Chapter 45
Elowyn
Iawoke to firelight dancing on decorated crimson walls, the scent of leather, lavender, and clean linens embracing me. Through stained glass, Guardian’s Watch slumbered in the early dawn amid a world thawing under sparse spring snow.
“Elowyn, you’re awake.” The pure relief that flooded me at the sound of that familiar voice brought instant tears to my eyes. Vega.
She rushed to my bedside, her cold hands on my cheeks, pulling me from the darkness I’d been lost in. Tears welled in both our eyes.
“You’re awake, thank the Guardians, you are awake!”
Through an uncontainable smile I asked, “Where am I?”
“Safe, back at Highthorn Castle,” she said, perched on my bed as I sat up. My head rushed and body complained with the movement.
“But … how?”
“The queen.” My blood ran cold. “Her ships found you at sea, with a captain. Apparently it was her son, Arlo Gyldford.” Hearing his full name made my heart stumble.
“He was the captain of your ship bound for Whiterok that crashed. Well, you know that, of course.” I searched her face for any sign of jest. “He’s here too.
They rescued both of you from the deserted island you’ve been trapped on.
The captain said you fell ill. Thank the Guardians above they found you in time.
” Her smile confirmed it was no joke. “As soon as you arrived, your father summoned me.”
My father called for Vega? In what strange world had I awakened?
“Elowyn, we’ve all been so worried. Your father has been tormented.”
“My father?” I questioned.
Vega smiled and nodded knowingly. “Yes, your father. He thought your disappearance punishment from the Guardians. His only child taken from him for sending her away in the manner he did. He now sees it as a miracle that you live.”
The thought rushed through me then. I grabbed a lock of my hair. But it was solid red, as it had been my whole life. My hands were not webbed. I was no longer a siren. But how? “They found me on an island?”
“How many questions are you going to ask me, you silly little thing?” Vega said with mock annoyance and a sly smile as she rose from my bed and pulled a green wool dress from an armoire.
I rubbed at my hazy head. My body felt as though I had tumbled down a flight of stairs.
“Yes. A ship found you safe, with the captain. Who is very handsome, by the way.” She playfully poked at me, loosening another smile from me the same way she had since childhood.
“So let’s get you dressed. Your father asked to see you the moment you awoke.
I think you’ll want to hear what he has to say. ”
I stood before the same large oak doors of my father’s private room, as rigid and foreboding as the day he banished me to Whiterok.
But fear was absent. That anxious unrest writhing in my stomach was gone.
There was nothing my father could do that would shatter me.
Nothing anyone could do, besides kill me where I stood.
But even then, I would be okay. I wasn’t alone. I never was.
But how did I get here? And the battle, what happened with the battle? My mind probed at the gaps.
The guards on each side opened the doors in unison, the same way they had right before the king sentenced me to wed Cedric.
And I was prepared for him to do so again. Prepared to tell him no. I would not marry Cedric. Or any man. Unless I chose to.
“Elowyn.” My father’s voice broke as he raced toward me, engulfing me in a large hug. “Sweet, sweet daughter,” he said as he rocked me like a small child. “I thought you were dead, oh my love, I am so sorry.”
I didn’t expect it. The hug. The words.
My father, King of Oakhaven, Eadric the Great, took my hands. Purple circles under his eyes above the ruddy cheeks. He looked as though he had aged years in the few weeks I was away.
“Forgive me. Please, forgive me,” he pleaded as tears glossed his amber eyes. “I never should have sent you away.”
Behind him prowled the queen, dressed in a gold gown that brought out the yellow of her eyes. She smiled that too-pleasant smile and tipped her head in my direction. A recognition. “You’ve missed much in your absence, Elowyn. But we’re so happy to have you back,” Queen Jessal said.
I needed to tell my father about the sirens, about the queen’s plotting.
I needed to warn him. I opened my mouth, but then Jessal said, “Wet nurse,” summoning a woman with a bundle of luxurious black fabric swathing a cooing babe.
She took the infant from the nurse, rocking it as she stepped nearer for me to see the little face adorned with faint red wisps of hair.
“Elowyn, meet Edward Blackthorn,” she said, bobbing him up and down. “The heir of Oakhaven.”
Father smiled at the pair as the queen basked in his gaze, the picture of motherhood.
“Jessal has urged me to right a wrong as well,” Father said, pulling me under his arm in a sidelong embrace as we looked at the new little prince.
“I am to reinstate your titles.” Shock worked through me.
“You are a true princess of Oakhaven, and it shall be known to all.” My heart sprang into my throat, tasting metallic and sweet.
“And you are here to stay in court with your family from now on.”
It was everything I had ever wanted.
My father’s love. A place at court. My titles. I stood dumbstruck.
“And the other news,” The queen said, still rocking the babe in her arms. It felt wrong that a baby was in her arms at all. Her child or not. The things she had done to Arlo, to Calypstra. She was pure evil.
“Yes, the captain. As I’m sure you learned, he is of royal blood.
He told us of your harrowing tale. Both the only survivors after the sinking of his ship, and then trapped on a small island alone for days.
” Father smiled, truly, kindly. Filled with love and adoration for me.
The way I’d always wished my father would look at me.
Almost losing me seemed to truly make him see I had worth.
That I was, after all, his flesh and blood.
“The captain explained that through your hardship, you both have fallen in love.”
I almost choked on the accusation, ready to deny it with every breath until my last, to protect him. “It seems the Guardians fated all this. A lesson for me that I’ll surely never forget. Therefore, if you wish, only if you wish,” the king clarified, “I will agree to your union of love.”
He would allow me to marry Arlo, if I chose to. Astonishment rattled through me. “I am not sure that—” I started, but the queen cut me off.
“Eadric, at least let him come in and see her. He’s been waiting for her to wake for days now.”
Days?
“Who?” I questioned.
“Guards, let him in,” Father ordered.
The doors slowly opened and there stood Arlo. Tall and strong and stable Arlo. Clean-shaven, head sheared, and well dressed. The way he looked the first day I met him. The most annoyingly handsome man I’d ever had the misfortune of being imprisoned on a ship by.
“Elowyn.” His voice broke. He charged into the room and scooped me up into his arms, lifting me from my feet.
I never thought I would be safe in his arms again.
“I’m so sorry.” He pressed a kiss onto the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, lifting my feet from the ground.
That warm, hard body that had held me in place below the sea.
“Okay, okay. Enough, Arlo,” the queen scolded playfully. “After all, she is a princess.”
“Oh, let them be,” Father said. “They’re in love.”
Arlo released me and took my face into his calloused hands. “Elowyn, if you want to be married, then we shall be,” he said softly. “Because I love you and I never wish to lose you again.”
He wished to marry me? But what of Calypstra? What of his daughter?
“Give her time.” Father said, clasping Arlo’s shoulder. “She’s tired, I’m sure.”
Then my father took my hand in his large paw and gave it a squeeze, looking first to me, then to little Edward. His heir.
Vega and I walked arm in arm back to my room. There was a strange peace in Highthorn Castle. Spring was soaring to life within its tall walls, the scent of flowers on the crisp air stirring my soul as crickets sang their songs in the distance and the sun set on the somehow-perfect day.
“That captain, he’s something, huh?” Vega snickered. “When can we look at wedding gowns? Also, how do you feel about ice swans?”
“Oh great, let me guess. You have the whole event planned?”
“Just need to send out the invitations,” Vega teased, bumping into me as we walked leisurely through an ivy-covered archway that led up the stairs to the Onyx Chambers.
Father offered to move me to his wing of the castle over dinner, but I had insisted on staying where it was familiar. I also needed distance to comb through the whirlwind of thoughts in my mind.
Vega paused at the door of my bedchambers, waiting to go in.
I turned to her.
“Would you mind if I slept alone tonight?” I asked.
Her soft face twisted to hold back a frown.
“Of course,” she answered. “You’ve spent so many nights without me, I’m sure there’s no need for a governess to be close anymore. Or, I suppose, a governess at all.” She offered me a weak smile.
I gathered her into a hug.
“There is always a need for a friend,” I whispered into her ear.
She squeezed back.
“And you’ll always have one in me.” She pulled away, stroking a caring thumb over my cheek. “I’ll be in the servants’ quarters if you need me.” She curtsied. “Good evening, Princess Elowyn.”
A fire kept the last bit of winter chill away in my bedchamber. Closing the door, a strange feeling washed over me. Somehow, as I slept, the world had gone from tipping seaward to righting itself. But what did it mean? And why did it feel wrong?
Then I spotted an ornate papier-maché box waiting on my bed.
Was it a gift from my father? Carefully, I removed the delicate lid and reached within to find a small red silk bag and a piece of paper.
Un-cinching the bag, I pulled out a crown, its white-gold metal catching the warm glow from the hearth.
At its heart was an impressive blue sapphire.
That crown, it belonged to him. Hylos’s words flew to me, and the battle slammed in unbearable swells of blood and carnage into my mind.
Siren songs wailing as they sank dead into the sea.
Into the body of their mother. Back to Nymphaea.
Then, my ears rang with that awful, horrendous sound that turned my world to black.
I threw the crown on the bed, ridding myself of the memories and the power it radiated.
With trembling hands, I reached for the note nestled at the bottom of the box, heart pounding in my chest.
I unfolded the parchment.
My eyes widened in disbelief at the single sentence, which I read again and again.
Long live the queen.