I feel my Talent begin to boil. “And why would Soleste want to kill you?”
“Many reasons.” Mother looks down at her hands. “I’ve known Soleste since we were girls together. She wasn’t born into royalty. She was just a commoner from the Ironwoods, like me, but with a veryuncommonTalent.”
“A siphon.” I nod. I know that much from the legends.
“Yes,” says Mother. “She can draw magic out of anything with a touch, including other bloodborne Talents. She can steal portions of other people’s power without them even realizing, and she has never had any qualms about doing so. By the time she was your age, she was already the most formidable Elven wielder in history. Among her stolen Talents was the ability to control minds. Including mine.”
The pain that crosses her face threatens to rip out my heart.
“But the magic wasn’t enough for Soleste,” Mother continues softly. “Her ambition was insatiable. So, eventually, she set her sights on the Crown and secured a marriage to Prince Amos—Evermore’s presumed heir at the time.”
Cygnus and I exchange looks.
“Is Amos the Heir of Evermore?” I ask eagerly. “Is he still alive?”
“No.” She shakes her head, and my spirits sink. “After he married her, Amos became a shell of himself. He wouldn’t leave his chambers or speak to almost anyone. He finally passed about two decades ago, but most people thought he was dead long before that. You have to understand the kind of power she wields. When you’re in front of her, Soleste can make you forget who you are, what you care about, every person you’ve ever loved. That’s what she did to him, and it’s what she did to me.”
“For how long?” asks Cygnus.
“A little under three hundred years,” Mother says. “I served her through the duration of the Long War. I was at her side during the fyres, and when she led the last of the Evermoreans underground, before she turned the Hartlands over to King Verdin.”
I’m trying to visualize the horror Mother experienced. I simply can’t comprehend it.
“But why?” Cygnus asks. “Why would she do any of it?”
“I don’t know.” Mother bites her lip. “I have never been able to understand her decisions. Soleste is thereasonwe lost the Long War, on so many levels. She destroyed the mind of our king, only wielding her power when it was convenient. She never joined our warriors riding onto the battlefield. When she led the Evermoreans underground, we thought Ruin was going to be a temporary sanctuary to rebuild our strength. Instead, she sealed every gate with magic except the one in her castle. She and her lackeys can come and go as they please, but the rest of us have been trapped underground ever since. You two are the first to open one of those gates.”
Cygnus and I exchange another look. I imagine he’s as astonished as I am.
“But how did you get out?” I ask.
Mother’s hands have started to shake. She clasps them tightly. “Do you remember the stories I told you about Faeries and name day gifts?”
I swallow. “Yes?”
I’m very still as I wait for her to continue.
“Before King Amos died, Soleste became pregnant. And when the baby was born, Soleste allowed the Faeries to visit Ruin for the name day ceremony. However, instead of bestowing a gift, the Faerie queen proclaimed that she’d seen a vision: that the child would manifest a Talent that would one day rival Soleste’s.”
Heat is rising through my blood.
“The only thing Solesteeverfeared was the Heir of Evermore,” Mother continues. “The prophecy says that the heir will be granted the power of Gods—the kind of power it would take to rival a siphon. And yet, before the whole court of Ruin, the Faerie queen declared that the heir had arrived and she was none other than Soleste’s newborn child. The instant the Faerie queen spoke the words, Soleste struck her down with a thought. And not just her.”
Mother has gone very pale. “Soleste slaughteredevery single personin that room. Except for me…and her daughter.”
The words sound as though I’m very far away.
“I don’t know why she spared us. It makes no logical sense,” she continues. “After all these years, my only guess is there is a part of Soleste that can feel love, and that part of her…couldn’t bring herself to do it. At least not in that moment. Soleste stormed away, and I remember just clutching the baby, looking out at the carnage, and that’s when I felt it. The tight hold she’d had over my mind, all those years I hadn’t been able to disobey—it just shattered.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “The child was in mortal danger. Soleste would eventually change her mind about sparing her. I knew it was just a matter of time. And I think, somehow, my desire to protect her baby overrode her magic. So I carried the child into the queen’s chambers, and the last unsealed path out of Ruin, and just…walked out. I smuggled her out of Crown City and carried her over the wall.”
Blood pounds against my temples. The air in this room is suddenly too thick to breathe.
“The only way to keep the child safe was to hide her. If Soleste had any hint of her whereabouts, she would have stopped at nothing to find her. And if the child herself knewwhat she was, and Soleste managed to get her hands on her, she’d be able to see it in her daughter’s mind.
“There is so much I’ve been forced to keep from you,” Mother explains. “Somuch I have wanted to tell you. But I hope you can understand now why it had to be done. And that I only did any of it because I love you. You are my daughter, Lyria. No matter your blood.”
“No,” I say, as something fundamental within me fissures. “Stop.Don’t.”
