A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

Odetta coughed out a raspy laugh. “After all these years, now you’re going to ask?”

I nodded.

“There a reason you’re asking now?”

“Not really.” I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve always wondered about.”

“And you thought you’d ask before I kicked the bucket?”

I frowned. “No—” White, bushy brows crept up on her forehead. I sighed. “Okay. Maybe.”

Her laugh was dry and raspy, but her eyes brightened with a sharpness that erased much of the dullness. “I hate to disappoint you, child, but that’s not a question I can answer. It’s what the Fates claimed upon your birth. Only the Fates can tell you what that means.”

Chapter 5

Stifling a yawn the following morning, I entered the quiet, candlelit room through the door often used by servants. My steps were a bit sluggish as I crossed the stillness of the Queen’s sitting room. Between the annoying headache that hadn’t gone away until this morning, and trying to figure out Odetta’s vague non-answer to my question, I hadn’t slept well the night before.

I didn’t even know why I tried to understand what Odetta had meant. That wasn’t the first time she’d spoken in what reminded me of a riddle. And to be honest, half of the time, I truly believed she was simply embellishing whatever she was saying. Like the Fates—the Arae—claiming that both life and death had touched me upon my birth. How would Odetta even know that? She wouldn’t.

Shaking my head, I passed the plush ivory settees, my steps silent against the thick carpet. I made my way to the back of the long, narrow chamber on the second floor, where two candelabras burned. I’d never known a time when those candles hadn’t been lit.

In the still, rose-scented chamber, I looked up at the painting of King Lamont Mierel and took the time to really soak in his image, knowing my mother would be at brunch at this time. It was safe to look upon him now.

My father.

There was a tightness in my chest, a pressure that I thought could be grief, but I wasn’t sure how I could mourn someone I’d never met.

He’d died shortly after my birth, having leapt from Wayfair’s east tower. No one had ever said why. No one ever spoke of it. But I often wondered if my birth—the reminder of what his forefather had done—had driven him to it.

I swallowed as I took in the image of him captured in such detail it was as if he stood before me in white and plum robes, the golden crown of leaves resting upon hair the color of the richest red wine.

His hair fell in loose waves to his shoulders while my hair was, well, a mess of tight and loose curls…and knots that tangled their way down to my hips. Our brows were shaped the same, arching in a manner that gave me the appearance that I was questioning or judging something. The curve of our mouths was identical, but somehow his had been captured with the corners tilted upward in a soft smile, while according to the Queen on more than one occasion, I looked sullen. He had a smattering of freckles along the bridge of his nose, but it looked like someone had dipped a brush in brown paint and flicked tiny brown spots all over my face. His eyes were a forest green like mine, but it was how those eyes had been painted that always got to me.

There was no light in his stare, no glimmer of life or hidden mirth to match the curve of his mouth. His eyes were haunted, and I wasn’t sure how an artist could capture such emotion with oils, but clearly, they had.

Looking into those eyes was hard.

Looking at him at all was difficult. He had more masculine, far more refined features than I did, but we shared so much that I wondered long before I’d failed if that was one of the reasons my mother had struggled to gaze upon me for any length of time. Because I knew she’d loved him. That a large part of her still did, even if she had found space to hold tender feelings for King Ernald. That was why those candles were never extinguished. It was why King Ernald never entered this sitting room and why when the painful headaches struck my mother, she retreated to here instead of to the chambers she shared with her husband. It was why she often spent hours in here, alone with this painting of Lamont.

I often wondered if they were mates of the heart—if there was even such a thing that was written about in poems and songs. Two halves of a whole. It was said that the touch between one was full of energy and that their souls would recognize one another. It was even said that they could walk in the dreams of another, and that the loss of one wasn’t something repairable.