Of course, he did, when defeat was imminent.
What was an estranged daughter but an easy forfeit?
The thought coiled bitterly in Alora’s mind. There had to be more to this than a simple marriage. If she could find that reason, perhaps she could unravel the snare closing around her.
“This sleep-like death that plagues Argyle, what do you know about it?”
“I call it the Sleeping Curse, and it began nearly twenty-five years ago.” Theia sighed. “We know nothing about it. The cause or what factors the afflicted have in common. It seems to strike at random. We didn’t realize it was happening for a long time. At first it was one villager in the east, then a farmer in the west. Then cases increased shortly after you left Argyle. Now it takes households.”
“Could Calveron have cursed us?”
“I had considered the possibility.” Her friend frowned thoughtfully. “But they do not strike me as the kind to devise such extensive plots. Their magic is ostentatious and swiftly violent. Nothing like the Sleeping Curse.”
Which was slow, creeping across the land like root rot.
Then what was the connection and how would King Thalion have the knowledge to break it? As fae, he could not make the claim if it were not true.
Alora looked out at the kingdom, wishing she could hate it, wishing she could be indifferent to their suffering. But she couldn’t, knowing her people would die if she didn’t help them. And she would, but not with marriage.
Alora took a deep breath. “Inform my father that I will join him shortly.”
Theia’s eyes widened slightly in surprise and she curtsied. “Of course, my lady.”
As her friend turned to go, Alora had another question. “Theia, why were the mirrors removed?”
There were none throughout the castle and now the one from Alora’s bureau was missing.
Theia paused, her expression flickering with unease. “It was an order from the King. When your late mother passed, he commanded all mirrors removed from the castle. The servants had forgotten the one in your chambers until this morning.”
“Why?” Alora asked faintly.
Theia hesitated. “It was said she would see things in them. Shapeless shadows and otherworldly eyes.”
A chill sank into Alora’s chest.
When Theia left, the chamber was heavier for her absence. Alora sank onto the edge of her bed, staring at the empty stand on her bureau. Had her mother contacted the hollow within the mountain? She glanced at the journal where it lay half-open, as though beckoning. Her fingers hesitated before she drew it onto her lap.
The pages crackled with age as she turned them, her mother’s delicate script winding across the vellum like ivy. Notes on herbs, on music, on the weaving of spells through song… until Alora’s eyes caught on a faded passage, smudged but legible.
The spindle is the key. Desire the lock.
Wrought by the hand that sleeps in the depths.
The mirror is the window.
Through it, he answers.
Alora’s heartbeat quickened. The candlelight dimmed around her, as though the words themselves summoned a hush. She traced the ink with a trembling fingertip.
Her mother had met him.
The God of Shadows.
Alora closed the journal with a snap, clutching it against her chest. What had her mother asked of him? Protection? Power? Salvation? The answer hardly mattered.
Salvia had bargained once, and so could she.
Shadows stirred faintly at the corners of the room, as if waiting.
