Elowyn Blackthorn would make the world atone for ever forgetting her, and now I knew exactly how.
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 smileconfirmed 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.”
“Myfather?” I questioned.
Vega smiled and nodded knowingly. “Yes,yourfather. 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 anyonecould 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,sweetdaughter,” 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.”
