Then she’s on her feet; her chair crashes backward. She crosses the distance between us in three strides, and her arms are around me, pulling me against her, holding me so tight I can barely breathe.
She sobs out a desperate sound.
I hug her back, my face pressed against her shoulder, breathing in the scent of her.
She smells like home. Like days gone by.
“My girl,” she whispers into my hair. “Oh, Isla, how good it is to see you.”
The tears come before I can stop them. They spill hot and fast down my cheeks, soaking into the white linen of her shift. I’m shaking, but then she’s shaking too.
“I thought you were dead,” I manage to say.
“I know.” Her voice breaks. “I know, my darling girl. But we are together now, and that is what counts. You came back to me. We can be a family now.”
She pulls back just enough to cup my face in her hands. Her thumbs brush away my tears, though her own cheeks are wet. She studies me like she’s memorizing every detail.
“Look at you,” she pushes out. “You’ve grown into such an incredible woman. So strong. So beautiful.” A sob escapes her, followed by a laugh. “So powerful too.”
Then she pulls me close again, one hand stroking my hair the way she used to when I was small, scared, and uncertain of my place in the world.
“This is how it should be,” she murmurs. “You can finally embrace who you truly are.”
I go still in her arms.
She pulls back, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes bright.
“You are Isla of the House of the Dark Dagger,” she says, her voice ringing with pride. “My daughter. Descendant of Ruler General Fenrik himself. You have a legacy, a birthright.” Her smile widens. “Welcome home, my darling. I told Queen Snow all about you. She can’t wait to meet you.”
38
Sebastian
I’m wedged behind a stack of flour sacks in the far corner, my back pressed to cold stone, my legs drawn up tight to make myself as small as a man my size can manage.
Getting here was not easy.
I almost didn’t make it through the courtyard.
Breaking into the castle was worse. But I’m in now.
And Isla is somewhere in here.
I couldn’t catch up to her. She moves like smoke through shadow, and by the time I reached the outer wall, she was already gone, scaling the stone like it was nothing. I watched her disappear over a ledge and had to find my own way inside.
I have one advantage she doesn’t. I know this castle. Every corridor, every stairwell, every servants’ passage, and every hidden alcove. First, I lived here as a prince and then, as Baldwin. I walked these halls with a cane in one hand and the other trailing the wall, memorizing each stone, each change in texture underfoot, each draft that told me a door was near.
The castle hasn’t changed. Even sighted, the layout is exactly as my hands and feet remember it.
There is one thing that keeps me going: she hasn’t been caught yet, and she won’t be if I have anything to say about it.
I am growing more certain by the second that I have been a fool.
Not about her mother. About her.
The accusation I threw at Isla sits in my gut like a stone I swallowed whole. I looked into her eyes, and I told her that she was a liar, when I know her. I know her courage. I know the way her voice shakes when she’s scared, but she stands her ground anyway. I know the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching, and there is nothing false in it.
I was wrong. I have been wrong about her for a long time, and the damage I’ve done may be beyond repair.
