Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms 1)

“A few days. A week at the most.”

She looked around the shed’s interior with horror. “Here?”

“My sister and her husband have agreed to watch over you. His friends will guard the door in case you think about trying to escape. You’ll be brought food and water daily.” He thrust his chin to her left. “There’s a freshly dug hole over there for her majesty to use when she requires. It’s not a golden bejeweled chamber pot, but it’ll suffice. These would be considered luxurious accommodations for a Paelsian, princess. You have no idea.”

“You are a horrible savage for keeping me here. My father will have your head for this.”

Jonas took hold of her throat again and pressed her up against the wall.

“I’m not a savage,” he snarled. “And I’m not a heathen.”

“And I’m not an evil bitch who rejoices in the deaths of others.”

“A few days of adversity won’t break you. They might even do you some good.”

Her aquamarine eyes flashed. “I hope you’re torn apart by wolves on your trip to Auranos.”

Jonas would expect no other reaction from her. Anything less would be a disappointment.

As he moved toward the door, he looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ll see you again soon, your highness. Try not to miss me too much.”

Magnus needed answers. And he needed them now.

He’d waited for his father to rage about the witch’s death after he’d swept Lucia out of Magnus’s chambers. Instead, all had been eerily calm. Sabina’s scorched body had been quietly taken away and discarded. No funeral was planned. No one, not even the servants, seemed to be gossiping.

It was as if the king’s mistress had never existed in the first place.

But Magnus didn’t give a damn about Sabina Mallius, alive or dead. Only what she’d told him about Lucia’s origins. He needed to know if it was the truth.

The next morning he sought his father out to demands answers but learned that the king had already left on a journey to Auranos with Chief Basilius. He wasn’t expected back for two weeks.

Sabina’s words echoed in Magnus’s mind, but he didn’t know what to believe. The witch had been a deceptive, manipulative woman—which had been proved without a doubt on the night of her death. As Magnus had watched the woman burn, he hadn’t felt a single ounce of pity. She deserved exactly what she received.

But now there were so many questions.

The king had already arranged for a special tutor to be at the ready to help Lucia with her elementia once it awakened. It was an old, withered woman who knew much of the legends and the prophecy. His sister spent nearly all of her waking hours now with this woman, on direct orders from the king.

His sister.

The question that burned brightest inside him was if what Sabina told him was true—that Lucia was born to a different family and brought to the castle as a baby to be raised as a full-blooded Damora. Since he was not yet two years old when the queen allegedly had given birth to her, he had no memory of this.

The second day after Sabina’s death, Magnus couldn’t hold any of this in a moment longer. He needed answers. And staring at his sister’s face across the table at dinner last night without being able to speak to her about this possibility had proved too much for him to bear. With his father absent there was only one other person in the castle who’d be able to tell him the truth.

“Magnus,” Queen Althea greeted him outside after his archery class. With war looming, his lessons had increased at the king’s request in number and intensity, but he’d been able to keep up. He was ready for a fight—and if it was one guaranteed to spill blood, it didn’t bother him.

His mother enjoyed taking afternoon walks around the palace and through the icy gardens directly next to the cliffs. When he was a boy, she’d stare out at the seemingly endless Silver Sea and tell him tales of what was on the other side—realms filled with strange people and fantastical creatures.

His mother had long since stopped telling him such amusing stories. Along with Limeros’s climate, her personality had steadily grown colder over the years. The warmer moments now were barely noticeable.

“Mother,” he said, casting a glance at the swirling white-crested water crashing to the rocks far below.

“I was about to look for you. There’s a message waiting for you from your father delivered earlier by falcon.” Her long gray hair was loose and swept back by the cold wind from her aging face. She wore a full cloak and her normally pale cheeks were bright with color from the chill.

He got right to the point. “Did Sabina Mallius steal Lucia from her cradle in Paelsia and bring her here for you to raise as your daughter?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped to his. “What?”

“You heard me.”