A Passion for Potions (Petalfall #1)

76. Seventy-Six - The Knight’s Reward

Seventy-Six - The Knight’s Reward

Ana

Aprica changed into a monstrosity of a gown before we returned to the throne room. Her handmaidens and companions cooed over my dress while they laced her into the taffeta roses and feathered cape.

It hangs off one shoulder and I already know what the scar there is from.

Her sycophants look up at her with an awe I’m not sure she fully approves of. That awe turns to me as soon as she says my last name and I certainly don’t approve of it.

Some of them know what I’ve only just learned and I wish I could run down the short stairs to let Penny and Viggo know there’s nothing to worry about anymore.

But Aprica holds my hand tight, as if she knows I want to flee.

“Thirty years ago, Ana’s father went to war for me.” She turns her full attention to me, her enormous train wrapping around her legs like a coiling snake. “Thirty years ago, he was prepared to die in this very spot. For me.”

She takes my chin in her hands, tipping my face up so that I meet her eyes.

“Sir Eventide did not love me when he did this. He was simply a man with a sword and a belief in me and my rule. The war was almost over... my legions had all but won. And the enemy sent a band of mercenaries as a last hope to topple these lands and subjugate us.

“But all those years ago a simple man with a sword stood in front of this very throne and fought off a dozen assassins who wished me dead.” She brushes her fingers over her shoulder and the shimmering scar there. “They would have succeeded if not for your father.”

She glances down at Penny with a soft smile on her pink lips. “What, I wonder, would an Eventide do for an elf she does love? What would she do for two men who love her in return? Two men that others conspire to steal from her?”

“Two concerns were brought to me. Two concerns that shared a similar reasoning, though not the same sentiment. Both feared what would happen when you die, sweet little human.” She looks down at them. “Stronger men than both of yours have withered away from that kind of loss. Two feared this. But only one of them was sincere.

“Tell my court how the story ends.”

I take a deep breath, pausing only long enough to be certain she wants the answer.

“The Queen gave him a piece of her soul, so that he could live forever. And they lived happily ever after.”

She laughs, it is a low and musical sound. “He did take liberties with his telling. I offered him a piece of my soul and he refused it.”

A hushed murmur echoes through the room, but she pays them no attention even though this is all for them.

“He loved your mother too much to take it.”

She lifts the necklace from my bodice again. The golden chain glitters in the elf lights that have floated lower as she spoke, and the pendant is warm.

Again, I’m struck by the way it matches her skin.

“He asked, instead, that it be given to his first born. A daughter he hadn’t yet met. Had he not died, he would have brought you to me on your twenty-seventh birthday to claim it.”

She touches the gem itself and the stone swirls as though filling with smoke, until it is opaque.

“You can’t live forever,” she says, softly. “None of us can, but you will live as long as I do.”

She meets my eyes and their mirror shine reflects me back at her. “Will you take this gift your father left for you?”

“Yes.” I thought I would only have my lifetime to love them... if she can give me longer, I’ll take it.

“Are you sure? It will change you, but not in any way that truly matters.”

“I am.”

She picks the gem up, admiring it once more, and then places it against my chest. Pressing one finger to the center of the gem, she says, “then you will have my lifetime to love and be loved in return.”

I gasp as a sharp pain burns through my throat and chest and when she releases me, I fall back, but I don’t hit the polished tiles at the bottom of the stairs.

Clutching at my chest, holding tight to that necklace, I feel hands on my back, lips at my ear, murmuring soft words.

I feel something coil around my heart and seep across my skin.

The pain subsides as quickly as it appeared and I look up to Penny and Viggo, kneeling beside me.

“I’m alright.” The gem that held her promise is now as white as milk and sparkly as a diamond.

Whispers echo in the room around us and I hear someone say, “her skin.”

I raise my hand, looking at my fingers... my palm... I am pink.

Not the same pink as the Queen, but close.

All the skin I can see—and I know the skin I can’t, too—is pink.

The Queen descends to me. “You are mine now, Anastacia. Until you take them as your own in front of the Goddess, and then, the three of you will belong only to each other.”

She leans down to whisper so that only I may hear. “Love them with all of your heart and no one will ever come between you.”