“My sister is the only other person I ever knew with magic, and hers isn’t like mine. Anyway no one at home ever wanted to kiss me, or anything else.” Summer turned the cup around and around, staring at the subtle carving around the rim, and not looking at Mordred at all. She couldn’t stop her mind turning down those old, well-worn paths, expression falling into pensive lines. “Not after they realised I could see through their games.”
“I understand,” he said, fingers running over the worn wood of the table. “After my father was taken from me I traveled. I was only a child, naive at best. It took me some time to learn that there were more that thought like Uther than I had cared to believe. People that would exploit me and play games with who I was. The amount of times I’ve almost had my head removed from my shoulders.”
“They never knew it was magic,” she whispered. “I don’t talk about it much. Mine is so little it’s easy to hide, easy to make it look like I’m not using it, when I always am. I’ve only had to defend myself with it a few times, and nobody looks in the forest for the burned bones of bandits.” She shuddered hard with that memory, of dealing death with her magic while her mind was caught up in theirs. The cup rattled against the table.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you to know this. I didn’t mean you to have to carry this.” It always came to this, to the ache of being different spilling from her lips and driving people away. “I don’t want to be alone any more.”