The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

I crept through the silent halls, where only the Royal Ascended traveled when the sun rose, drawn by what I’d seen the last time I’d snuck where the Queen told me I should not go. But I liked it down here. Ian didn’t, but no one looked at me strangely here.

Click. Click. Click.

Soft light seeped from the opening of the chamber as I pressed against a cold pillar, peeking around the corner. A cage sat in the middle of the chamber that looked nothing like the rest of Wayfair. The floor, walls, and even the ceiling were a shiny black, just like the Temple of Nyktos. Strange letters had been etched into the black stone, the symbols shaped nothing like those I’d learned in my lessons. I reached one hand into the chamber, pressing my fingers against the rough carvings as I leaned around the pillar.

I shouldn’t be down here. The Queen would be very mad, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what prowled restlessly behind bleached-white bars, caged and…helpless. That was what I’d felt from the large, gray cave cat when I’d first seen it with Ian. Helplessness. That was what I’d felt when I could no longer hold on to Momma’s slippery arm. But my gift didn’t work on animals. The Queen and Priestess Janeah had said so.

The clicking of the animal’s claws ceased. Ears twitched as the wild cat’s big head turned to where I peeked around the corner. Bright green eyes locked on to mine, piercing the veil that covered half my face—

“Your eyes are your father’s.”

Chapter 26

Her words pulled me from the memory. “What?”

“When he would get angry, the essence would become more visible. Sometimes, the eather would swirl through his eyes. Other times, they were just green. Yours do the same.” Isbeth tipped her head back, her slender throat working on a swallow. The remaining Handmaidens and knights had backed off from us, leaving us in the center of the hall. “I didn’t know if you knew that.”

My eyes were…

Pressure clamped down on my chest and throat as I backed up, stopping when I bumped into a pillar. One hand fluttered to where the ring rested under my tunic. I didn’t know why that piece of knowledge affected me so intensely, but it did.

It took me several moments to speak. “How did you capture him?”

Isbeth didn’t answer for a long moment. “He came to me, almost two hundred years after the war had ended. He was looking for his brother, and the one who came with him could sense Malec’s blood and led him to me.”

“The draken?”

Tense silence followed, and in those moments, I thought about what I’d felt from the cave cat when I’d seen him as a child. Hopelessness. Desperation. Had he known who I was?

“Interesting that you’d know that,” the Blood Queen finally said. “Very few know what traveled with him.”

“You’d be surprised by what I know.”

“Unlikely,” she replied.

I lowered my hand to the cold pillar behind me. “Where is the draken?”

“The draken has been dealt with.”

I briefly closed my eyes. I knew what that meant. Did she have any idea that she had killed the first draken’s daughter? Probably not, and I doubted she cared.

“I knew Malec had a twin, but when I first saw him… I thought, my gods, my Malec has finally returned to me.” Her breath caught, and I tasted the tiniest bit of bitterness. Her emotions had briefly, for less than a heartbeat, punched through my shields. “Of course, I was wrong. The moment he spoke, I knew he wasn’t Malec, but I let myself believe that for a little while. I even thought that I could fall in love with him. That I could just pretend that he was my Malec.”

Bile crept up my throat. “You pretended by locking him in a cage and forcing yourself upon him?”

“I didn’t force myself upon him. He chose to stay.”

Gods, she was such a liar.

“He became intrigued by this world,” she added. “He’d never really interacted with mortals. He was curious about the Ascended. About what his brother had been doing. I think Ires even grew to become fond of me.”

“If my father showed up in the last two centuries looking for Malec, you would’ve been married at the time.”

“So?”

My gaze flicked to where the Handmaidens stood motionless. I figured that many of the Royals had open marriages, but would Ires have grown interested in his brother’s lover? Seemed kind of…gross, but that would be the least disturbing aspect of all of this.

“But then he wanted to return, and I wasn’t ready to let him go.” A pause. “And then I couldn’t.”

It took everything in me not to scream at her. She couldn’t? As if she had no choice?

“He was angry. But when we came together to make you, he was not forced. Neither time.”