Chapter 42
You always had the power in you.
The words echoed through me as I roamed the halls of the Evaemon Palace several days later, trying to learn where all the many halls led and the purpose of all the rooms while Casteel spent time with his father and mother in the brightly lit family room.
An unrelenting malaise nipped at my heels, following my steps just as Arden, the silver-and-white wolven, and Hisa and another Crown Guard did. Except they were far quieter than my thoughts.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that my friends’ lives had been risked.
And for what? To learn that whatever these Revenants were, was a greater evil than we knew?
Which, by the way, meant that was all we knew.
No one, not even Casteel’s parents, could hazard a guess as to what a Revenant could be and how it would warrant such a warning.
I traveled the back hall of the west wing where the staff offices were located, as were the laundry and the kitchens.
Warmth crowded the area, along with the aromas of fresh linen and roasted meat as I admitted that the trip to Iliseeum hadn’t been a complete and utter waste.
I had learned that Nyktos was a Primal god, something Valyn vaguely remembered hearing his grandfather mention once.
And until now, he’d believed that his grandfather had been speaking of the gods we’d always known.
Discovering that I had Primal blood explained why my abilities were so powerful.
It also meant that the mother I remembered—the one Alastir had claimed was a Handmaiden—could very well have been my real mother.
And, once again, I was back to the possibility that Ian could be my half-brother.
That we shared the same mother but different fathers.
Discovering that was huge and important to me, but only to me. It wasn’t what we’d gone for.
Which was to gain the aid of Nyktos’s guards—the draken.
At least, I’d gotten to see one, so there was that. Sighing, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I’d left the crown in the bedchamber, and I wished I’d left my brain there, as well, where Casteel had managed to pull my thoughts from the trip to Iliseeum multiple times in the ensuing days.
Since we’d returned, Casteel and I had barely had any time alone.
There were meetings with the Council. Time spent with Eloana and Valyn, where I was taught the different laws of the kingdom at a head-spinning speed.
Sessions held where the people of Atlantia could approach us to ask for aid or offer their services for various needs throughout the kingdom.
Dinners had been late, and we mostly spent them with Kieran, strategizing the best way to enter Oak Ambler without being seen.
Entering Castle Redrock wouldn’t be a problem.
Slipping into the city’s Rise unseen would be, and it hadn’t been until the prior night that Kieran had come up with a plan.
I had yet to venture off the palace grounds, but it was just Casteel and me at night. We spent the time talking. I learned more about his brother and what it had been like growing up in Atlantia as the second son his father once expected to lead the Atlantian armies.
“That is how you became so skilled at fighting,” I’d said as we lay together in bed, facing one another.
He’d nodded. “Malik trained alongside me for years, but when it came time for him to learn to rule, it became time for me to learn how to lead an army and kill.”
“And to defend,” I’d amended softly, tracing small circles on his chest. “You learned how to defend your people and those you care about.”
“True.”
“Did you want to be that?” I’d asked. “A commander?”
“ The commander,” he’d corrected with a teasing kiss. “It was the only skill I really knew, and I wanted to be able to serve my brother when he took the throne someday. I didn’t really question it.”
“At all?”
He’d fallen quiet for few minutes and then laughed.
“Actually, that is not entirely true. I was fascinated with the science behind farming as a child—how the farmers grew to learn what time of year was best to plant certain crops, how they set up their irrigation systems. And there was something about seeing all that hard work come to fruition when it came time to harvest.”
A farmer.
Part of me hadn’t expected that, but then I thought of what he’d claimed his father did when I spoke with him in the Red Pearl. I’d grinned as I kissed him, and he then proved that fighting hadn’t been the only skill he’d learned.
Another night, when his body was curled around mine and after a long day of meetings, he’d asked, “There’s something I’ve been wondering and keep forgetting to ask. When we entered Iliseeum, and you saw the skeleton soldiers, you said they were hers. What did you mean?”
I’d realized then that I hadn’t shared that image with him.
I’d told him what I saw when I was in the Chambers of Nyktos.
“I saw her again when I was sleeping after the attack—after you saved me. It felt like a dream…but not. Anyway, I saw her touch the ground, and I saw bone hands digging their way out.” I’d looked over my shoulder at him.
“Who do you think she could be? If she is or was real?”
“I don’t know. You said she had silver hair?”
“Her hair was a silvery blonde.”
“I can’t think of any of the gods that resembles her, but maybe she was one of the Primals Nyktos spoke of.”
“Maybe,” I murmured.
We’d also spent the time using our mouths and tongues to speak words of the flesh. I enjoyed each thoroughly and equally.
But Casteel didn’t feel as if the trip was a waste. While I found Nyktos’s parting words to be generally unhelpful at the end of the day, Casteel took them to mean that I would one day rule both Solis and Atlantia. But those words made me think of what the Duchess had claimed.
That Queen Ileana was my grandmother. That was highly impossible, but it was the only way I would have a true claim to the throne—succession instead of conquering.
Or maybe Nyktos meant that we would take the Blood Crown that way?
I didn’t know, and the pressure to convince the Blood Crown in our upcoming meeting was even greater.
We couldn’t let this become a war including these Revenants.
I had a horrible feeling there would only be one way to stop this.
Maybe that was what Nyktos had meant. That I had the power in me to stop this.
Icy fingers drifted across the nape of my neck.
I’d heard those words before, spoken by the little girl who’d been so grievously wounded, but when she’d spoken them, they had struck a chord of familiarity in me.
Over the last several days, I’d tried to remember, but they were like a dream you tried to retain hours after waking.
Passing the entrances to the busy kitchens, I rounded the bend in the hall and nearly walked right into Lord Gregori. I took a startled step back. The dark-haired Atlantian wasn’t alone.
“My apologies.” A slight frown appeared as he noted the absence of my crown.
It did not go unnoticed that he didn’t acknowledge my title.
Neither had Lord Ambrose when I passed him the other day in the halls as I’d left to explore the grounds with Vonetta.
“It is I who should apologize. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.
” My gaze darted to the young woman behind him.
She appeared to be around my age, but I knew immediately she was a wolven, so she could be dozens or even hundreds of years older than me.
The pale, wintery eyes were a striking contrast to the golden hue of her skin, and the warm blonde hair that fell over her shoulders in loose waves.
Her features were a mix of traits you would’ve found on different people.
Her eyes were wideset and yet hooded, softening the sharp angles of her cheeks and the blade of her nose.
Her brows were thick and several shades darker than her hair.
Her mouth was small, but her lips were full.
She was short, several inches shorter than me, but the cut of her tunic showed off the curves of her breasts and the lushness of her hips that would’ve seemed at odds with someone of her stature.
Nothing about her made sense, and yet everything about her lined up so imperfectly that any artist would likely be driven to commit her image to canvas with charcoal or oil.
She was perhaps the most uniquely beautiful person I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t stop staring at her.
And I was sure I was probably creeping her out a little based on her growing unease.
“I was actually looking for the King,” Lord Gregori announced. “But I see that he is not with you.”
Pulling my gaze from the unfamiliar wolven, I focused on the Atlantian.
The thread of distrust was apparent, even if I wasn’t able to read his emotions.
Either the Atlantian kept forgetting that I could do that, or he simply didn’t care.
“He is with his parents. Is there something I can help you with?”
Amusement flickered through him, the mean kind. “No,” he said, his smile simpering, his tone overly conciliatory. “That will not be necessary. If you’ll excuse me.”
He hadn’t been excused, but he still brushed past me.
I turned as Arden flattened his ears, watching the Lord as he nodded at Hisa and the other guard.
The striking image of Arden rushing off and biting the Lord’s leg filled my mind, and I smothered a giggle at the ridiculousness.
Arden’s head swung to me, and then he looked at the one who remained.
Remembering the female wolven, I turned back to her. “I’m sorry. I thought you were with him.”
“Oh, gods, no, meyaah Liessa . We just happened to enter the hall at the same time,” she said, and I grinned at the shamelessness of her response. “I was actually looking for someone I hadn’t seen in a while.”
“Who? Perhaps I could help you locate them?”