The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

Good gods.

All of it was familiar. Too familiar.

The Handmaiden’s smile was slow and tight. “Do I remind you of someone?”

“Gods,” I rasped.

She rose, the shoulders of the simple black tunic she wore now soaked. Hair the color of silvery-white moonlight hung all the way to the multiple rows of leather encasing her waist, exaggerating hips that didn’t need the aid. She was leaner, not so amply shaped, but she stood there in a way…

Disbelief flooded me. “Impossible.”

Water dripped from her fingertips as she silently walked toward me. “Why do you think what you’re seeing is impossible, Casteel?”

“Why?” A hoarse laugh parted my dry lips. There was no logical reason, other than the fact that my mind couldn’t accept that this Handmaiden—this Revenant—was almost a mirror image of Poppy. But I couldn’t deny it. There was no way she wasn’t related to my Queen.

“Who are you?” I choked out.

“I’m the first daughter,” she said, and shit if that wasn’t another shock. “I was never meant to be. Neither was the second. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment. I prefer to be called by my actual name—Millicent. Or Millie. Either works.”

“Your name means brave strength,” I heard myself say.

“So I’m told.” Millicent stared down at me, once again unblinking. Eerie. “Is that all you have to say?”

Hell, no. There was a lot I had to say. Fuck. I felt like Poppy because I had a lot of questions. “You’re…her sister, aren’t you? Full-blooded.”

“I am.”

My thoughts raced. “Ires is your father, too.”

She nodded.

And that also meant… “You’re a goddess.”

Millicent laughed darkly. “I’m no god. What I am is a failure.”

“What? If your father is—”

“If you’re anything like your brother, then you think you know it all,” she remarked. “But, just like him, you don’t know what is and isn’t possible. You have no idea.”

“Then tell me.”

Millicent gave me another tight-lipped smile as she shook her head, sending a mist of cold water across my chest and face.

Frustration burned through me, nearly as potent as the encroaching bloodlust. “What the hell? How are you not a god?”

“Where would I even start if I answered your questions? And when would your questions stop? They wouldn’t. Every answer I gave would lead to another, and before we knew it, I would have retold the entire history of the realms.” Millicent blinked and then turned away, stepping over my legs. “The real history.”

“I know the real history.”

“No, you don’t. Neither did Malik.”

Air punched out of my lungs at the sound of my brother’s name, momentarily stunning me. My brother… I hadn’t seen him since he’d wrapped my hand. What he’d said about the Handmaiden surfaced: “She’s had very little choice.” “Malik knows,” I bit out. “That son of a bitch knows who you are.”

Millicent moved quickly, crouching by my legs. Close enough that if I kicked out, I’d take her down. She had to know that, but she remained where she was. “You have no idea what your brother has had to do. You have no—” She cut herself off with a sharp twist of her neck. “Everything the Queen does…she does for a reason. Why she took you the first time. Why she kept Malik. She needed someone from a strong Atlantian bloodline to help Penellaphe through her Ascension. To make sure she didn’t fail. She lucked out when you came back into the picture, didn’t she? The one she originally planned to use. And then our mother waited until Penellaphe was going through her Culling—that’s happening now. And now she’s waiting again for Penellaphe to complete the Culling.”

“Poppy has Ascended to her godhood—”

“She hasn’t completed the Culling,” Millicent interrupted. “But when she does, my sister will give our mother what she’s wanted since she learned that her son was dead.”

“Revenge?”

“Revenge against everyone.” Millicent leaned in, placing a hand by my knee. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And she doesn’t want to remake the kingdoms. It’s the realms. She wants to restore them to the way they were before the first Atlantian was created. When mortals were subservient to the gods and the Primals. And that—that will destroy not only the mortal realm but also Iliseeum.”

Shock rippled through me. “And you think Poppy will help her do this?”

“She won’t have a choice. My sister is destined to do just that. She is the Harbinger foretold.”

“Bullshit,” I snarled. “She—”

“Remember what I told you before? Our mother isn’t strong enough to do such a thing. But she created something that was. Penellaphe.”

Cold air poured into my chest. “No.”

“It’s the truth.” Her features pinched, and I saw it for a moment before her eyes lowered. Sorrow. Deep, endless sorrow. “I wish it wasn’t because I know that no matter what I do—what anyone does—the Queen will succeed. Because you will also fail.”

I leaned as far as the chain allowed. “Fail at what?”