Chapter 8
The house is silent as I slip out of my tower and make my way downstairs.
It’s early morning and typically the servants would be awake and bustling around the manor, but due to the snowstorm and the wedding last night everyone seems to be sleeping in.
I’m relieved when I reach the entrance hall and glance across toward the sitting room and find it empty.
Jett, Connell and Fox obviously finally went to bed.
My chest squeezes painfully at the thought, but I ignore the feeling as I turn and march through the formal dining room to the kitchen.
I expect that I’ll be able to stay at inns along the way to Thermia, but I still need to bring some food for the journey, just in case I’m unable to find somewhere to eat.
I push open the door to the kitchen and I’m surprised to find Beatrix already in there.
She’s standing looking out the snowy window, seemingly lost in thought.
There’s a teapot on the long counter in front of her, but it looks as if she’s gotten distracted halfway through filling it and never finished making the tea.
At the sound of the door opening, she spins around.
“Oh, good morning dear, I’m surprised to see you out of bed.” Beatrix’s eyebrows raise, and her gaze falls slowly over my clothing, the large satchel over one shoulder, and finally to Eugene perched on the other shoulder.
“…but it seems like you have things to do this morning,” she says lightly. “Places to be, perhaps?”
My throat suddenly feels dry and I can’t find the words to answer her.
I feel like a naughty child—like I’m doing something wrong, and Beatrix is going to scold me.
I have to physically shake my head to try to clear that absurd thought.
Beatrix hasn’t been in charge of where I go or what I do in decades.
Back when I was in hiding things were different.
The former king Thorne is—was—my father, but I’ve never truly thought of him that way.
Beatrix always made sure I understood that my father couldn’t handle even the smallest threat to his throne, including his own heir.
If he’d ever known I existed he would have killed me.
But now Thorne is dead, and I can leave home at any time.
“Why don’t you sit?” Beatrix says.
“I came in here to get some food from the pantry.”
“I can help with that. You sit and we can talk while I make a basket for you.”
I sigh, knowing that it’s pointless to argue with her. She can’t stop me from going, but I’m not going to get out of this room without talking first. “Alright.”
Beatrix disappears into the pantry, and emerges again a few minutes later with her arms full of sourdough bread, jars of jam, strips of venison jerky wrapped in wax paper and a wedge of sharp cheese with its rind crumbling slightly at the edges.
She arranges everything in a neat row on the worn wooden counter, her fingers lingering momentarily on a pile of dried apricots as if counting them.
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” she asks, glancing from me to the enormous pile of food.
Part of me wants to tell her about the ordeal with Fox and the mortifying conversation a few hours ago, but I can’t bring myself to explain it. “I’m not sure,” I shrug. “Until my birthday at least.”
She nods, looking unsurprised. “So you’re going to see the lights at last?”
“Yes. I think now is as good a time as any.”
“I know,” she says, pivoting to face the counter again where she takes up a knife and begins slicing the cheese into smaller portions. “I told you last year I was surprised that you hadn’t jumped at the first opportunity to go. Are you scared?”
“No,” I say too quickly, then blush when she gives me a pointed look over her shoulder. “Alright, a little.”
“That’s understandable. You’ve never left the village.”
“That’s not entirely true anymore,” I protest. “I’ve explored some of Vernallis in the last couple of years.”
“But this is different. You’ll be going to another kingdom.” She bites her lip, obviously thinking hard. “Perhaps you should take someone with you. Jett, maybe? Or Fox if he’s not too busy.”
“No!” I protest. “I don’t need them. I’m perfectly capable of traveling. Jett travels all over the continent alone and no one has a problem with it.”
“That’s different,” she says gently.
“Because he’s a man?” I reply bitterly.
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “No, because he wouldn’t be in danger if anyone knew who he was.”
I sigh. “Thorne is dead. I’m not in danger anymore.”
“…true,” she says, sounding unsure.
“What’s wrong?” I demand. “If there’s something else you’re not telling me…?”
Beatrix looks tired. She stops slicing the bread, and dusts flour off her hands, before turning to me.
“There is, actually. I probably should have told you this years ago. At the same time, I wish I didn’t have to tell you now.
I think you might be angry with me for keeping it from you either way, but I hope you know I was just trying to protect you. ”
My eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
She draws air through her teeth, shoulders slumping as she exhales. The wooden chair legs scrape against the stone floor as she pulls it out and lowers herself into it. When she lifts her chin to meet my eyes, the morning light from the window catches the steel in her gaze.
“I still remember the day your mother arrived at court,” she says, fingers tracing invisible patterns on the table.
“Thorne paraded her through the great hall like a prize from his travels to Solistine. She wore this simple blue dress, nothing fancy, but she was shockingly beautiful. Her eyes…” Beatrix’s gaze grows distant.
“When she cast her first spell for the court, every candle in the chandelier blazed emerald green. Even Thorne looked startled.”
“That’s not especially difficult to do,” I comment, waving a hand toward the oil lamp on the wall. Both Beatrix and I watch as the light flares green.
Beatrix smiles faintly. “I know for you it isn’t difficult, you’ve always reminded me of Amora in that respect. Your personality is nothing like hers was, but your magic is the same.”
My eyes widen slightly, and my fingers curl into an unconscious fist, snuffing out the light from the oil lamp.
Beatrix almost never uses my mother’s name—Amora—and hearing it now sends a strange shiver down my spine.
“What was she like, then? You’ve never told me what she was like, just that we’re different. ”
“She was…intense,” Beatrix says, seeming to struggle to find the right word to describe my mother.
“From the moment Amora arrived, I was assigned to attend to her. Every night, I’d draw her bath, then brush her hair while she practiced incantations from Solistine and told me stories of her home.
Having grown up in near poverty, she always believed she was destined for more than her simple life.
Consequently, she wasn’t surprised when the king visited her village and discovered her.
She didn’t miss her life before at all, and believed she deserved the extravagant new life she’d been given. ”
“She sounds like Thorne,” I comment darkly.
“No, no,” Beatrix rushes to say. “She wasn’t cruel or distant the way he was, she was…
driven, and for whatever it’s worth she did care for Thorne.
Your mother was brilliant, but she had a blind spot where the king was concerned.
He’d rescued her and given her everything so she really did love him and she’d convinced herself that it was mutual. ”
“Maybe she didn’t believe he loved her back. Maybe she just wanted that so much she was willing to ignore the obvious.”
Beatrix gives me a searching look, then purses her lips.
“Maybe. Regardless, she was absolutely crushed when Thorne changed his mind about their marriage and threw her out of his court. As you know, I couldn’t just abandon her along with everyone else.
I knew she was pregnant by this point, though hardly anyone else did.
I had this house all to myself as my husband was long dead and Daemon had been banished, so I brought your mother here and helped her through her pregnancy. ”
“When she was about halfway along we both noticed that her belly had grown larger than what would have been typical, and a few months after that when she could feel two babies kicking we were sure that it was twins.”
I gasp, shocked. “What?”
“Yes,” Beatrix looks sad. “I think this is the part when you may be angry with me. I know I should have told you all this years ago, but I knew if I did you wouldn’t be willing to stay in hiding anymore.
You would have risked your life to learn everything, and Thorne would have found out and killed you or worse, sent you to Dyaspora like he did to Daemon.
I’d already lost one child, I couldn’t bear to lose another. ”
“Tell me now then,” I demand. “What happened? Did I have a…sibling?”
Beatrix nods. “You did. Your mother refused to talk about the twins with me, it was as if she was in denial, though I never knew why it mattered to her. Two babies wouldn’t have been much more difficult to hide than one, and we’d already made a plan for that.”
“We agreed that she would travel across the border to Thermia to give birth and that I would go with her. We didn’t want you or the other baby born in Vernallis, because at that time the entire kingdom was under the curse.
Your mother thought that if you were born outside the kingdom it might not affect you, and she turned out to be right about that. ”