“So were you for a while,” he said, his grin wolfish.
The interplay between them was interesting. Like Margeaux before her, Alize had been stripped of her title of princess when her mother, Queen Anais, could not produce a male heir in a timely manner. Margeaux’s mother, the daughter of another powerful fae family, had at least been granted an annulment and a natural death. Queen Anais was beheaded for her failures.
Edmund’s mother succeeded where the first two queens had not. She delivered the Crown Prince of Balar Shan. A year later, she died in childbed trying to bring forth another. Once, the fae would have had enough magic to save her. But the curse had wrought its damage everywhere. Velora was dying and determined to take every living thing with it.
The royal siblings had every reason to hate each other. But beneath the jibing, I sensed an undercurrent of affection.
More had changed in the long years of my absence than I’d realized.
Alize rolled her eyes again and moved her arms from her hips to cross over her chest.
“Her Royal Majesty, the most magnanimous Queen Parry, convinced the king to reinstate me and Margeaux’s titles a few years ago,” she explained. “It nearly cost the Queen her head.”
I did not know Parry well. My father had married her in the months before my departure from Balar Shan. After Margeaux’s mother, she was the longest reigning queen of the fae, having survived for more than twenty years. It should have been a blink in time for the fae; but in this king’s court, it was a testament to her intelligence and political skill. Or maybe just the fact that the king finally had his legitimate son. But I doubted that had made him any more magnanimous.
“I do not take offense to the facts of my birth,” I said. It was the complete, unvarnished truth. I was damned thankful that I had always been excluded from the succession. A year ago, I would have said I wished I’d never found out the truth of my parentage. But that was before I met Koryn. Still, “I don’t want to be any more his son. I want to be less.”
Alize snorted. Edmund actually chuckled.
“Don’t we all,” the former said under her breath.
As fascinating as this whole exchange was, it did not solve my most immediate problem. The scarlet letter of the king’s summons still burned in my pocket. I could not see outside to judge the time, but I knew I did not have much of it left.
“What do you want from me?”
Edmund slid his too-confident gaze to our sister. Alize was the ringleader, then.
Alize uncrossed her arms. “Our father has made common cause with the witch,” she said. Maura, not Koryn.
My jaw ticked. I let the obvious sign of annoyance show. “He wants to break the curse, and he thinks this is the best way to do it.”
“Yes,” Alize allowed. “But if that was the totality of his scheming, he would not spend hours every day behind closed doors with the woman.”
That was the first new bit of information my siblings had shared.
I chose my words carefully. “You think there is more to their bargain.”
Did Alize and Edmund know about the talisman? I would not be the one to tell them. They might trust me enough to share their worries, but that trust was not returned. Not yet. But what they did know could be useful to Koryn’s quest. “Do you know what else?”
“We have ideas,” Alize admitted. Which meant they knew nothing.
This was a waste of time.
I turned for the door.
“Magic is fading rapidly. Faster than ever before,” Alize said quickly. She kicked Edmund.
“The shifters seem to have more magic left than most,” he said on command. “But those that transform into larger animals are having a harder time. Most of my guards cannot muster more than a burst of magic before they are depleted.”
The room was small, and it only took a few steps for Alize to angle herself between me and the singular exit.
“You are the only shifter born to the royal line in hundreds of years,” she said, lifting her chin meaningfully. She was tall, even for a fae, but she still had to look up at me.
“Lucky me,” I growled.
“Can you still shift?” She seemed to be done parsing words.
“Yes,” I said. “Are you going to ask for a demonstration?”
