Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) (10 page)

“You see, there’s a problem.”
 
Adrian became troubled.
 
“Summoning each ability puts an extreme
amount of stress on your body, especially you since you were just human.
 
You can barely handle the Beastbourn change
as it is.
 
You can’t sustain your animal
form for over a minute and you immediately faint.
 
Not that that’s bad,” Adrian said quickly
when he saw my lowered expression.
 
“That’s actually pretty impressive for your circumstances.
 
However, because you were recently human,
your body is weaker than ours.
 
Trying to
initiate further abilities could potentially kill you.
 
We’ll have to wait until you’re stronger,
whenever that may be, before you can try.”

My face fell in
disappointment.
 
Discovering I was
Irisbourn was like winning the lottery, but then being told I couldn’t spend my
money until I turned twenty-one.

“You will get stronger,” Adrian
assured me.
 
“It will take time,
though.”
 
Adrian shifted his weight on
the dresser.
 
It couldn’t have been very
comfortable up there.

I sighed.
 
“Why don’t you sit on the bed?”
 
I patted the sheets in front of me.

Adrian clucked his tongue.
 
“You’re a little quick to be sharing your
bed, don’t you think?”

I felt the heat rise to my
face.
 
I hadn’t meant it that way.
 
“Well I hope that dresser makes your legs
numb,” I muttered, intentionally letting my irritation color my voice.

Adrian chuckled and helped himself
to the bed anyway.
 
He sat on the far
end, as if to show me that he would give me as much space as I needed to be
comfortable.
 
“It was a joke. Gods,
Amber.”

“Whatever.”

“Now, do you want to hear more?”

I sat up straighter.
 
“You haven’t finished the story?”

“The early stories are nearly
over.
 
But our history is extensive, and
there are more things you need to know.”

“Yes then.”

“After
creating the new race, the gods were still fearful that Fallyre might slip back
into disarray, even under the Irisbourn, so the gods presented the Irisbourn
with an apparatus called the ‘pons.’
 
The
Irisbourn could use it to create a portal to the human world. That way if the
Irisbourn ever felt that they were losing control over Fallyre, they would be
able to draw inspiration from the human world that the gods so cherished.”
 
Adrian stopped and glanced at the orb hanging
around my neck.
 
“You’re wearing yours
now.”

“My mother’s necklace,” I
murmured.
 
No wonder it had seemed like
more than an ordinary piece of jewelry.

Adrian stuck his hand into his
pocket and withdrew another pons.
 
Its
metal claws had different engravings than mine did, and the fluid inside the
orb was more crimson than golden.
 
Otherwise, it looked nearly identical to the one around my neck.

“Their appearances change,
depending on the families they’ve belonged to.
 
I’ve heard some people say that they’re not completely inanimate either,
that they hold the memories of their prior owners.”

“Why do you have one if you aren’t
Irisbourn?”

For a moment, Adrian seemed unsure
of how he was going to answer.
 
Just as I
was about to move onto the next of my hundred questions, Adrian spoke.
 
“We needed one to get to Earth, of
course.
 
It’s the only way to move
between our worlds.”

He hadn’t quite answered my
question, but I decided to let it go.

“Why are you here?”

“That’s wrapped up in the
information I haven’t told you.”

“Well then, you should most
certainly tell me.”

“Well then, you should most
certainly stop interrupting,” Adrian said in a humored voice.
 
He closed his eyes again.

“For
many centuries, Fallyre prospered under the Irisbourn.
 
The Irisbourn were respected for their
reasonable rule and sensible judgment.
 
They were, in all ways, the best gifts the gods ever gave us.

“Generations
of Divinbloods untouched by war lived and died.
 
Irisbourn who had never seen true bloodshed relaxed their rule and
stretched their trust.
 
Meanwhile, the
Bloodbourn, the race created to kill, grew restless during the era of
peace.
 
The arrival of the Irisbourn made
their purpose obsolete, and for this the Bloodbourn felt cheated.

“The
Bloodbourn united through this bitterness, and that bitterness quickly grew
into hatred of the Irisbourn.
 
They
established their own secluded society, which outsiders never entered and
insiders never left.
 
A fierce Bloodbourn
illegitimately established himself as his people’s Blood King.
 
Under his rule, Bloodbourn culture became so
distinct from that of other Divinbloods, that they began to be known as ‘the
backwards barbarians.’”

“How were they so backwards?”
 
I broke in.

Adrian did not look upset that I
had interrupted.
 
“Socially, they became
more primitive in their practices and culture.
 
Children were learning how to throw knives when they barely knew how to
walk.
 
The status of women drastically
declined, and the Blood King transformed his kingdom into a strict, unforgiving
patriarchy.”

“That really is backwards.”
 
Children throwing knives?
 
I shuddered at the thought.

“The
Irisbourn King and Queen of the time were troubled by the Bloodbourn’s
contentious actions.
 
However, they were
wary of being the first to disrupt the peace that had been unbroken for
centuries.
 
So instead of creating
discord, they allowed the Bloodbourn to branch off from the other Divinbloods,
as long as they did so peacefully. Despite Bloodbourn antagonisms, the King and
Queen remained beloved by the Spellbourn, Strongbourn, and Beastbourn, who
adored the ruling family and blindly believed the era of peace would never end.

“The
King and the Queen also had three daughters, said to be the most lovely and
talented Irisbourn in all of Fallyre. Even the Blood King was not immune to
their enchantment, and he soon found himself captivated by stories of the
eldest daughter’s beauty.
 
He became so
fixated on having the most alluring woman of Fallyre as his wife, that he was
willing to break the Bloodbourn law he had created, which forbade the
Bloodbourn from marrying others outside their race.

“The
Blood King proposed the marriage to the King and Queen under the pretense of a
compromise.
 
He claimed that the marriage
would help bridge the gap between the Bloodbourn Kingdom and theirs, as the
Irisbourn princess would become the Blood Queen. However, when the King and
Queen presented the offer to their daughter, she vehemently refused.
 
This only made the Blood King more persistent
in his advances toward her.
 
He sent her
countless servants, luxurious gifts, and the rarest beasts of his kingdom,
hoping to lure her to his side.
 
She
continued to refuse, and the Blood King grew increasingly impatient.”

“The Blood King sounds like a
pompous jerk,” I muttered.

Adrian grunted in agreement.

“Then,
one day, the eldest princess was said to have vanished.
 
Immediately everyone assumed that the Blood
King had been responsible, that he had spirited her away to his palace in the
dead of the night.
 
But the Irisbourn
King and Queen assured their people that this could not have been so, and
extensive searches for the lost princess were carried out across Fallyre.
 
She was never seen again.

“The
Blood King was furious that the most beautiful woman of Fallyre had slipped
through his fingers.
 
As repayment for
what he had lost, he demanded that the royal family guarantee him marriage to
the second princess.
 
The Irisbourn
Queen, offended by the Blood King’s audacity, publically spurned his
demand.
 
Enraged that he had been shamed
by the words of a woman, the Blood King swore that the royal family would pay
for their insolence, and he retreated to the seclusion of his kingdom.
 
The outside world did not hear from him again
for years.

“Months
after their daughter’s disappearance, the Irisbourn King and Queen succumbed to
a mysterious illness, leaving their kingdom in mourning and the Bloodbourn in
celebration.
 
The second princess
inherited her parents’ throne, and her kingdom celebrated her as the new Queen
of Fallyre; however, because she was a woman, the Bloodbourn refused to
recognize her as the legitimate ruler of her own kingdom, much less Fallyre.

“The
Bloodbourn were convinced that the rule of a woman would bring their world to
its demise.
 
The Blood King ceased this
opportunity to proclaim himself the one true king of Fallyre.
 
Even after the new Queen wed an Irisbourn who
would stand by her side as King, the Blood King continued to assert his claim
to the throne.
 
By manipulating his
people through their hatred of the Irisbourn, he convinced them that the
Bloodbourn, not the Irisbourn, were meant to be the true rulers of Fallyre.

“After
all, it had been the Bloodbourn who had been created from the first men.
 
During ancient times, the Bloodbourn slew the
creatures no other Divinblood could slay.
 
And only the Bloodbourn still remained true to the traditions of the
first Divinbloods.”
 
The words fell
out of Adrian’s mouth seamlessly, as if he had recited them hundreds of times
before.
 
It occurred to me that because
Adrian was Bloodbourn, he must have been exposed to these beliefs.

“Is that what you believe?” I asked
quietly.
 
Part of me was afraid to hear
the answer, afraid to know that he might possess some deep-seated grudge
against the Irisbourn, and therefore me.

Adrian exhaled loudly.
 
“It’s what they wanted me to believe.
 
It’s what I told myself I should
believe.
 
But I couldn’t, and that’s part
of the reason I’m here right now.”
 
Adrian looked down to his wrists before going on.

“The
Blood King prepared the Bloodbourn for a clandestine attack on the Irisbourn,
to finally eradicate the Irisbourn race from Fallyre and restore proper power
to the Bloodbourn.
 
From the beginning,
the unsuspecting Irisbourn stood no chance.
 
The Bloodbourn had been taught to kill since they were children.
 
By twelve, many of them had already tamed and
trained their first dark beast.

“When
the Bloodbourn attacked in full force, the Irisbourn were utterly
unprepared.
 
Most of the Irisbourn were
slaughtered or went missing, including the Irisbourn Queen.
 
The Queen’s husband, the new King, was
captured and later killed by the Blood King himself.
 
Later the Queen was discovered and held captive
by the Blood King, while he hunted down the surviving Irisbourn in Fallyre.

“The
remainder of the Irisbourn kingdom was left in uproar.
 
The Beastbourn retaliated violently against
their rulers’ murderers, but they too were struck down by the Bloodbourn.
 
When the Beastbourn defense fell, the
Spellbourn and Strongbourn had no choice but to submit to Bloodbourn rule.
 
Within weeks, the Irisbourn race had been
eradicated, and the rule of the Blood King had begun.”
 
Adrian fell silent, and all I could hear was
my pulse in my ears.

“Are there any other Irisbourn?” I
asked softly.

Adrian grew somber.
 
“You are the first free, healthy Irisbourn
I’ve seen.
 
The Blood King’s genocide has
been very thorough.”

“And yet, I’m here.” The thought of
being the last of my kind frightened me.

“Someone hid you here, disguised
you as a human in a human family.
 
You
would have only been born just before the Blood War, so it wouldn’t have been
very difficult.”

“But my parents, they were
human…
 
It couldn’t have been…” I struggled
to work out the logistics in my mind.
  
“Couldn’t my parents have been disguised too?
 
Couldn’t my sister and brother be Irisbourn
as well?”

“It’s possible, but highly
unlikely,” Adrian said slowly, apologetically.
 
“The problem is, you weren’t just pretending to be a human; you were
actually physically turned into a human.
 
There is only one way we can be turned back into the mortals the gods
created us from, and that is through an ancient, multifaceted ritual which requires
the aid of a Bloodbourn,
 
Spellbourn,
Strongbourn, and Beastbourn.
  
There are
few today who know how to do it, and even fewer willing to attempt it.
 
Amongst the handful of Divinbloods who have
tried it, the majority did not survive.
 
So even if it had been done on your entire family, it would have been
unlikely that all five of you would have survived the ritual to become humans.”