Arren and Talisyn exchanged a quick, worried look. “But it’s Branok and Lynx’s sister. And he is a dragon shifter. Doesn’t this involve all of us?”
“Lucien Finn engineered the kidnapping of Lady Alina,” Penn said. “I no longer consider this low criminal one of your peers, but if you want to witness his execution, you are welcome to do so.”
Chapter
Fifty-Six
Honor
I was taken back to the capital and put into a cell in Pend’s dungeon.
After I was thrust through the doors, I heard laughter. I looked around before I picked out the pale face in the corner.
“Hello, Honor,” Alis purred as she leaned forward, emerging from the dark shadows at the back of the cell. There was straw from the floor in her blonde hair; she looked as if she’d gone half-mad in here. “So nice to be reunited with family.”
“Why do you think I’m…” I trailed off, unable to fight the magic’s impulse to lie about who I was. I frowned. I’d come so close this time.
My back bumped the bars, and even though I was long-healed, I could’ve sworn they ached again. “Hey!” I shouted down the hall toward the departing guards. “Pend’s tried to keep me away from this woman, I don’t think he’d appreciate this!”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Alis said. “Pend controls everything. Do you really think he’s not in control? That he didn’t choose this?”
“Why?” I demanded.
Alis didn’t answer me. Then she said, “Do you think you’ll be hung at first light? Before those ridiculous royals have the chance to come to rescue you?”
“Answer me,” I said. “Why did you think I was that girl, Honor?”
Her lips twisted in a smile. “It took me a while to understand. But I’ve had so much time to think here.”
“I’ve had a very long day,” I said, “and I’ve already been tortured myself today, so I’m feeling pretty open to the possibility of doing it to someone else. Especially if that someone else is the most annoying, vile bitch I’ve ever met…”
“That, for one thing, tells me you’re my step-daughter,” she said with a smile. “The timeline for Lucien Finn’s first shifting moon doesn’t make sense. And if any girl were going to be a dragon… it would be you.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was a dragon shifter, you stupid little girl.”
“Who was he?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. They’ll come to rescue you, again. And you’ll take me with you this time, and I’ll tell you right before you and I part company for a lifetime. You’ve brought me nothing but trouble.”
“They aren’t coming.”
“Then you’ll die without knowing. I won’t tell you until I’m free and walking away.”
“You’re evil. You did kill my father, didn’t you?”
“Of course not.”
But she’d lie now, trying to cling to the last bits of hope I’d save her.
Then she added, “Even though he took you away from me.”
I stared at her. “He tried to get me away to the Posselbaum Academy, but you got me back, didn’t you? By killing him.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I’m not talking about your adoptive father. I’m talking about your real father.”
“You’re probably lying anyway. You don’t know who my real father was.”
“Oh, I very much know who he was, Honor.” She rested her hand lightly on her bowed-in stomach; she looked more narrow and pinched than she ever had before. My stomach bottomed out even before she said, “After all, I carried his seed in me for all those months, my little ray of sunshine.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“Listen to your heart,” she said, offering me a cold, cruel smile. “You know it’s true. Your parents took you from me. Then your adoptive parents took you. But I always knew who you were… and what you were worth. I’d always recognize you, you’re my blood.”
“I’m not yours.”
“You were born with this little mark above your heart on your chest.” Her fingers traced it absently.
“That’s how I recognized you when I saw you at the ball when you were a girl. You looked so ridiculous, flat-chested and childish in your gown. And there was that little mark above the bodice of that ugly green dress.”
I remembered that dress. Hanna had helped me pick it out. I’d loved dark green, it reminded me of the forest. In my mind, I’d looked like a forest Fae from one of my books. But leave it to Alis to remind me that I’d actually just looked like an ugly, gawky kid, completely different to everyone else than how I saw myself.
“After that, I set my mind on marrying your father and being your mother again. Except he was very tiresome about the whole thing, so I had to reveal I knew who your true father was before he would marry me. He didn’t want me to tell anyone else…. Anyone like Henrick.”
Her words had the ring of truth, ugly as they were, even before she added, “You think I’m such a monster… If I were lying about knowing your father, Honor, why would he ever have married me?
Those words struck deep, made sense. “If you wanted to be my mother so badly, how come you never acted like one?”
“I thought at first that maybe I could love you. But look at you.” She shook her head. “It’s a wonder to me that your parents could’ve pretended to love you as well as they did. They were holding on to you, hoarding your memories like the treasure they were… just like I did. But you adored them and hated me.”
“Shut up,” I said fiercely.
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” She laughed. “Then you’ll never know who your father is.”
Who could it be? What if my father was King Pend, and Jaik and I were brother and sister? Or Teris was my true father? The thought made me sick, imagining how I’d had both Talisyn’s and Jaik’s hands on my body.
“Why did my parents hide me? My first parents, why did they take me away from you?”
“Your father wanted a vessel so he could keep you a secret. He didn’t want anyone to ever see his wife pregnant.”
“Vessel?”
Her answering smile was mysterious. She wasn’t going to tell me anything more today, she was going to enjoy holding the answers over my head. But maybe there was a possibility I was someone else’s daughter entirely and she’d just carried me somehow.
I settled down in the straw and put my head down in my hands.
Everything had gone so sideways trying to rescue Lucien and Alina.
But I couldn’t have just abandoned Lucien. We were tied together.
Alis wanted to use my lost memories, my lost past, to control me.
Here in the darkness, my memories might return.
But I dreaded the thought, because Alis was here watching my every move, eager to manipulate every vulnerability.
I leaned my head back against the damp, sweating stone wall and willed myself to stay awake.
Chapter
Fifty-Seven
Caldren
“Morick,” I said. “You’ve got Bryden and Nora going with you. Don’t come back.”
He held my gaze a long time. “We couldn’t leave you behind, my old friend.”
“What if I want to be left?”
“That would be your typical stupid-hero bullshit, and if you haven’t noticed, we never give in to those whims.”
“I’d feel better about a world where I knew you all were safe.”