Chapter 16: Confrontation

Eden was petrified, looking down at Amhar. He knew the truth. What to do...

She squeaked a bit and noticed one of Amhar's eyes was Kahu's gold. But both irises, no matter the color, held a childlike innocence Eden remembered seeing in herself years ago. Wearing vibrant colors singing and skipping down the streets of Paris as she imagined a reunion with her big sister.

She flinched at the memory of long ago, back when she had been interested in the idea of kids.

Amhar looked up at her, confused, and held up the paper. She pried him off and sat him down, "O-Okay, Amhar, I have a meeting. I'll be back, and we'll talk about this. Just stay here." He smiled a little, but it was noticeably more strained, as his mother ran out of the Torre and to Liana.

To say Eden was pissed was an understatement. Where had he gotten that page? Who had given it to him? If he stole it from someone, that was one thing, but then her anger would be directed at him, and with his power he was clearly growing into, that could be a disaster. And there was a reason Zoe had sent her away, to avoid a situation exactly like this.

More importantly, she was terrified, having no idea what to say. A truth she pleaded would never be revealed was out, she had no warnings, and now she had no clue how to confront it without breaking the kid, which could really bite her and her family in the ass.

"Liana!"

Liana looked up from where she was getting up from a meeting, "Hey, Eddie! I just got done negotiating trade with Galowen. Isn't that great?"

"Yeah, it is... Liana, we need to talk. Now." She pulled the Queen into an alcove, "Amhar came to me, somehow he found a book of some sort that showed him the truth. He knows!"

"A book? Jared's copy of the Book of Prophecies. For the kid's sake, I'm not going to mention that to Jared. But he knows and... what? What can I do about that?"

"Well, see, I gave him up for a reason. What am I supposed to say? I mean, honestly, if I couldn't come to you about these kinds of things, I'd tell him I wish I'd aborted him when I had the chance."

Liana tensed, "Alright, let's not say that to the tiny son of Kahu." She put her hand under her chin in thought, "But we still want your point across. How did he take the news?"

"He hugged me and called me Mom. Please note that he doesn't talk, so his actually saying words shows how much shit I'm in." Eden was getting increasingly frantic, looking around, half expecting to see her son peaking out and overhearing this.

Liana hummed to herself as she came up with a solution, "Okay, how about you tell him there is a reason you never acknowledged him as your son. Your girlfriend is his caretaker, right? So the best thing to do in this situation with a child is to omit, but also be honest. Tell him the truth about how he came to be, and point out you were like nineteen, and unlike your sister, you weren't ready for kids that young, but kept him around to still be part of the family. See where it goes from there, but remember not to be too harsh." She squeezed Eden's hand, "Good luck."

Eden sucked in a breath as she went back to the Torre, and was alarmed to see Amhar was not in her room. Her eyes widened, and she raced through the tower, asking anyone she came across if they had come across him.

She eventually found him in the delivery room. She rushed to grab him but saw something unbelievable.

Amhar's eyes were glowing white-gold, and he had both his small hands on the laboring woman's stomach. Eden avoided this room due to her own PTSD of nearly going into cardiac arrest due to the pain of her own childbirth, but this woman—and if she was in the Torre for delivery, meant it was extremely high risk—was calm, even happy.

And soon, a screaming little boy was brought into the world.

Amenity stared at Amhar in amazement, "That shouldn't be..."

Amhar looked up with sad eyes, and he caught a glimpse of his stunned mother as she was pulled away by Amenity.

"You do understand what he just did, right?"

"No, I don't get involved with deliveries."

"That woman was dying from eclampsia. Your son walked in right as we thought there was nothing that could be done, the child was stillborn."

"You're telling me Amhar can revive the dead?" Eden shook herself, remembering being brought back by Vita. It made sense why Amhar would inherit that power, but she only ever imagined his father as evil and cruel, so she was shocked Amhar could inherit such pure magic.

"If not that, then extreme healing. I'm not a fool, Eden Imelda. I know who his father is, and I know you weren't exactly consenting. But your boy is extraordinary, and likes of which I haven't seen in many millennia."

"Vita said he had conceived Amhar in hopes of him being able to take down Iku, something that would require the six stone wielders."

"Or something of equal power." Amenity led her through the garden with a smile, picking a rose and holding it up, "Be careful with him, for such a gift is as delicate as a single pale rose, and who knows what would happen if he summoned his thorns. People could hurt him for this precious gift."

"I gave him up," Eden replied, "I was hoping he would never learn I'm his mother. I was perfectly content with him thinking a stone wielder and Blackwell witch were his parents."

"Well, now he knows. I was originally going to offer to train him alongside you, but clearly, you're not comfortable with that."

"I'm not. But... Amenity... if he can heal so easily, I assume he could also learn how to un-heal."

Amenity suddenly looked much older, revealing how old she really was, and her wrinkles became more defined, "Your son has the power to rattle the stars, but it is his choice whether to do it for good or evil. He needs a hand to hold, to guide him down the right path, which won't happen if everyone only sees him for who his father is."

"Hana and one of the Jareds—I don't care which—can do that. I need to tell him the truth."

"Why are you terrified of him?" Eden turned to her mentor, who was sitting down on a bench. Amenity watched her with calculating grey eyes,

"I'm not. I'm afraid of losing my temper and saying something I'll regret. I'm not ready for this."

Amenity chuckled, "And you never will be. No matter how far you come in recovery, you will never be ready to tell Amhar the truth. Do you want me to sit with you while you explain?"

"No." Eden found herself shocked to say, "This is something I need to do alone."

She walked up the tower, stomach in so many knots she felt like she was going to throw up, and saw Amhar in another room, helping more people,

"You know, kiddo, you can't just come in and steal my job." Eden chuckled a little at the bashful look on his face. He ran up to and hugged her, and she sighed, "Amhar, I want to take you somewhere, and I'm going to explain everything, okay?" Amhar looked up and nodded, and Eden shifted into Tenshi, carrying him—not really wanting him to figure out his own form change just yet—and bringing him to Vita's castle, the place so many lifechanging things had happened.

All things considered, the place was still doing relatively well for having one of the towers blown off and having been abandoned for three years. Tenshi winced when she found herself in the throne room and saw the marks in the wall from where Zoe had been chained up and tortured.

"Mom?" Amhar's voice was raspy from lack of use, and Eden suspected that would be the only word he said for a while. She hesitated, looking down at him as she brought him into the resurrection chambers, and recalled being told this was the place she had been revived from death from the Blind Eternities.

"Amhar, let me see that paper, I need to know how much you already know." Amhar held it up to her, and she read it over. He only knew about Vita's idea that crashed and burned, and how he tried someone else besides Eden but ended up going back to Eden. He didn't know about the fact that his own mother had wanted him dead for a long time and sometimes still wished he hadn't been born.

"Okay. So I assume you understand that your father was trying to do something good in defeating Iku, but was misguided in his methods. He took advantage of my amnesiac and compliant state to conceive you, and only when I was almost due did I come back to myself. Amhar, I was nineteen, I wasn't ready for kids, and you caught me extremely off guard."

"You didn't want me." She was shocked to hear him actually talking. He had a maturity in his eyes, unbefitting both his physical age and his literal age.

"No. I didn't. And the process of having you want not pleasant and left me even more broken and confused than before. But, regardless, you are my son, and who better to take you to than my sister and Dad. I did not anticipate Hana would take you as her own, but I'm not complaining."

Amhar was quiet, looking over the alter, running his hands along it in fascination, and Eden could tell his magic was attracted to it. She remembered when she and Zoe were on the quest to save Eli, and they had just recently gotten their powers. That sparkle in Amhar's eyes right now was just like Zoe's.

Eden actually heard a giggle escape her as she remembered a toddler Felix using a golden shovel twice his size as a weapon, after blackmailing Dausi into helping him join the adventure.

For a brief moment, Eden gasped when she saw Felix in Amhar, instead of any of the other oddities she had seen in this boy.

Amhar looked up, "If you could go back, would you?" She knew what he meant. And she knew to lie wasn't an option with him.

"If I'm honest, I know I would give it all back for a chance to start over a rewrite an ending or two. But not because there is anything wrong with you as a person, Amhar. I know there is nothing wrong with your personality that makes me unable to be in your life the way you want me to. I hope you can understand, I just can't be the mother you want of me."

Once again, there was silence between them. The only sounds were the faint wind outside, and the sound of the bottom of her dusty-rose gown dragging on the undusted ground.

"I know."

Those two words had Eden snapping back to her son's face from where she had been anxiously looking at the ground. Amhar was looking at a faded mural on the wall of Vita and Iku.

"All this time, I couldn't speak, too afraid of being rejected and never knowing why." He looked to her, "I'm not an idiot like the psychic believes me to be on the basis my age means stupidity. I saw the looks people gave me, how they would pull Zoe to the side and talk worriedly with her. I remember Jared being disgusted at the idea of having me as a child, which I suppose instilled my fears." Eden was frozen as he walked up to her. Such a young voice, but he seemed to have everything figured out already,

"So, you understand now?"

"I do. I didn't go to you expected you to embrace me in your arms and call me son. But I wanted to know why you refused to acknowledge what I am to you, but still brought me to your family when you could have left me on Innistrad."

"Even if I did leave you on Innistrad, you would have been brought to the family by Sam, who knew. So I might as well not look like an asshole, and bring you there myself." She put a hand on his shoulder, "So you're okay with the fact I..."

"I'd be ungrateful to Hana and the decent Jared if I wasn't okay with it. I highly doubt I'll be able to speak around psychic, though."

It made sense for Amhar's mutism to change from complete muteness to selective, but it was a start. She noticed him coughing a little,

"This place is the worst nightmare of many, including those without lungs of steel, do you want some tea? Then you should be on your way back to Hana."

"Okay, Eden."

Eden felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

OoOoO

Amaya didn't seek him out that night. Felix wondered if she and Kyra were debating my future and threats against me.

There were sentries outside his bedroom when he woke up. According to them, Amaya and Kyra were already holed up in the study. Without anything better to do, since Hatsune had to help the other servants with the preparation for Amaya's coronation, he headed out to take a walk down the garden paths.

Only his steps sounded in the halls as he passed guard after guard, armed to the teeth and trying their best not to gawk at him. Not one tried to talk to him. Even the servants scurried past him as though he wasn't there at all.

He was looking forward to returning to Zariya with Kaylee, so his wings could be one step closer to fixed. After getting kidnapped months ago while out flying, he wasn't allowed to use the Pegase anymore. He wanted to fly, to feel the wind in his hair. And he enjoyed seeing his Aunt Eden, smiling with the playful Queen.

Such silence. Too much silence.

Even if it wasn't flying, he needed to get out of this palace for more time than just with Kaylee. He needed to do something.

Felix was about to turn down the hall that led to the study, determined to ask Amaya if there was any task he might perform, even helping the servants, ready to beg her, when the study doors flung open, and the Sardothien sisters emerged. Both were heavily armed.

"Going so soon?" He asked, plastering on a smile. Amaya's expression was grim, and her eyes widened upon seeing him,

"What are you doing out of your room?" She shook it off, "There's trouble on the western end of the mountain, I have to go."

"Can I come with you?" He noticed they were walking towards his room, but right now, he was more focused on trying to leave.

Amaya paused before replying, "I'm sorry," she reached for him, and Felix stepped out of her grip, "It's too dangerous."

"I know how to hide. Please—take me with you."

"I won't risk anyone getting their hands on you." Felix thought about it, deciding he could easily wait until they were gone and follow— "Don't even think about it." His attention snapped to her face as she growled, "Don't even try to come after us."

"I can fight, and I have my magic. I'm the guy who was able to throw a direct blast from Kahu back at him. If anything, I'm more powerful than you!"

Amaya just shook her head, letting her wings emerge as she crossed the room to the door, but he had no plans to back down, blurting, "There will always be some threat, whether as your forced fiancé or as the son of Eli and Zoe Sommers. You know that. I know you do. According to you, there will always be some conflict or enemy or something keeping me here. But you know what, Amaya, I think you're making it all up to keep me here as your prisoner."

Amaya stopped suddenly in her tracks, raven hair concealing her eyes as she clenched her fists, "You can barely sleep through the night."

"That's because I heard my little brother got poisoned, and I can't even leave your clutches to visit him! How would you feel if you were worlds away from home, couldn't get out, and you heard Kyra was in agony and could die at any moment!"

"If you want out so badly," she said calmly, "Have the sentries take you on a walk through the gardens, or go pick wildflowers just outside the palace."

Felix splayed his arms in exasperation, "I don't want to go on a picnic, walk through those damned gardens, or pick fucking wildflowers! I want to do something. Just because I can't fly doesn't mean I'm helpless. So take me with you."

"You got kidnapped."

Felix was shaking now, "I could have saved myself, but spending time with my life on the line was so much more enjoyable than one more second with you—" he gasped as Amaya slapped him. He probably deserved it, but that didn't make what he was saying any less accurate.

"Even if I risked it, your useless wings render your presence more a liability than anything. So you are going to stay here and be safe, maybe help plan our wedding if you want something to do."

It was like being hit with stones—so hard he could feel himself cracking. But he lifted his chin, standing tall, and growled, "I'm coming along whether you want me to or not. If you really love me, you will let me go."

"No, you aren't coming. Because I love you, I need to acknowledge you're vulnerable when you will not." She stormed out the door, and Felix went to follow her but slammed into the wall as his door ceased working.

Felix staggered back, trying to reorder his mind around the fact Amaya had enough power to downright fuse the door to the wall, rendering it part of the wall. And he could see that around his room was a wind-shield, which would mean he couldn't even jump. Sure, he could break that quickly, or destroy the wall, but the implications of what this meant made him begin shaking.

She'd locked him in.

Breathing became difficult. Felix knew he was trapped in this damn palace—and wasn't that a sentence, like Beauty and the Beast in reverse where that beast was concerned.

He backed away from the wall-door, his steps too light, too fast, and slammed into the vanity. And then blinding light pounded down and rose up from beneath, devouring and roaring and shredding.

It was all he could do to keep from screaming, to keep from shattering into pieces as he sank to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and crying as his wings wrapped around him like a blanket.

He didn't realize through mounting hysteria that his powers had started acting of their own accord, and now he was floating in a cocoon of light and fire and ice and wind.

Someone was shouting his name from far away—Hatsune, maybe? He honestly didn't know.

But two hands reached through that power wrapped around him. Slender, strong hands gripping him under the shoulders. One of those hands moved to his knees, the other to his back. Then he was being pulled out of the cocoon and into this distinctly male stranger's arms.

"Take care of him." Kyra? "Whether he becomes a Void or not."

"Tell your sister that she's very, very lucky to have not been here right now. The guards will have one hell of a headache when they wake up, but they're alive. Much more mercy than I would normally have, but consider it a token of my gratitude for your service to me." This man's voice was unfamiliar, but it somehow soothed him and sent shivers up his spine at the same time. Void? Kyra was working with this man?

But he didn't really care about that right now as he dully saw avian-like wings on this mystery person's back. They were snowy white but scorched a bit black and red around the edges, so they looked really cool. Felix had to admit in the scraps of aware mind he had that he was a little jealous of those wings since his own were just brown and black with a bit of red at the tips.

As he slowly came back to reality, he found nothing mattered more to him right than the idea this stranger was going to take him away from here. And... "Hati?"

The man looked down at him, "Hati?" He placed a hand on Felix's forehead, smiling kindly, "It's okay, just sleep."

Unable to fight back, Felix found himself gently lulled to sleep.