Tyrn’s prediction somehow put all the other revelations from this day to shame. How could I face my looming coronation with a prophecy such as this one? Oh, how I longed for Oliver to be near. By now, he would have said something funny and broken the tension with his witty sense of humor. Reminded me that it could not be as bad as Tyrn made it out to be. Or if it was, we would find a way to stop it. Together.
Instead, only Katrinka remained at my side, and she was as pale as a ghost and looked as though she was on the verge of losing her breakfast.
“I am not just a girl,” I told Tyrn. “I’m an Allisand. I do belong on the throne.”
His laughter was the thing of nightmares. His head tipped back, and he slapped the table as though I’d truly entertained him. “That’s what my sister said. She thought marrying into the line of arrogant, power-hungry devils would solve her dilemma. But look how that ended. She got herself and her entire family killed.” His eyes were wild with madness, unfocused and glossy. And somewhere else entirely. His expression turned pained again as he seemed to walk through the awful ordeal in his mind. “Besides, it’s not the blood that makes you friends with the throne or crown. It’s not you at all. The crown decides who’s worthy. And I can tell you right now, it will not choose a girl from the same family it only just murdered.”
Had he really meant to say that? Did he really believe the Crown of Nine was what murdered my family?
No. No, I didn’t believe that. It couldn’t both kill my family and lure me back to Elysia, surely. Or was he speaking in metaphors? Of power and greed and the natural end to so many unchecked rulers?
Of all the things I expected from this trip to Blackthorne, it was not more questions to my already impossible unanswered list. But that’s all I seemed to unearth. One question led to a hundred more. One answer to a locked door and more confusion and too many mysteries that did not seem to have solutions.
Ravanna hurried back into the room, her voluminous black skirts swishing as she moved. For once, she was unadorned with feathers of any kind. And somehow, she seemed more approachable this way. Not kinder exactly, but... less severe.
Tyrn noticed her immediately and started crying again, more the style of his distraught weeping than the enraged sobbing. She wrapped her arms around him as soon as she was close to him. And it was the gentlest I had ever seen her.
“There, there, brother, there is no reason for all these tears. You are the king, remember? The most powerful of them all. You should not be crying. You should be ruling.”
Katrinka grabbed my hand, and we took a step back together, both physically hit by the confirmation blow of Ravanna’s words.Brother. Which meant the Bog Witch had been right. Ravanna Pressydia was our aunt.
I was breathless and dizzy all over again. Even though I had suspected this truth, I could not reconcile with it. My whole life felt like a lie. My mother felt like a liar. And all those between then and now are accomplices. How could we not have known?
Why had no one told us?
The questions running rampant through my mind now had teeth. Sharp, jagged ones. They were more than mysteries now. More than uncertainties. They were a path that led into the unknown. An undeniable fate where my destiny might not be as bright and happy as I had once hoped.
Tyrn was right, after all. The Crown of Nine would tear me apart. And it started before it was even mine.
“No one listens to me,” he wailed. “No one ever listens to me! I told Gwynnie not to do it. I told her not to leave home. She didn’t listen. And now look! Now, look what’s happened.”
Katrinka squeezed my hand tighter at the mention of our mother. Was anything he was saying true? Or was it all just ramblings of a madman?
“She was always headstrong, brother. You know that.” Her gaze met mine, then Katrinka’s, almost as though she was apologizing to us for all of this. Her expression seemed to say she had meant to tell us. And that she had never meant for us to find out this way. She looked as tortured as Tyrn. “She loved you, but she did not listen to you.”
He cried harder. “And now you won’t listen to me either. I need you, sister. Make the pain stop. Make it go away!”
She kissed the top of his head. “Of course, darling. Of course, I will.” Who was this suddenly compassionate woman? She had dropped her cold, distant façade sometime during her concern for Tyrn. And behind that icy wall was an attentive, humble sister who seemed to genuinely love her brother. Pulling a vial from her pocket, she held it out to him. “This will make the pain stop. Drink it down, brother.”
His eyes cleared again for just a moment. And he stared at the small glass bottle with something like resilience in his hard gaze. Shaking his head, he turned away from her. “No, thank you.” With great effort, he seemed to pull himself back together, sitting up straighter and adjusting his facial features into the semblance of someone I recognized. Still, his voice shook as he said, “I realize I’ve been foolish. The pressure of the crown sometimes, it... well, it sometimes gets to me.”
Ravanna shushed him patiently, like a mother taking care of a sick child who didn’t like the taste of the medicine that would make him well. “Now, now, brother, please do not be difficult. Let me help you.”
Tyrn’s gaze met mine once more, and I was surprised to find it still clear. “You have to help me—”
She touched the lip of the bottle to his lips and tipped it. He resisted for only a moment before accepting the sparkling contents of the flask. He calmed down almost immediately. His shoulders straightened out, and his head lifted again. But his eyes... his eyes were more lost than ever.
My heart squeezed in agony for him, but I couldn’t say why. Mrs. Blythe appeared again, stepping to his side to help him to his feet.
“He’ll be a little unsteady,” Ravanna explained. “Katrinka dear, could you help Mrs. Bythe take your uncle to his room so he can lie down?”
“Oh, er, of course.” Katrinka jumped to her feet so she could support the other side of him. But her expression revealed she was as perplexed about the term of endearment Ravanna had used for her as I was. Our gazes clashed, and I tried to silently convey the need to play along for now. I wasn’t sure if it was an obvious solution to all that we had just witnessed or if she was able to read my thoughts the way we used to as children. But either way, she did as Ravanna asked.
Tyrn dutifully draped an arm around each woman and let them lead him from the room. He’d calmed down dramatically. His tears had stopped falling, and his face looked more composed. There was a stillness to him that did not at all seem natural. He had only just been on the brink of total hysteria. In some moments, he’d succumbed to it entirely. But now, he was as docile as a lamb.
I felt more anguished than ever for him. At least when he’d been railing, his behavior seemed to be his own.
It was a spell of some sort. A potion. I was sure of it.
