Chapter 23
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
Calla Luminara…
The Fae princess…
The female who wrote the diary clutched in my hands… She married a human.
The truth slams into me, sudden and disorienting, and with it comes another realization, one that makes my pulse stutter. I think I know exactly which human she chose.
Anders says nothing. He doesn’t need to. His gaze stays fixed on me as the implications tear through my thoughts, one after another, faster than I can stop them.
Did the Fae princess abandon her throne to marry the human prince? Is that how Marek seized control of Eranthia?
No.
She wouldn’t.
Calla’s last entry confessed she’d lose her prince once her father passed. She never planned to give up her throne for her lover.
My grip on the books tightens.
How many centuries ago did this happen?
The Fae live long lives. I have no idea how long Marek has been the Shadow King…
How long ago did one female’s choice rock the foundation of the world, leading the continent down a dark path under Marek’s rule?
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Who did the princess marry?”
Anders sighs. “King Korrin Ravenspire, your infamous Late King.”
What?
Like a bolt of lightning striking a tree in the Forbidden Forest, my mind splits down the middle.
The room tilts.
I stumble back and bump into the bookshelf.
“No.” I shake my head. “That can’t be true.”
King Korrin was our renowned human king. The Gods blessed him, gifted him the strength and wisdom required to rule our lands while opposing the ever-threatening Fae knocking at the Veil’s door.
His reign was marked by decades of success, punctuated by a grisly end when he was assassinated by the current Fae king just before the villain ruptured the Veil separating our worlds.
Next to nothing is said about his queen.
I never wondered why.
Women aren’t valued in Astloria.
My breathing grows labored.
Anders’s face blurs as he steps closer. I blink to clear my vision. His solemn frown stings.
“You really didn’t know…” he murmurs the words, but they clang around in my head as loud as the bells that chime through Virendrell morning, noon, and night.
If King Korrin married the Fae princess, that means all his children…
How many were there? Four? Five?
They were part Fae.
And all of their descendants… They’d be part Fae, too.
My gaze snaps to Anders.
Rumors said Marek hunted down every one of King Korrin’s descendants at the end of the war.
That every time he sent Shadow Fae into our lands, it was to raze towns allegedly harboring anyone with the distant royal bloodline.
But what if that’s not true? What if some of them escaped?
What if some of them escaped to Virendrell?
“Go ahead,” Anders says gently. “Ask your question.”
Impossible.
I have too many.
I lift my chin. “I want to know everything.”
“Good.” A subtle, proud grin curls his lips. “Come with me.”
Names, dates, and ages on the page blur together. One multi-syllable name mingling with another.
I sit at a rectangular table tucked underneath a tall window overlooking the glistening sea surrounding Virendrell. The sun shines through the clean glass, striking the massive book spread out in front of me.
Anders sits across from me, leaning back in an armchair, hands laced over his stomach, eyes closed.
White streaks highlight his blond hair. His handsome features are cast in relief, relaxed. Calm. So unlike the emotions flowing through my veins and settling thickly in my gut.
For on the pages in the book before me rests the lineage of King Ravenspire from the last one hundred years. A lineage that challenges everything I ever thought I knew about the revered human king.
My fingers hover over the names linked by a solid black line at the top of the page.
Korrin Ravenspire — Calla Luminara
Anders wasn’t lying. The Fae princess married the human king.
Below them are three names. Their children. The heirs to both Fae and human thrones. A thin penmark slashes through each of them, conveying their deaths.
But their demise did not occur before each of them created families of their own.
I try to sum the names, but by the time I reach the middle of the page, my mind drifts.
There are so many. Dozens of descendants of the human king and his Fae bride. Every single one of them is dead, their names marred by the same slash.
So many lives were stolen when King Marek seized the throne—so many innocents whose only crime was being born to a forbidden relationship between human and Fae.
A crime that Princess Calla’s father, King Alaric Luminara, overlooked out of love for his daughter.
I lift my gaze. “I’m confused.”
“That is unsurprising.” Anders’s eyes slowly open. “Given how many lies you were fed in your homeland.”
My fingers dig into my skirt. “Calla’s diary said her father was sick. She wrote like she was already mourning him long before she ever wed King Korrin.”
“That must’ve been his first bout of illness.”
“First?” I blink. “There were more?”
“Years of it.” Anders plants his feet on the ground and scoots so he sits upright in the chair, his laced fingers resting on his lap. “A debilitating condition plagued King Alaric the last sixty-three years of his rule until he succumbed to its effects twelve years before the Veil fell.”
When the Shadow War started…
I lean back. My chair creaks. “I didn’t know.”
Before Darius, I thought of Fae as near-invincible. Nothing but a blade to the heart or throat could kill them. I never suspected the superior race could perish from something as mundane as an illness.
“Again, that is unsurprising,” Anders replies with a grim expression. “Though, not for the reason you think.”
“What do you mean?”
He stares at his hands, tapping his forefingers together.
“Fae do not get sick in the way humans do. In fact,” he continues, meeting my stare with a loaded one of his own, “they very rarely get sick. And those who do often suffer due to the actions of another.”
I search his eyes.
I think of Darius in that cell—of Petra shoving that vial of smoky liquid down his throat.
My pulse quickens. “Are you saying someone made the Fae king ill?”
“I’m saying King Alaric died under suspicious circumstances. And that made his daughter’s subsequent ascension to the throne…difficult.”
“They suspected her of killing him?”
He nods. “Some did.”
“But why?” I frown, recalling the brief history lesson Anders delivered before he opened the lineage book spread before me. “The king allowed Calla to marry a human and remain his heir. He loved her. What would she have to gain from his death?”
Anders lifts a brow. “Aside from a throne?”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe it.”
The diary entries I’ve read were written by a loving, devoted daughter and a female madly in love. I sense no ambition or greed. No devious intent.
Granted, the diary entries were written decades before her father’s death. Things could have changed. But my gut says that’s not true.
“Neither do I,” he says with a shrug. “But others believed it. Hence, the War of Blood and Shadows began.”
“The what?”
“The War of Blood and Shadows,” he repeats. “Or, as humans call it, The War of Shadows.”
I blink. “You’re saying the war was started because some Fae didn’t want Calla to take the throne?”
“I’m saying King Marek used his brother’s death and his niece's unorthodox relationship to stoke the fires of rebellion and begin the bloodiest war in Fae history.”
A loud cough echoes through the library.
I stiffen and whip my head around. Rows of books greet me. No one is in sight.
Anders clears his throat and draws a pocket watch out of his loose trousers, noting the time. “I must go soon. Do you have other questions before I leave?”
Only a thousand.
“What’s a Brownie?”
His gaze snaps back to mine. “Pardon?”
“A Brownie.” I shove back my instinct to be secretive.
This isn’t Verdanthia. Magic isn’t forbidden, and Fae are openly discussed. There’s no punishment waiting for me.
“My adoptive mother… Someone once referred to her as a Brownie.”
“Ah. The prince, I assume?”
The marks on my arm constrict, and my throat tightens.
“Excuse me?” I choke out.
Surely he doesn’t know Rian is really the—
“Relax.” Anders cuts off the thought, his smile tight. “I’m aware of who Rian is. We’ve been acquainted for a long time.”
My heart thrums wildly in my chest.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to deny whatever Anders is about to say. For all I know, this could be a trap.
He could be lulling me into compliance with this tale about King Korrin. He could be using my thirst for knowledge to get close so he can learn more about the males who brought me to Virendrell.
I curl my hands, bracing myself for whatever comes out of his mouth next.
“A Brownie is a creature known for their loyalty,” he answers.
My fists relax. “A creature?”
Many men have referred to Juniper as such thanks to her no-nonsense, tenacious nature. But not in the way Anders means.
“The Fae Realm is littered with many kinds of sentient beings,” Anders says. “They haven’t reached our shores because, well, travel is hard to come by. But once, Fae coexisted harmoniously with all sorts of beings in Eranthia.”
I can’t imagine Fae coexisting with anyone. All I know is their intolerance. Their destruction.
That’s not true.
Rian and his cadre have helped me more than once since we’ve met, albeit with mostly abrasive attitudes.
Anders continues, “Brownies are a race of creatures prone to serve Fae noble houses for generations, often only venturing out on their own when there is no one left to serve.”
He looks meaningfully at the diary.
My stomach drops. “You think my adoptive mother served Calla’s family?”
“It’s very likely,” he says, eyes resting on the thin leather book placed on the edge of the table. “I can’t think of another reason she’d possess that diary.”
Me either.
I take a deep breath.
Could it be possible? Is Juniper a being from beyond the Veil?
She didn’t react to the Shadow Fae or their glamour. And she wasn't shocked by Anton’s secret identity.
Except my mother is the one who left the diary with her…