The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash 3)

Forcing myself to sit back, I waited until she’d pulled herself together…and she did, just like I knew she would. It took a couple of minutes, but her shoulders stilled, and her hands lowered. Puffy, glassy eyes stared out from behind tear-soaked lashes. “It’s my fault.”

“No shit,” I snapped. At least, partially, it was. Because I…I had lost control. I’d given Isbeth the opening she needed.

She flinched. “I…I didn’t want people to know she’d won.”

I stilled. Everything in me stilled. “What?”

“It was…it was my ego. There’s no other way for me to say it. I loved Malec once upon a time. I thought the moon and sun set and rose with him. And she wasn’t like the other women. She sank her claws into him, and I knew…I knew he loved her—loved her more than he loved me. I didn’t want people to know that in the end, even with Malec entombed, she didn’t just win, she became a Queen,” she admitted hoarsely. “Became the Crown that forced us to remain behind the Skotos Mountains, used our people to make monsters, and took—took my children. I didn’t want Casteel to know that the same woman who’d taken my first husband was who’d held him and then his brother. She won in the end, and…she’s still managing to tear my family and kingdom apart.”

Now I was the one struck speechless.

“I was embarrassed,” she continued. “And I didn’t…I know it’s no excuse. It just became something that was never spoken. A lie that became a reality after hundreds of years. Only Valyn and Alastir knew the truth.”

Alastir.

Of course.

“And their son?” I said. “What did you do with Isbeth and Malec’s son? Did you have him killed? Was it Alastir who carried it out?”

Pressing her lips together, she looked up at the ceiling. “Alastir did. He knew of the child before I even did. Valyn doesn’t know about the child at all.”

I stared at her. “Is that why you didn’t want to go to war? Because doing so would mean that Ileana’s real identity would be revealed, along with everything else?”

“Partly,” she admitted as she wiped the heels of her hands under her eyes. “But also because I didn’t want to see more Atlantians and mortals die.” She lowered trembling hands. “Malik is…is well and—” She cleared her throat. “He’s with her?”

“He appeared well, and he supports the Blood Crown. That is all I know,” I told her, sinking farther into the chair. I didn’t know how much of what she said was the truth now, but I did know that the agony I felt from her hadn’t just been sorrow. I recognized that the agony was partly shame now, something she’d carried for hundreds of years and would continue to shoulder. To be honest, I didn’t know what I would’ve done if I had been in her place. The war between her and Isbeth had started long before the first vampry had been created, and it’d never ended. “Malec wasn’t a deity.”

“I…I can see that.” She sniffed. “I mean, I saw that when you showed Gregori what you were. But I don’t understand. Malec —”

“He lied to you,” I said, spreading my hands along the arms of the chair. “I don’t know why, but he is one of Nyktos’s sons. He’s a god.”

Her surprise couldn’t be fabricated, and it cooled some of my anger. “I didn’t know—”

“I know.” I curled my fingers around the edges of the arms. “Malec confided in Isbeth. She knew.”

Eloana flinched as she let out a low whistle. “That stings more than it should.”

“Maybe you never stopped loving Malec.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, staring at her lap now. “I love Valyn. I love him dearly and fiercely. I also loved Malec, even though I don’t think I…knew anything about him. But I think Malec will always own a part of my heart.”

And the part owned by Malec would always belong to him, and that was…that was just sad.

“Isbeth is my mother,” I told her, and her eyes shot to mine. “I’m the daughter of her and Malec. And I married your son.”

She paled once more.

“It was a part of her plan,” I continued as Vonetta leaned into my leg. “That I would marry Malik and take Atlantia. With my bloodline and a Prince at my side, there would be absolutely nothing that could be done. But in a twist of fate, I married Casteel instead.”

“Her plan worked, then,” she rasped.

“No, it hasn’t,” I replied. “I will not take Atlantia in her name.”

“She has Malik and Casteel,” she countered, her tone hardening. “How has she not won?”

“She won’t kill them. Malik is helping her, and she can use Casteel against me like she used your sons against Atlantia,” I told her.

Her lips thinned. “I still don’t see how she hasn’t won.”

“Because I’m not you.” I noted the faint wince, and I didn’t even want to feel bad for inflicting it. “I have been used my entire life in one way or another, and I will not be used again. I know what I am now. I know what it means to have had the power in me this whole time. My brother’s death wasn’t in vain. Neither was Lyra’s. I understand now.”