Chapter 30
Ashley
Still, I am blessed above and beyond,
You breathed her into my life.
Anka’s warm touch soothes me a little while she does a few assessments.
“Lieutenants Leander and Lili will escort you to your uncle.” She nods to two unmissable, almost familiar figures in the doorway.
The guy’s chestnut hair is tied into two long braids.
Scars cut across his face like a grid, and his light brown eyes are so inviting it throws me off.
The female beside him is another level of gorgeous, and the tattoo across her neck is to die for.
She wears a bronze corseted top with colourful fabric gathered around her waist. Despite Anka’s best attempt at a comforting smile, my stomach flutters.
My uncle. Even with everything I’ve seen, doubt still chips away at me.
Maybe the strange power that flows from my fingertips is just some bizarre medical condition, and the stories my dad told me are just that.
I’ll be back in my shitty little flat in no time, high as a kite and riding Raph’s face.
Leander gestures beyond the door with a mangled hand, missing half a middle finger. “Princess, right this way.”
We can’t make this a habit. “Just Ashley,”
They lead the way, but Anka gently puts a hand in front of me. “Do you want me to come with you?” She whispers. “They won’t let me into the throne room, but I can walk you to the door.”
“Yes, please.” I need to cling to any comfort I can.
We tread through the pale corridors into the evening air.
The dark pathway sparkles slightly, like it has golden veins.
Towering trees with thick, braided trunks and leaves of darkened silver and deep violet line the walkways.
And the sky, it’s a beautiful, endless, deep blue.
Glowing fish skitter across it like colourful stars.
The closer we get to the palace, the more I feel as if I’m being pulled by something.
And with every step, the pounding in my head slows a little.
As if the magic in the air is feeding a part of me I didn’t even know was starving.
Something deep inside me stirs so violently it almost aches, like it’s spent my entire life searching for this place.
Like a word sitting on the tip of my tongue that I’ve finally remembered.
A strange monster carved into giant black gates catches my eye before soldiers pull them open for us.
As soon as I put one foot over the threshold, static buzzes in my heart.
“She’s fine,” Anka says, though Leander’s grip on his sword doesn’t loosen. She gently pulls my chin, looking into my eyes as the tingle shoots down my arm and dissolves somewhere around my wrist. “You’re fine. It’s just your reaction to the palace wards.”
I’m about to ask what the hell wards are, but my vision blurs and then clears sharply.
The colours around me grow too bright, like someone’s turned the saturation up.
Something surges down my back, and I swear I can smell smoke.
Anka’s eyes are fixed on something just behind me.
She arches a brow at Leander, who stares back, stony-faced.
“We need to talk,” she says, glaring at him.
When we reach another set of doors, soldiers bow, and I’m led into the middle of the room.
There’s a throne on a little stage and standing in front of it are two males I kind of recognise.
One with an icy, white ponytail bows with a grin that would be infectious if I wasn’t shitting myself.
“Nyk.”
I catch his rough hand in a loose grip, giving him the half-smile every Brit is born knowing.
“And this is Tobian,” he says, tipping his chin toward the slim, platinum blonde pretty boy beside him.
He can’t be older than nineteen. The giant doors groan, and everyone turns to the person coming through.
His long, greying locs fall to his knees, scattered with clinking seashells.
Everyone in the room bows, but his teary eyes pay them no attention.
They’re locked on mine and mine on his. My jaw drops.
“Daddy?”
“Do I resemble him that much?” He lets out a booming laugh that bounces around the whole room, “That bastard always thought he was the better-looking twin.”
“Twin?” I whisper, barely finishing the word.
“You are looking well. We are all so glad you are home safe. We have been working tirelessly to rescue both you and the Captain.” My heart almost bursts as I glance behind me.
“He is not here. He is still recovering. His efforts to protect this court, and you, were valiant and brave. I owe him everything.”
My skin prickles when my mind involuntarily darts back to the key left in my cell door.
“My dear Agni, you look so much like your father. He always did say he would name his daughter after our mother.” I greedily take in his familiar face, a face I haven’t seen for too long.
Only in old photos and memories. But to see his perfect smile, his soft eyes, living and breathing, moving.
Magic jumps in my chest but jams somewhere in my lungs.
It practically growls, pissed off at whatever cage it’s been forced into again.
This is the part where it usually shoots out of me.
Or I take a swig from a bottle to forget.
But I don’t have one. And so, I remember.
I remember him and mum, me as a little girl.
So happy. I had everything, and now all I have is my name.
“Ashley,” I whisper.
Someone behind him rolls his shoulders. The same curly-haired male from my room earlier.
“Well, Ashley,” the King says gently, beckoning him forward with the look of a proud father, my proud father. He places a hand on his back.
“I am your uncle, Aeron, and this is your brother. Aiden.”
My head spins, and pieces of my past slam into me as I look at these strangers.
One with my father’s face, who speaks about him like he’s a part of himself, and my brother.
I have a brother. He’s standing in front of me with features that, now, looking properly, are far too much like mine.
And they have both been here. In Sheyole.
And judging by the thread count on Aiden’s shirt under that blue embroidered waistcoat, I’m guessing struggle isn’t exactly part of their life story.
But more than that, they had each other.
“But where were you all this time? Why didn’t you come and get me after the—” My throat closes around the rest of the words.
My uncle’s eyebrows bunch together. “We thought you had died alongside your parents, after your accident.”
My gut churns knowing that my childish rage had not only removed my dad from my life, but from his brother, his son.
“We sent the Volker to find you. There was nothing but ash. They overheard your land’s officials say there were no survivors.
If I had known…” He struggles through his sentences.
“But you are alive. And this is your home. We had been trying to bring you back here, and I cannot tell you how deeply sorry I am that your rescue was hijacked. We’ve been searching for Kaed this past year and failed him too. ”
He was down there a whole year? My magic rattles its cage, and I squirm when my shoulder blades prickle with heat as if it’s trying to find another way to escape.
“I’m sure you have many questions, which I will indulge, of course,” my uncle says gently.
He reaches for my hands, but I pull away from him.
Those hands. They’re not supposed to belong to anyone but my dad.
His shoulders sag, “Let an old man explain, make things right. I have bought us time with the territories. Our council has been working overtime to reveal more of the conditions of our freedom, but one particular territory is being a tad difficult.”
I had let myself think, just for a second, that these people in front of me, my so-called rescuers, had tried to save me to simply save me.
Keep me. But was this the whole point of me being here anyway?
Kidnapped, tortured, then saved. And now what?
Die anyway. I’m just about to follow through with a very stupid idea to turn and run, but his voice stops me before my first step.
“I’m afraid that once you are in Sheyole, returning to the surface isn’t something you are allowed to do.
Not for long anyway. And not without risking countless lives.
But this is your kingdom.” He throws his hands out.
“Your people. Where your father was raised. Wouldn’t you like to see it all? ”
“I guess, I don’t have a choice.” I say, my plan to climb the tallest thing I see and jump up, into the bottom of the sea, and, I guess, swim upwards for about five hours, fizzles down to nothing.
I note Aiden’s scoff. The King, either unaware or choosing to ignore it, absently toys with the crystal pendant at the end of his necklace.
“You owe us nothing, Ashley. But perhaps you owe it to yourself to finally belong somewhere. We need not jump to assumptions about the ritual and the rumors surrounding it until we are absolutely sure. We will then deal with it accordingly. But until such a time, I am certain you will find comfort here, much more than you had. Your quarters have already been prepared.”