Keldarion
“What do you mean, Rosalina will take your place?” George cries.
The Queen of the Vale kneels before us, head down.
I slam my hand against the glowing green barrier that cages her within. “So, you truly did make a bargain, didn’t you?”
She sighs and holds up her hand. There’s a single black band around the ring finger of her right hand. It has no design, no etching. Metal plain as prison bars.
The circular manifestation of a bargain.
I tear away from her cage with a growl. “What could ever possess you to involve your daughter in a bargain?”
“I didn’t mean to!” she cries. Her eyes dart to the entrance. “I’ll tell you quickly, but then you must leave. Promise?”
“No, I don’t promise!” George says. “I’ve been searching for you for nearly half my life. I won’t leave your side again.”
“Oh, sweet George, it hasn’t been nearly half your life. Not even close.”
I storm back to the barrier. There’s no way we can just leave, not when we have no answers and no direction. How could the Queen of the Vale have made a bargain without understanding the consequences? She’s the bloodyQueen. She created the realms, Castletree …
All this time, I thought with certainty that I was cursed because it was what I deserved. Now as I stare at Aurelia—at Anya—I wonder if she’s as fallible as the rest of us.
“You’ll understand when I explain.” Anya touches her hands to the barrier and George places his against hers. “I had ruledthe Vale for generations and I was tired of it all. Tired of war and noble squabbling and having to know the proper answer for everything. I was exhausted. I couldn’t do it anymore! And I didn’t need to be there. I left my four most trusted confidants in charge of the realms, assured that they would pass their power down to the worthy. Then I left.”
“So, it’s always been true,” I growl. “You abandoned the Vale.”
“I didn’tabandonthe Vale. The fae I left in charge were better suited to rule than I ever was,” she snaps. “I had done my part. Suffered through wars, pushed my magic to its limits, sacrificed my happiness for the good of the people. It was my turn tolive!And I did. Oh, I lived. I watched Shakespeare’s plays at the Globe Theatre in London, sipped tea with Anne Boleyn in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace, marveled at Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions in Milan, and sailed on the HMSBeaglewith Charles Darwin.” Her eyes shimmer. “I got to witness the rise of civilizations without having the pressure of designing them myself! To experience the world as it came to me … that was magic.”
“What of your people?” I ask.
“I left them in the best hands I could,” she says, voice short. “It’s not my fault their descendants passed the Blessings down to those who refused to live with conviction.”
The words find their mark. She did think me unworthy.
“Maybe I would have been more ready for the Blessing if my father hadn’t died in a war, one you left us to fight alone,” I say darkly. My anger surprises even me. This is the creator of my home, my way of being. The magic she saved flows through my veins. Yet, all I can think is whatever bargain she made threatens Rosalina.
Though … I suppose that doesn’t make us so different.
Anya glares at me, then softens. “Fine. You’re right and you have every reason to hate me, Keldarion. But I would not change my past. Not for anything. Because it led me to you.” Her gaze drifts to George.
“I thought you were a fool when we first met,” she says.
“I know. You told me all the time.”
“I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, George. I’d lived over a thousand years without falling in love. But this was greater than any adventure I’d been on. I was no stranger to grief. I’d mourned countless visionaries who’d inspired me, many leaders I admired.But not so many friends. I knew better than to get attached to someone whose life would vanish in a breath of mine.”
Her voice gains strength as she speaks. “My fae life was far behind me, but I still remembered magic. I could turn fae to animals or some mixture of the two, but I’d never been able to create faedom. So how was I to keep you with me forever? How was I to cheat death?”
George’s fingers curl against the barrier, as if he could wrap her hand in his. “I would have been grateful to have one lifetime with you, Annie.”
“I know you would, darling.” She smiles and a tear trails down her cheek. “But you know me. You said it all the time. ‘Nothing’s ever enough for you, is it, Annie?’ One lifetime with you would never do me. Never ever.”
A pit opens in my stomach. There was only one fae in the Vale who ever rivaled the Queen’s power. If there was something Aurelia was incapable of—
“So, I did the only thing I could think of. I went to the one person who I thought might have been able to master this power. My enemy, Sira.”
I knock my head hard against the barrier. “Thank the seven realms Rosalina got your looks and not your rashness.”
