“Bran, you must choose,” he said to his son. “Will you come with us now or leave your family and honor for a female of no name and rank and the company of an UnSeelie misfit?”
“Father…” Bran drew himself up and took a deep breath. “It is because of my honor that I cannot leave Emma. I gave my word to stay by her side—I will not break it.”
“Very well.” His father gave a stiff nod, as though a very final decision had been made. “Then I strip you of your name and rank. You are no longer my son or a part of this family. No longer may you use the name of O’Connor or call yourself my heir.”
Bran’s mother gave a terrible wail and for a moment, I seemed to see past her disguise too. A lovely woman with flowing blond hair and storm-blue eyes, the same color as Bran’s, was crying—mourning for her son as though he had been killed. Then she covered her exquisite face with her pale white hands and shrank down into the squat, toad-like woman the Suva made her appear to be again.
Bran’s sister was crying too. She ran forward and threw her arms around his waist, sobbing as she pushed her face into his chest.
“Bran, Bran,” she sobbed. “Don’t go! Don’t leave us!”
“I’m sorry, but I have to.” Bran hugged her back, his face pale but set. It suddenly occurred to me that he was giving up everything—his whole family, his rank at the Fae court, even his name—just for me. I couldn’t let him do it!
“Bran wait!” I exclaimed, sitting up and making sure I kept Lachlan’s black cloak wrapped tightly around me. “I can’t ask you to do this—you can’t leave your whole family just for me!”
“Let him be, little one,” Lachlan murmured in my ear. “The High Sidhe are bound by codes of honor and family fidelity we lesser beings can’t understand.”
“But I can’t let him do this!” I protested.
However, it seemed it was already done. Still weeping, Bran’s mother pulled his little sister away from him and led her towards the door. His father stayed there, glaring wrathfully at his son a moment longer. Then he, too, turned and left, slamming the bedroom door behind him.
Bran’s family was gone and it was all my fault.
32
“Well, that’s that.” There was an artificial cheer to Bran’s voice that didn’t fool me a bit.
From the look on Lachlan’s face, he knew his old friend (were they friends or more like frenemies?) was hurting too.
“O’Connor,” he said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that breaking the geas would be so loud.” He looked at me. “Or so painful. I must ask your pardon.”
Bran shook his head and sank heavily onto the bed to sit beside me.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said in a low voice, his shoulders slumping. “I asked for your help. And don’t call me ‘O’Connor’ anymore—it’s no longer my name.”
“Oh, Bran…” Without thinking about it, I reached for him and wrapped my arms around his neck. I wouldn’t even have considered touching or comforting a guy so handsome and so far out of my league in normal circumstances, but I didn’t even think about that now. Bran was hurting and I couldn’t help feeling like it was all my fault.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, as he turned his face towards my shoulder, accepting the comfort I offered. “So, so sorry, Bran.”
Lachlan sat beside the other Fae and put a hand on his broad shoulder. He didn’t say anything but I noticed Bran didn’t try to shrug either of us off—he took the comfort we were offering and he seemed glad to have it.
At last, however, he straightened up. He hadn’t cried, though his storm-blue eyes were a little red, I thought.
“Thank you,” he said to me and then looked at Lachlan. “Both of you. But I’m better now.”
I didn’t see how he could recover from being disowned and losing his whole family in five minutes, but before I could say anything else he looked at me and frowned.
“Well, you have changed, Emma,” he remarked.
“She certainly has,” Lachlan said dryly, as though glad to move on to a new subject.
My heart started to pound. In all the family drama with Bran, I had completely forgotten my own extremely painful transformation. Now I wondered what had happened to me. My hands looked okay again, I thought, looking down at them, but what about my face and the rest of me?
“How…how do I look?” I asked them, looking between the two of them. “Did it work?”
“Oh, it worked all right.” Lachlan nodded. “Taking that geas off you nearly drained me dry. I’ve never felt such tough magic before. I’ll be paying that debt for some time.”
I didn’t know what he meant by paying the debt—I was too busy being worried about how I looked. I know that sounds shallow but please try to put yourself in my place—how would you feel if you’d gotten uglified and then you were suddenly changed and you didn’t know if it was a change for the better or the worse?