She glares at me. “Are you one to speak of poor bargains, Keldarion? If so, please come and join me within my bars. We could pass another twenty-five years with the discussion.”
“Enough, you two.” George glares at us both. “Anya, go on. I need to know.”
“I asked Sira how to extend a human’s life, but some things are impossible for even the two of us. However, she did have other arcane knowledge. She offered to teach me how to tie your life force to an object. In return, I would make a bargain with her.”
George’s face crumples in anguish. “Say this isn’t all for me.”
“I’m selfish, I know it, George. What can I say? Well, I asked her what this bargain was. We were friends before she stole the rose from the Gardens, did you know that? I’m sure you didn’t. You don’t remember any of my stories, do you, George?”
He clutches his hair. “I don’t know what I remember. There’s bits and pieces falling at me, but I can’t line them up. It’s like I’m standing in a meteor storm just waiting to get hit.”
Anya gives a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry. That’s my fault, too. But I’ll get to it.”
“The bargain,” I growl. “What bargain did you agree to?”
Her voice takes on a dark resonance. “The bargain was thus: if I were ever to love anyone more than George, that person would belong to Sira completely: mind, body, and soul.”
George and I both swear at the same time.
“It was a fine bargain!” Anya exclaims. “I’d lived a thousand lives and never loved anyone except George. I never thought it would be possible!”
“Until you had a child,” I say.
“Well, yes. That comes later. You’re moving too fast. I made the deal and felt quite chuffed about it, thinking I’d gotten exactly what I wanted from Sira without any sorrow. Of course, now I had to decide what I was going to do with George’s life force. What object would live as long as I did?”
George’s life-thread springs into my mind, his illness getting worse every time the High Princes were away from Castletree … “You tied it to Castletree.”
“It was quite clever, if I do say so myself.” She crosses her arms and tilts her nose into the air.
I pound a fist against the barrier. “Except you cursed us princes and now Castletree is dying!”
She puts her hands on her hips and glowers at me. “You have a lot of expectations of me, Keldarion. I didn’twantto be Queen, did you know that? I only wanted to help my people. After I saved the roses from the Gardens and made the new realms, everyone proclaimed me Queen, and I just had to deal with it. I’ll have you know that it’s one thing to be a hero and another thing to be a Queen. I didn’t always get it right.”
I take a step back. That’s exactly what she is. A hero. She saved the Gardens of Ithilias and traveled around the realms, rescuing fae who needed help.
Her restlessness simmers beneath her skin even now, her spirit undamaged even after twenty-five years in prison.
So many of the fae in the Enchanted Vale look up to her, thinking her a goddess. The army at Queen’s Reach pledged their life to her.
But she’s only a fae who saved the world and had to live with the consequences.
She sighs and looks away from me. “So, I tied George’s life to Castletree and returned to the human realm. We went on all sorts of adventures. Do you remember them?”
“Yes, I think so,” he says. “But they’re only now coming back to me.”
“You knew everything back then. What I was. Why you never aged. But our greatest adventure began in Orca Cove.” She looks down and splays her fingers across her belly. “I had made the realms, grown Castletree from a sprout. But this was the greatest life I ever created.”
“Did you not think of your bargain? Did you not ever consider you would have a child?” I exclaim.
“Of course I did! Sira led me to believe our bargain only included romantic love.”
“You’ve got to be explicit in the wording of bargains,” I mutter.
She glowers at me. “Thank you for such a helpful observation. Obviously, having time to reflect on everything, one could say I was a tad … optimistic about my deal.”
I begin to interject that “optimistic” is far toooptimisticof a way to view her mistakes, but she waves her hand to silence me and continues speaking. “At that point, I knew my adventures in the human realm were coming to a close. A half-fae daughter should be raised among her people. So, when Rosalina was one year old, I journeyed back to Castletree for the first time since I’d tied George’s life to it decades ago.”
“And you found us,” I say solemnly.
