Hidden Wings

Morning of confusion

“and the toxic Earth air is doing no favors for my skin anyway.” I hear the queen say as my feet hit the solid ground, I realized we were back on Earth. I scrambled into the edge of a dense tree line, my heart hammering as I watched my grandmother, Elaris, and Shay pull up to a modest brick house. I had lived in this city my entire life, but I had never seen this house before, nor did I recognize the woman who opened the door.

When the front door swung open, a woman stood there, her hair a chaotic mess and her eyes lined with the heavy, dark exhaustion of someone who hadn’t slept in days. This was Faith. Queen Adele knew exactly who she was. Faith was a powerful solitary Fae, legendary for her rare, formidable ability to seamlessly bounce between realms.

“Faith, sweetie,” Queen Adele mocked, her voice dripping with an artificial, sickening sweetness. With a careless, elegant swish of her hand, Adele forced her royal magic over Faith, violently rewriting reality. In a single blink, Faith’s ragged robe vanished, replaced by a perfectly tailored designer sweater, jeans, and an immaculate ponytail.

“Grandmother, stop. That isn’t appropriate,” Elaris muttered, though his voice was weak and he made no physical move to counter the Queen’s magic.

I watched from the dark porch, slipping closer to the side window, hiding myself behind the overgrown bushes. I didn’t have a clue how to use the illusions Elaris had talked about; all I had were the physical shadows of the awning. But keeping quiet was proving to be impossible. The raw magic beneath my skin was boiling. The potted plants along the porch railing began to c***k, their leaves curling into black ash as my chaotic energy bled out of my fingertips and into the wood. I was a walking hazard, a ticking time bomb barely holding myself together.

Inside the house, the conversation turned bitter. “Why not come back to court, Faith?” Adele asked, sipping a cup of Ivearona tea that Faith had reluctantly summoned. “You aren’t supposed to keep the children you find. It isn’t in your nature to play mother to an Unseelie plant.”

Faith flinched, her eyes shifting from a human facade to her true yellow irises, swirling with dark red and orange dots. But a sharp, calculating glint entered Faith’s eyes. She put her tea down, her posture straightening. “He isn’t just an Unseelie plant anymore, Adele. The Unseelie King placed dozens of eyes around Ivy on Earth, but Ashton was the one who managed to get closest to her. They share a bond now. If you lock him away, you will completely break Ivy’s trust—and we both know her premature, volatile magic will destroy Ivearona if she snaps.”

Faith took a step closer to the Queen, weaving her words carefully. “Keep him in Ivearona. Appoint him as an official envoy. It legitimizes his presence, forces the Unseelie King to play by court rules, and keeps him exactly where you can watch him. Most importantly, it keeps him close to Ivy where he can act as a stabilizing anchor for her surging magic. Do not fight her on this, Adele. Use him.”

Elaris looked at his grandmother, considering the tactical advantage, entirely unaware of the trap Faith was truly setting to embed Ashton deeper into the court just to mess with my head.

Adele stood up, pacing the small living room as gold sparks flickered behind her heavy gown. “Why people insist on keeping these children in the dark is beyond my comprehension. Every child deserves to be with their family and know who they are. Not kept in the dark. It is good for no one.”

Not kept in the dark. It is good for no one.

The words snapped something vital inside my chest. The air around the house grew suddenly, violently still. The wind died. A hysterical, furious laugh bubbled up in my throat. The sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy of it was suffocating. My grandmother had ordered my identity stripped away through hundreds of lifetimes. My brother had spent years feeding me a tasteless suppression potion to choke out my emotions, my memories, and my magic, making me believe I was a fragile, ordinary human. He hadn’t been thrilled about the order, but he hadn’t fought for me, either. He had just quietly drugged me, day after day, choosing the crown over his own sister.

They didn’t hide me to protect me. They hid me because they were terrified of what I was. I wasn’t a fragile sacrifice to be pitied. I was a royal Fae, possessing a terrifying combination of elemental dominion and a rare, primal life-force magic—the ability to draw, manipulate, and project living energy. I could create life-force, and I could take it back. And my family had caged it. They had treated me like a ticking time bomb, a convenient battery to anchor their collapsing world.

Ashton had been entirely right. And this stranger, Faith, was just another player in their game.

Inside the living room, the porcelain tea cups suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces. The potted plants along the windows burst from their soil, thick, thorny vines growing at an impossible speed, slamming violently against the glass.

Queen Adele stopped pacing, her sharp eyes darting to the window. Elaris stood up instantly, his hand going to the hilt of his blade. Shay moved seamlessly in front of the royals, shadows swirling around her hands as the ambient magic in the room grew heavy enough to crush a human’s lungs.

“What is that?” Elaris whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.

“It’s her,” Queen Adele murmured, her mock-sweetness completely vanishing. “She’s awake. And she’s listening.”

I didn’t run. I threw the front door open, the suffocating pressure in my chest finally snapped. A blind, accidental shockwave of elemental force detonated from my core, rattling the house to its very foundations, shattering the glass windows, and kicking up a blinding vortex of dirt and leaves.

I stood in the ruined doorway, my dark cloak billowing around me, my eyes glowing with the untamed, unsuppressed fire of a lineage they had tried to drug into oblivion. I looked directly at my brother, my voice a lethal, calm promise that cut through the localized storm like ice.

“Tell me more about how much you hate secrets, grandmother. I’m listening.”

Elaris took a step forward, his hands raised in a desperate, placating gesture. “Ivy, please. You don’t understand the danger you were in. The potions… it wasn’t because we didn’t want you. We had to keep you hidden. Your energy—”

“My energy,” I spat, the word dripping with a lethal, mocking venom. “That’s all I am to this family, isn’t it? A power grid. A rare, convenient well of life-force for you to draw from whenever Ivearona needs a savior.”

Queen Adele narrowed her eyes, her royal composure snapping back into place like iron. “Ivy, mind your tongue. You are a princess of the bloodline. Your magic belongs to the realm.”

“My magic belongs to me,” I snarled.

For the first time, I felt the true, terrifying depth of what I could do. I wasn’t just moving the wind or growing the vines; I was connected to the very pulse of the room. I could feel the literal life-force of everyone present—the vibrant, golden hum of their Fae essences radiating like miniature suns. It wasn’t just a feeling; it had a taste. A sharp, copper-rich metallic tang flooded my tongue, as heavy and intoxicating as blood. The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow: I could reach out and pull that golden light directly from them. I could unravel their essence as easily as pulling a loose thread from a sweater, and the prospect didn’t repulse me—it felt like drawing a deep, necessary breath.

I saw the flash of genuine terror in Elaris’s and even Shay’s eyes as the room suffocated under the weight of my chaotic presence, the air turning thick and ionized. Shay, who had been a shadowy presence in my life, now stood between me and the exit with her hand gripped white-knuckled around her blade, her gaze darting toward me with a wariness usually reserved for the most dangerous beasts of the wilds. They thought I was a fragile human girl yesterday; today, I was a predator discovering her teeth. Ashton had been right. They were terrified of me losing control, not because it would hurt me, but because they couldn’t control the source anymore.

“Ivy, the boy has been feeding you lies,” Elaris tried again, stepping closer despite the visible waves of heat rolling off my skin. “He is an Unseelie asset. The King placed monsters all around you on Earth to track you, to turn you against us!”

“He didn’t turn me against you, Elaris,” I whispered, my voice dangerously soft. “You did that all by yourself the first time you slipped a potion into my glass. Ashton is the only person in this entire damn realm who didn’t look at me and see a sacrifice.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. Turning on my heel, I sprinted blindly into the dark tree line, letting the physical wreckage and swirling dust buy me enough time to escape. I ran into the night, leaving the royal family of Ivearona standing in the wreckage of a shattered house.