A cold shiver ran down her spine. “You brainwashed him.”
“Your brother has always been a weak-minded man.”
“And yet you serve him most loyally.”
His eyes took on a vicious gleam. “Do I, Aveline? Or does he serve me in every way?”
She swallowed hard. In all these years, she’d let herself despise her brother. Morkai had always held the greatest fault in her mind, but Dimetreus had stood by and accepted lie after lie while ignoring every truth she’d told him. When her brother found her with his dead wife’s body, he didn’t hesitate for more than a second before he condemned her. He heard not a word as she argued her case. He shed not a tear as he had his guards drag her into a cell beneath the castle.
What if Dimetreus’ reaction hadn’t been entirely his fault? If Morkai could manipulate the king into changing his own memories…what else could he do?
“What do you want from me?” she asked, a slight tremble building in her voice. Whether it was from fear or anger she knew not.
“To talk.”
“You must want to do more than talk to offer 500,000sovasfor my capture. How did you do it anyway? The poster. My likeness couldn’t have been sketched on a guess.”
He rubbed his amber crystal again. “I kept a drop of your blood.”
Her eyes went wide. It took all her restraint to keep from flexing the palm he’d once cut. “Why did you take it in the first place?”
“That’s not for you to know right now. Besides, I’m not finished answering your previous question. I kept a drop of your blood which was just enough to catch glimpses of you over the years.”
“Why did you…”
“Why did I want to check in on you?” He barked an indignant laugh. “How can you ask that, Aveline? Do you think I released you from the dungeon to be cruel? You were a child. I was curious to know if you survived.”
She noted that he said he wascuriousif she survived, not that hecaredif she had.
“By the way, where have you been these last six years?” His gaze swept over her briefly, landing again on her tattoos. “Those are interesting markings. Faeryninsigmora.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. She hadn’t expected him to recognize her tattoos. He was a dark witch, a mage, not a…
Her eyes wandered over his face, taking in his uncommon beauty. His sharp cheekbones. The slightest blue tinge to his black hair. And his ears…how had she never noticed the angled edge before? They weren’t exactly pointed, but neither were they totally round. Could he be of Faeryn descent?
She shook the thoughts from her mind. What mattered most was that he’d asked where she’d been. That meant there was a chance the Forest People were safe from his knowledge. “Don’t you already know where I’ve been? You confessed to spying on me through a drop of my blood.”
He glanced at his nails with disinterest. “I saw your face, not your surroundings.”
Relief swept over her, but she hid it behind a shrug. “I’ve been right where you left me. In the woods.”
“In the woods,” he echoed, his eyes narrowing, “where you just so happened to become marked withinsigmora.”
She held his gaze, her lips pursed tight.
The coach came to a stop.
“Ah, we’re here.” He leaned forward with a quirked brow. “What’s it going to be, Aveline? Do I escort you from this coach as my prisoner or a princess?”
She bit her lip as a spike of panic laced through her. She still had so many unanswered questions. The hunters. The Beast. The unicorns.
“Only one of those choices will let you see your brother again,” he said, a hint of taunting in his voice.
Her pulse quickened at his mention of Dimetreus. Her brother. The king. A man she’d come to hate almost as much as the duke. A man who may or may not have been controlled by a powerful mage.
There was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath and hoped Morkai couldn’t hear her lie.
“I want to be a princess again.”
