Ivy", Kaelan started.
"You don't get a vote in this," I said, sharper than I meant to, though I didn't take it back. "Either of you. This is my bloodline. My choice. If this gift is real, I want to understand it before Serrin Draveth finds a way to use it for herself."
Silence stretched, tight and uncertain.
Then Rhys, surprising me, nodded slowly. "She's right," he said, to Kaelan more than to me. "We can lock her in this house for her own safety, and she'll still be a target the moment anyone confirms what she is. Better she understands the gift than lets Serrin be the one who teaches her."
Kaelan's jaw worked, some old instinct toward control visibly warring with something newer respect, maybe, or the beginnings of trust. "Fine," he said finally. "Then we start now. Tonight."
Mira was already moving toward the shelves, pulling down older, more brittle texts, murmuring under her breath about ritual conditions and moon phases.
I watched her work, not knowing that awakening the gift would be the easy part.
Surviving what it revealed would be the real test.
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