“Headstrong, impetuous, stubborn.” She laughed—actually laughed. “Sound like anyone else you know?” I blushed at her insinuation. She softened again and added, “But she was also gracious and kind. She mothered Tyrn and me incessantly, but we never complained. Our own mother died in childbirth, so she was all we ever knew. And she was always negotiating with anyone willing to match wits with her.” She took a deep breath as if preparing for something hard. “And she was the most powerful witch I have ever known.” When I didn’t immediately respond, she added, “You come from a long line of pagan witches, Tessana. Magic is in our blood. We are meant for power. And you, my dear child, are no different.”
At her term of endearment, I felt my face screw up. “If you’re my aunt, why did you use Conandra to try to keep me from the Crown of Nine? Why have you been so distant? So... so...”Cold, I wanted to say.Cruel.
Her smile faded, and her expression became the hard mask I recognized. “I... I was afraid at first, I suppose. Afraid to get my hopes up. That it was truly you. That you were alive after all this time. And then afraid for your future, of what the Seat of Power would do to you. The Crown of Nine. I watched it kill my sister. And I’ve watched it turn my brother into a madman. And while I could not reveal myself to you, I sought to protect you in whatever way I could.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, stumbling over whether to believe her or not. I wanted her explanation to be true. Oh, I desperately wanted for her words to ring genuine. But... “Why since then?”
Her eyes flashed with pain, deep sorrow. “Well, I suppose after it was proven you are who you say you are... I wanted to protect myself. I have lived a lonely life, Tessana. My parents, my sister, and even pieces of my brother have all died. Have all left me. It wasn’t that I wanted to treat you poorly. I was afraid to open myself up again after finally learning to live on my own.”
An instinct to hug her rose within me, to throw my arms around this poor, lonely woman. I knew what it was like to lose my parents and my siblings. I knew what it was like to be afraid to trust again, hope again. Hadn’t I been battling the same internal beast with Katrinka—desperate to love her again and terrified of it at the same time?
But I held back. I still didn’t understand the need for secrecy. For lying.
“Why did no one tell me? Or my sister? Why was your relation to us kept secret?” I could come to terms with this magic, this line of witches. But how was I to reconcile the silence?
“There is an unspoken rule in the royal families that two sisters shall not be queen at the same time. Kings, of course, are descended from the lands they rule. So with each royal family, they house one king at a time. But queens are often married from other lands. Elysia already has the Seat of Power. None of the Nine want to give that much power to any family. They would have gladly accepted my sister as Elysia’s bride. But had our relation been known, I would have been destined for a second son at best. More likely a duke or distant noble. The other kingdoms can hardly stand being under the thumb of Elysia. The council would have never allowed the Finnick family to put royals on multiple thrones. It was too much of a threat. They would have seen it as a coup of sorts. Finnicks ruling Elysia and Blackthorne. We might as well have handed Aramore to Tyrn and burned the rest to the ground. The lot of them are so bitter about the power the Allisands wield that they will never allow another family to grow that powerful. Jealous pigs, the whole bloody council.”
I thought back to my childhood, the way my father would take us around the realm in the hopes of finding good families. But I remembered tension too. And now I understood why my father had first intended me for Caspian, a second son. A spare heir. Being betrothed to Taelon all those years ago, the Crown Prince of Soravale, must have caused an uproar. It would have meant an Allisand king on the throne of Elysia. And an Allisand queen on the throne of Soravale. I couldn’t remember who my brothers had been betrothed to. But I knew there was talk of Katrinka marrying a wealthy merchant’s son from Sarasonet.
“But more than that,” she went on, “there were the rumors about my family in particular. That we were pagans. That we were witches. Our name used to be Fenwick. Until the Century War. We ruled Blackthorne for millennia, all the way to before the Marble Wall. When the Crown won the pagan war, they blamed my ancestors for the witchcraft that had stolen the magic from the Crown of Nine. And for cursing the land here. Dragon’s blood, they blamed my family for inciting the war, to begin with. And disrupting the peace of the land. Peace that was a farce from the start. The only people who know peace in this realm are the wealthy, the elite. You’ve seen what it’s like in the villages, how the people suffer, how they starve. It was the same back then. If the Fenwicks were behind the war, it was because the war was necessary for change.” She had grown passionate as she exclaimed the history of the war. Her porcelain cheeks had blushed crimson, and her eyes sparked with zeal. She gasped for breath and seemed to come back to herself. Her hands brushed down the front of her skirts, smoothing them, and she straightened her shoulders before she continued in a calmer tone. “As punishment for the war and the curse, the council took the throne from my ancestors and handed it over to the Presydias. A noble family with great wealth and promises of loyalty to the Seat of Power. My family was made pariahs, enemies to the people of this land. We had tried to make the world better and were hated for it instead. Meanwhile, the Crown grew more powerful even while the magic diminished throughout the realm. Even while my people, not just the Fenwicks, but pagan witches of all kinds, of all kingdoms, were hunted and killed. Or locked away. Stripped of their power. Of their dignity. Of their... will to live.” Tears of empathy glittered in her black eyes. “The exiled king and queen changed our family name from Fenwick to Finnick to avoid further shame. Our lands were taken. Our wealth stolen. And we were blamed for the cursing. They were forced into hiding. They took to the marshes, to the secret places of the kingdom, places beyond the curse. And that is where they rebuilt, regathered their strength. And their power. When they rejoined the world, sometime before your mother was born, they were more powerful than ever before. They might not have had titles or coin, but they had magic. Magic in spades. By the time Gwyn was born, we were back to being a noble family but still not trusted. We had real power, and we had some social power. But the people of Blackthorne had bought the lie the Crown sold them. To this day, they still blame us for the cursing. For losing the magic. But then there was the prophecy.”
“The prophecy?” The Bog Witch had spoken in many riddles, but she’d mentioned a prophesy too. I hoped Ravanna would speak plainly about it. But I’d also lost my fear of asking her anything. She had shared more with me than I’d ever dreamed she would. Or could. Now was my chance to get as many answers as possible.
“When a witch is born, a circle of witches gathers to oversee her birth. It is common practice and has always been this way. Even now, throughout Blackthorne, those who practice the pagan arts still practice this ritual as well. As they sit, they also cast, making sure the child and mother are healthy and safe, making sure all goes as planned, and sometimes a telling will cease them, and they will speak words over the birth. When Gwyn was born, there were two moons in the sky. An already interesting omen, but she was born casting.”
“What do you mean?”
“Magic, Tessana. She was using magic, even as a baby. The circle of witches said they had never seen anything like it. The magic, as harmless and weak as it was coming from a baby, took hold of them all. And then the prophecies began. They said she would be beautiful beyond compare. And she was. They said she would have unmatched power. And she did. And they said she would restore the magic to the realm.” She looked away, her eyes searching the graveyard with its lit flowers. “Which she could not. Because they killed her.”
“Who? Who killed her?” My voice betrayed how desperate I was to know the answer. This one question had followed me to Heprin and back and spanned nearly a decade. Yet I still did not have an answer.
Her jaw tightened, a muscle ticking near her ear. “Would you like to learn to use it?”
I thought I could not be distracted from this one question, from this one mystery that had upended and directed my entire life. But I was too taken off guard to keep my tongue quiet. “Use what?”
She turned back to me, the tension fading into a radiant smile. “The magic, Tessana. Would you like to learn how to cast?”
The temptation of magic was so strong I felt swallowed whole by it. I had not known I wanted to use magic until now, but how could I say no to such a promise? My mother, the most powerful witch. It hardly seemed possible.
But still... “Do you know who killed my family, Ravanna? My mother? Please, tell me.”
Her face flushed with unspoken emotion, and something harsh and furious flashed in her eyes. “I have told you much, child. I have spoken of things I buried long ago. My heart is tired. And my mind is too saturated with worry for your uncle to speak of such things. The short answer is that I would like to know as well. The long answer could be discussed and debated and speculated upon until we are both old and gray.”
My face fell at her decided answer. My entire spirit crumbled.
She noticed and reached out to lay her chilled hand over mine. “We will speak of it, of course. I will answer as many of your questions as I’m able. And when Tyrn is feeling better, we will enlist him in our investigation as well. But for now, allow me to let my ghosts rest. Allow my heart to be warmed by your presence. And the truth that we can now know each other as family. I want to teach you our ways, Tessana. I want to show you the power you come from. The way of the women in your family. The way of your ancestors. Please allow me this one thing.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to agree. Of course I wanted to learn all she had offered to teach me. But there was a hole in my chest where my family should be. And now that Ravanna was here, confessing all of this, I struggled to let my questions go. Even though there was a promise of more answers later.
At my hesitation, Ravanna said, “Your mother might not have been able to restore magic, but you are about to do a thing that no queen has ever done before. You will sit on the Seat of Power and wear the Crown of Nine, Tessana. Your mother’s legacy lives through you. You are the only one who can bring magic back to the people. You alone can erase the bans and biases the men before you have built. You can make a new way for the people of this realm. For the kingdom of your mother’s birth. You have the power inside you. I felt it the moment we first met. And it has only grown every day I have known you since. I will teach you to unleash it and then wield it to your advantage.”
“What about Katrinka?” I asked, still struggling to agree even though I had never wanted anything more in my life.
“Of course, she can learn too. She might not be as powerful as you, but she was born to magic. She will get the hang of it eventually.”
Her smile made me hold back. It did not seem genuine. Something to her promise didn’t feel...
“The Crown of Nine calls to magic,” she continued. “And since the pagan war, it has been in decline. It is why your uncle suffers so. He is not the rightful heir. If you are to wear it, Tessana, you must be strong enough to resist the darkness within. You must wield the power that is already rightfully yours. Wield it to your advantage. To the advantage of the realm and its people.”
