She nods, looking unsurprised. “So you’re going to see the lights at last?”
“Yes. I think now is as good a time as any.”
“I know,” she says, pivoting to face the counter again where she takes up a knife and begins slicing the cheese into smaller portions. “I told you last year I was surprised that you hadn’t jumped at the first opportunity to go. Are you scared?”
“No,” I say too quickly, then blush when she gives me a pointed look over her shoulder. “Alright, a little.”
“That’s understandable. You’ve never left the village.”
“That’s not entirely true anymore,” I protest. “I’ve explored some of Vernallis in the last couple of years.”
“But this is different. You’ll be going to another kingdom.” She bites her lip, obviously thinking hard. “Perhaps you should take someone with you. Jett, maybe? Or Fox if he’s not too busy.”
“No!” I protest. “I don’t need them. I’m perfectly capable of traveling. Jett travels all over the continent alone and no one has a problem with it.”
“That’s different,” she says gently.
“Because he’s a man?” I reply bitterly.
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “No, because he wouldn’t be in danger if anyone knew who he was.”
I sigh. “Thorne is dead. I’m not in danger anymore.”
“…true,” she says, sounding unsure.
“What’s wrong?” I demand. “If there’s something else you’re not telling me…?”
Beatrix looks tired. She stops slicing the bread, and dusts flour off her hands, before turning to me. “There is, actually. I probably should have told you this years ago. At the same time, I wish I didn’t have to tell you now. I think you might be angry with me for keeping it from you either way, but I hope you know I was just trying to protect you.”
My eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
She draws air through her teeth, shoulders slumping as she exhales. The wooden chair legs scrape against the stone floor as she pulls it out and lowers herself into it. When she lifts her chin to meet my eyes, the morning light from the window catches the steel in her gaze.
“I still remember the day your mother arrived at court,” she says, fingers tracing invisible patterns on the table. “Thorne paraded her through the great hall like a prize from his travels to Solistine. She wore this simple blue dress, nothing fancy, but she was shockingly beautiful. Her eyes…” Beatrix’s gaze grows distant. “When she cast her first spell for the court, every candle in the chandelier blazed emerald green. Even Thorne looked startled.”
“That’s not especially difficult to do,” I comment, waving a hand toward the oil lamp on the wall. Both Beatrix and I watch as the light flares green.
Beatrix smiles faintly. “I know for you it isn’t difficult, you’ve always reminded me of Amora in that respect. Your personality is nothing like hers was, but your magic is the same.”
My eyes widen slightly, and my fingers curl into an unconscious fist, snuffing out the light from the oil lamp. Beatrix almost never uses my mother’s name—Amora—and hearing it now sends a strange shiver down my spine. “What was she like,then? You’ve never told me what she was like, just that we’re different.”
“She was…intense,” Beatrix says, seeming to struggle to find the right word to describe my mother. “From the moment Amora arrived, I was assigned to attend to her. Every night, I’d draw her bath, then brush her hair while she practiced incantations from Solistine and told me stories of her home. Having grown up in near poverty, she always believed she was destined for more than her simple life. Consequently, she wasn’t surprised when the king visited her village and discovered her. She didn’t miss her life before at all, and believed she deserved the extravagant new life she’d been given.”
“She sounds like Thorne,” I comment darkly.
“No, no,” Beatrix rushes to say. “She wasn’t cruel or distant the way he was, she was…driven, and for whatever it’s worth she did care for Thorne. Your mother was brilliant, but she had a blind spot where the king was concerned. He’d rescued her and given her everything so she really did love him and she’d convinced herself that it was mutual.”
“Maybe she didn’t believe he loved her back. Maybe she just wanted that so much she was willing to ignore the obvious.”
Beatrix gives me a searching look, then purses her lips. “Maybe. Regardless, she was absolutely crushed when Thorne changed his mind about their marriage and threw her out of his court. As you know, I couldn’t just abandon her along with everyone else. I knew she was pregnant by this point, though hardly anyone else did. I had this house all to myself as my husband was long dead and Daemon had been banished, so I brought your mother here and helped her through her pregnancy.”
“When she was about halfway along we both noticed that her belly had grown larger than what would have been typical, and afew months after that when she could feel two babies kicking we were sure that it was twins.”
I gasp, shocked. “What?”
“Yes,” Beatrix looks sad. “I think this is the part when you may be angry with me. I know I should have told you all this years ago, but I knew if I did you wouldn’t be willing to stay in hiding anymore. You would have risked your life to learn everything, and Thorne would have found out and killed you or worse, sent you to Dyaspora like he did to Daemon. I’d already lost one child, I couldn’t bear to lose another.”
“Tell me now then,” I demand. “What happened? Did I have a…sibling?”
