Chapter Fifty-Nine Caspia
Fifty-Nine
Caspia
Emery and Aunt Oleana stand side by side in the castle mews, looking out over Showe.
“I forbid it, Emery,” Oleana says. “Your place is here with your daughter. Graciella has spent her life without you.”
“She had you.”
“I’m not her mother. Caspia and Xandra made their choices. As you made yours. The time has come for you to take your place in the Starling dynasty.”
Emery stares into the distance as a breeze tickles the ends of her wild red curls. It’s longer than it was when she left. Thinner.
She’s older. Tired. Grieving. She wears a simple cream dress that leaves her arms bare. Her skin is covered in scars.
“Do you think I wanted to be taken captive by the Beesans, Aunt Oleana?” she asks, her voice lifeless.
“Do you think I intended to spend Graciella’s life in a rotting hole in Beesa, my blood stolen by their alchemists for experiments?
Do you think I wanted to watch the love of my life be chained and tortured?
To live at the mercy of those bastards who used my child against me until she finally broke? ”
Emery swallows hard, dropping her gaze to the floor.
She presses a hand to her empty womb. A tear falls from her eye, landing next to her bare toes.
“They took my child. They ripped her from my arms and used her to keep me captive. Just like they used Max. We were only meant to be gone for a short time. To sail to Azzon for a lune and return home after tempers had cooled. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Oleana’s chin quivers as she stares into the distance. “For what they did to you, they will pay. I vow it. But you leaving here to chase after your sister solves nothing.”
“I cannot abandon them. Caspia and Xandra left to avenge me. If there is even a chance they’re alive after all this time, I cannot forsake them. I cannot live knowing I didn’t try.”
“They are gone. It’s been twenty-four summers. Let them go.” Oleana’s nostrils flare, but tears fill her eyes. Tears of a woman realizing no matter how hard she tries, she cannot save Emery’s life. “Caspia’s vision was of your death.”
“You don’t believe in Caspia’s visions.”
Oleana turns away from the city. “I do now.”
Emery waits until she is gone. Then she stands tall, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Fixed on a land she cannot see.
A land that will be her doom.
…
My lady’s maid stood behind me at the vanity, working a plait into my hair. Her fingers stilled. Again. When I glanced up, her gaze was not on my hair but in the mirror, staring at Andreas in its reflection. Again.
He sat in the rocking chair with our daughter in his arms. An adoring smile pulled at his lips as he traced the line of her delicate nose.
His teal coat was unbuttoned and the white shirt beneath open to reveal a sliver of taut skin and the hollow beneath his throat.
The scar from the lionwick attack was raised but no longer pink.
His golden hair was neatly combed, his jaw clean-shaven. His caramel eyes caught the light streaming through the open windows, making the amber starbursts glow.
I couldn’t blame the maid for staring.
My husband had never looked more beautiful.
“Margot,” I murmured.
Her blue eyes snapped to mine in the mirror, and her cheeks flushed. “Sorry, Majesty.”
I pulled in my lips to hide a smile as she returned to the braid.
Margot was one of many people in this castle in love with the king, myself included.
Andreas’s crown was sitting on the table beside the rocking chair. He was still adjusting to wearing it every sun.
During the final lune of my pregnancy, Andreas’s mother had been taking a stroll through the castle’s gardens when she collapsed. She died before the healers could be summoned. They believed her heart had given out.
It happened on the anniversary of Arick’s death.
Malynn’s passing to Gloree shocked the kingdom and devastated the Cross family. Andreas’s father withered in only weeks and, in his grief, decided it was time to pass the crown to his heir.
Andreas took his vows three suns after the baby was born. He swore oaths and assumed the role of king. He signed treaties in his blood that were bound by Voster magic by the brotherhood’s appointed emissary, a priest named Brother Dime.
I skipped that part of the ceremony, choosing to stay hidden away in this suite. The baby’s rooms were my favorite part of the castle these suns.
As queen, I made a few short, select appearances at the ceremonies and celebrations. But I kept them to a minimum, wanting as little attention as possible, especially if there were Voster in the castle.
When Brother Dime finally left, Andreas and I had both breathed a huge sigh of relief that he’d been none the wiser to the orbit locked away deep within the king’s vaults beneath the castle.
But it meant our quest to find the other orbits was indefinitely delayed. The treaties Andreas had signed as king would limit his freedom and actions. He’d effectively been chained by their rules.
I hoped that eventually the orbits could all be destroyed. That the Six would be put to an end and magic in Calandra erased. I hoped my visions were wrong and I’d get to see that future. Not all of them came true.
Except we still didn’t know how to destroy the orbits. So for now, that worry had been cast aside. We were enjoying these quiet suns with our daughter.
Beside Andreas’s crown was a carved wooden rattle—a gift from Faxon and Kos.
Tomorrow, I was taking her to the library. It was time to take her out of this suite and introduce her to my friends.
She was only three lunes old, but I had no doubt that my tiny, precious Quentin princess would win hearts around the castle. Though the heart she’d stolen first was mine. Andreas’s was a close second.
I’d almost convinced myself we were having a boy because of the vision I’d had of Andreas with his blond son. But when the midwife announced the baby was a girl, it wasn’t really a surprise.
The Starling only had daughters.
So I didn’t think about the vision of Andreas with a son. I didn’t let myself fret over what that meant. I was ignoring the sinking feeling in my stomach because if I thought about the visions too much, I couldn’t breathe.
So I didn’t think about the future I saw in my dreams. I blocked out the visions and prayed every morning that by the grace of the Divine, our fates would change.
If they didn’t, well…
I was grateful for the chance to learn the truth, even if it wasn’t gentle.
I’d been gifted a chance to see Emery in her final suns. To learn why she’d come to Calandra—for me.
I wished, so much, that I could send a message to Nelfinex. That I could tell her to stay. To listen to Aunt Oleana. To forget finding Xandra and me.
She wouldn’t. Emery would come here and meet her end by the silver-eyed warrior.
If only I’d known back when I was in the palace in Showe that the vision of her death was of the future. Maybe it would all be different.
Even so, I’d never regret coming to Calandra. Not when it meant Andreas and our daughter.
Not when it meant answers to so many questions.
In another vision I’d had weeks ago, a vision of the past, I’d watched my mother fly to Calandra. Her death, like my sister’s, had been a mercy. A monster slain to save countless others.
The silver-eyed warrior would kill Emery. A Voster priest who didn’t walk on the earth but floated above it had killed our mother.
At least through that vision, I’d had the chance to see my mother’s face, just once, even if it had been in death.
She looked like me. We had the same wild, red curls.
My daughter would look like me, too.
The visions I’d had of my beautiful girl were a painful, glorious gift.
Margot’s fingers fumbled with a lock of hair, and on her gasp, the entire plait came apart. Her eyes closed, defeat weighing on her shoulders.
My hair was difficult at best, and braiding it was always easier if it was wet. But the curls were dry, and today, Margot was losing the battle.
“Don’t worry about the braid. Let’s tie it back,” I said.
“Are you certain, Majesty? I can try again. It’s easier if I have your comb. I’ll run to your suite and fetch it.”
“It’s all right.” I offered a smile at her through the mirror.
She returned it, but only for a heartbeat before she quickly averted her eyes. Ever since the baby’s delivery, she’d struggled to meet my gaze.
Maybe in time she’d be able to look at me again, but I couldn’t fault her for being afraid.
It wasn’t every sun you helped a midwife deliver a child from a woman with green blood.
We’d kept my pregnancy a secret from the masses, mostly because of Hain’s warning to hide my truths. I’d disguised my belly in thick cloaks and billowing gowns. And when there had been no more hiding it, I’d sequestered myself to Andreas’s and my suite.
Nathalia, the woman I’d met the sun I wandered the streets of Roslo in my bare feet, carrying ruined slippers, had been my midwife. We’d moved her into the castle to help with the birth.
Then we’d hired her to become the nursemaid. Hali was as smitten with my daughter as Margot was my husband.
To her credit, Margot hadn’t asked to be reassigned or run to the papermen to spill my secret. She’d stayed on as my lady’s maid—though I suspected it was more for the chance to be near Andreas than it was for me.
That, and if she did tell people I had green blood, Andreas would probably kill her. Instead, she was being paid a hefty sum to assist me and keep her mouth shut.
Margot took hold of a piece of my hair and, once again, let her gaze flicker to Andreas. She didn’t just fancy him. She was in love with him, wasn’t she?
That should probably bother me more, but I had nothing to worry about.
Andreas’s heart belonged to me.
It was mine and mine alone.
Still, I’d had enough of her ogling my husband. I held out my hand, palm up. “I’ll do it, Margot. That will be all.”