34. Keira #2
She bites her lip hard enough to leave a mark, then something shifts in her expression.
“I was a young woman during the war between Winter and Spring. Idealistic, romantic and stupid. My father, brother to the king, was the commander of his army, so we lived in the palace for much of the war. When there were peace negotiations between the courts, they often took place within those walls, though the terms were never adhered to and the ceasefires never lasted. The events were so civil, with enemy rulers and nobles feasting together in the name of diplomacy, while battles were still being fought by the soldiers. I never wrapped my mind around that.” She shakes her head.
“I was so sheltered, kept so ignorant for the simple fact of being a woman, that each time I thought the war must have ended.”
Sasha falls into silence, her entire body rigid as she stares down at our entwined hands.
“Unfortunately, I know war. People behave in ways that we cannot comprehend,” I offer. “I am sorry that you were made helpless, where I was empowered in mine.”
A slight shiver runs through her body. “It was at one of the last feasts, before relations completely degraded beyond any sort of peace talks, where I met him. A Spring commander. He was a nobody, really. A minor noble leading a very small regiment, but I thought I was in love. The instant kind, after laying eyes on one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen and receiving rare kindness from him.”
A small smile lights up her face, and disappears just as quickly.
“He spoke of the liberties enjoyed by women of his court and the way they are treated like equals to their men, not as pretty little mindless things that birth babies and obey their husbands. I always had a wild streak. We planned to run away together. To defect from the pointless war all together. You see, Spring soldiers are volunteers, not conscripted like in my court. He could walk away from his position of command. We met up regularly. I snuck out of the palace and he left his regiment that was stationed nearby.”
My heart hammers frantically as I sit on the edge of my seat, because I have a feeling I know what she is going to say next. A betrayal of one kind or another is coming.
Sasha’s voice becomes so choked that she stops speaking for a long minute.
“Then I fell pregnant. Winter fae are fertile for our kind. My maids worked it out far too quickly, almost as soon as I did, and they told my father. They whispered it to anyone who would listen. The entire affair became a public scandal. I tried to run away with Caspian, but my father and brother knew exactly what I had planned and used my feeble attempt to track him down. They used me to lure him away from his regiment, then cut him down right in front of me. In essence, I killed him. The man I loved and the father of my child.”
A single harsh sob breaks free from her and she sends a hand flying to her chest as if to suppress the emotion.
Her watery, red-rimmed eyes find mine. “This is what happens when a Winter woman falls in love. She is humiliated and punished, because we are only allowed to marry the men our fathers pick for us without question. And if we commit the sin of giving ourselves to another, then we have lost all our value as a bargaining chip.”
My heart aches and my stomach twists in knots. I have to ask the question she isn’t addressing, but I’m not sure if I want to know the answer. “Sasha, what happened to your baby?”
Silent tears fall from her eyes and splatter on our joined hands.
“My brother took him away from me as soon as he was born. It was my punishment for betraying the family. I barely got to hold him,” she chokes out.
“He sent him to the Spring Court with the other orphaned Winter babies Aldrin took in. Our own flesh and blood, and they treated him like a commodity. Like trash, because I wasn’t married to his father. ”
The sudden realization dawns on me: this is why she won’t leave the Spring Court, no matter the abuses she faces here. I wonder if they are any worse than what she could expect in her family’s palace.
“I searched for him every single day,” Sasha continues.
“My father died during the war alongside my uncle, who was king at the time. My brother was not interested in housing or controlling me. It was Erik who took me in, my cousin and now the King of Winter. He was the one who suggested I became the ambassador with Spring, where they would not care about my past and would give me the liberties I always craved. Where, most importantly, I would be in a position to find my son. Erik saved my life, really. Not even my brother knew or cared where my child ended up.”
I squeeze her hand, scrubbing tears away from my eyes with my other. Decades upon decades have passed since that war, but she never gave up on her child.I can’t imagine losing my niece Morgana and never knowing what happened to her.
“Did you find your son?” I ask gently.
Sasha searches my face for a long moment, then finally comes to a decision.
“I found him a number of years ago and he needed me. My son was headed down a dark path, fooled by the High Chancellor like so many others, not because he has a bad heart, but quite the opposite. He was young and naive and Titania manipulated him.”She lets out a harsh breath.
“He doesn’t even know that I am the woman who birthed him, and I will never tell him, not unless he goes searching.
My son was given to good parents who raised him with love, and I would never get in the middle of that.
I owe them everything and I will not break up their family. ”
As she speaks, she stares over my shoulder with such vulnerability and affection on her face that I just know.
My stomach bottoms out as I slowly turn around, and my eyes fall upon Rainier.
He has an arm wrapped around Drake’s shoulders and they have matching smiles on their faces as they clearly taunt each other.
Rainier, who was adopted because Drake and Klara couldn’t conceive the child they desperately wanted. Rainier, who is their entire world.
He looks enough like Sasha that I should have seen it: the long white hair and large eyes with broadly arching eyebrows. The shape of his jaw and the straight set of his nose. His dark skin and eyes are at odds with her pale complexion, taken from his Spring Court father.
“Rainier?” I breathe. My heart clenches so hard it hurts.
She nods. “I knew it the first time he came to court as a full-grown man, wearing a near replica of my face and hair, with his father’s complexion.
At birth, my son had a very distinctive mark on his neck, and the man still has the same one.
I missed his entire childhood, but I will miss no more of his life. ”
“Do his adoptive parents know?” I whisper, though they cannot hear us.
“No one knows, except for my cousin Erik, and my closest friends Maxim, Kazimir and Nazaar. And now you. I plan to keep it that way.”
I glance toward the orcs and they tip their heads to me in acknowledgment. Kazimir, the quiet one, even wipes tears from his cheeks.
Sasha suddenly straightens her spine. “My proposed bargain is this, Spring Queen: I will take your place in this dungeon and I will take whatever punishment they send your way, while maintaining your identity. You will do everything in your power to always protect my son’s best interests, as long as you live.
You must understand—Winter and Spring will be at war again.
We always gravitate toward that eventuality. ”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is our past history truly that bloody?”
“It is.” She takes in a shaky breath. “I need to ensure Rainier is not punished for whatever I may be forced to do, or because he is technically a Prince of Winter. Erik may care for me, but he wouldn’t hesitate to endanger me.
You will be unable to speak of the details of this bargain or share the secret that Rainier is my son, unless I release you from your silence. ”
“This is a powerful oath, if I do become queen.” I hold her eyes.
“I wish to add a clause of my own: if the conditions you are exposed to become too much, you will be able to break the bargain by saying the following words: ‘I am not Keira Appleshield.’ If your true identity is revealed and it is not your fault, the bargain remains, even if I am called back by Titania. You need an exit from such a deal. It is not fair otherwise. Do you agree?”
I hold out my hand and she takes it. Her gaze never leaves mine as pink light swirls around our clasped arms, so thick and bright it hurts my eyes and I can barely see our fingers through it.
Its coils and heat travel over my shoulder and spine, leaving their swirling mark down the column of my back.
The magic shatters into a brilliant sparkle of thousands of lights that rain down over us then fizzle out.
Neither Drake nor Rainier say a thing when they see that the bargain is already made.
I work together with Drake, casting expert wields of glamour over Sasha, changing her hair, face shape, coloring and body bit by bit to my mirror image, until my own face stares back at me.
I tie off the layers of weaves so the magic will remain for long periods of time.
Drake will have to return almost every day to refresh the magic, but my more proficient contributions will remain.
One of the orcs openly sniffles and wipes tears from his eyes at what we have done to his princess and the horrible, vulnerable position we have put her in, while another absentmindedly pats his back. The third paces their cell like a caged beast, hardly able to look at her.
I am going to vomit.
Waves of nausea over my own actions rise again and again within me, but I forcefully push them down.
There isn’t a hint of regret on Sasha’s face as she places her hands on my shoulders. “Go win your throne back and get me out of this fucking dungeon.”