“As always,” Percival ground out.
Veyka swiped her tongue over her lower lip, as if she could taste his fear. Enjoying it. But her words were cold when she spoke again. “Why were Arran’s memories taken?”
Percival’s face did not shift an inch. “I cannot answer that.”
“How can we get them back?”
“I don’t know.”
To all the rest of the room, she must have appeared calm.
Veyka did not have any tells. She chose what and when to show her feelings. But she could not hide from the bond between us. I felt her agony and frustration as if it were my own.Because it is, I realized. One soul, two bodies.
My hand closed around the back of the chair so hard the wood groaned.
Cyara stepped forward, white wings flaring behind her. “He cannot be lying,” she said with quiet force.
Veyka did not care. She wanted answers, and she was ready to slaughter Percival for them. In a breath, the mood had shifted from casual to deadly. Because of me—because of what Veyka needed and wanted. I had underestimated her, and the depth of what she felt. Her love.
My other hand joined the first. The chair would not survive the night.
“We are only half-witch,” Diana said softly, her voice trembling. But she continued. “The witch curse in our blood compels us to answer your questions truthfully. But we only have knowledge about what we have personally experienced or witnessed.”
“That is not how it happened in the Tower of Myda,” Veyka bit back. Even with Cyara at her side now, she had not eased her blade from Percival’s throat.
“You encountered a true witch,” Diana breathed.
“Yes.”
Witches had been hunted down by the Ancestors after the Great War, at the same time the priestesses had been stripped of their power. Avalon only remained because it was in the human realm, rather than Annwyn. And even so, I’d thought it little more than a legend until I’d woke up on the sacred isle.
But according to legend, two witches survived. Hidden by the Ancestors, in case some future generation needed to call upon their power. One, in the Tower of Myda. According to the sketchy details Osheen had been able to give me, Veyka had killed that one. The other was said to dwell somewhere in the icy caves of the Spine.
“A witch—a full witch—is not tethered to her body,” Diana explained, still trembling. “Their minds can unfurl, travel to the past and the future, to other realms. Just their minds. But it is how they can answer any question, no matter the topic.” She wasa second away from bursting into tears, but she managed to get the last few words out. “Can you take that away from his throat?”
Veyka narrowed her eyes at the woman, but gave no other hint of what calculations she made behind those swirling blue orbs. Whatever it was, she was not feeling strongly enough for my beast to sense it.
As suddenly as she’d advanced, Veyka stepped back. “Fine.”
She dropped into her chair, set the knife on the table—a reminder for Percival and Diana, and turned to her handmaiden. “What have you found out about the Sacred Trinity?”
Lyrena stole the question from mouth. “You had them looking into the Sacred Trinity? I thought we were trying to find a way to banish the succubus back to their own realm for good.”
Veyka very pointedly did not look at her golden knight. “Arthur thought it was important.”
Lyrena gnashed her teeth, gold flashing. “Arthur lied.”
The dynamic was strange. Not like the council at the terrestrial court, nor any war council I’d ever led. Those she’d assembled in this room—aside from the prisoners—spoke with no reservation.
Veyka pursed her lips, eyes still averted. Lyrena was having none of that. She planted herself directly in the Veyka’s line of sight.
The queen did not look away. “Why?” No response. “Why would Arthur have lied if it was not tied to this, to the succubus? Why would he give me amorite weapons, the one thing that can defeat them? Why set you, Lyrena, a Goldstone Guard sworn to protect the king, with your fire that can hold the succubus at bay, as my protector when such a thing had never been done before?”
Lyrena did not back down. “Because he loved you.”
“I do not accept that.” Veyka’s throat bobbed before she added, “That it’s a coincidence.”
She’d loved her brother fiercely. That much was easy to read. And the feeling had been returned. Loved him, only to see him murdered before her eyes. Taken from her. As I had nearly been. Sorrow filled my gut—but it was not my mate’s. It was my own.
