Antony was clear and emphatic when he told me the story of the curse.
But then…he was also clear that he would weave lies into truths, so I wouldn’t know one from the other.
“I’ve startled you,” Stellen says, his voice soothing.
“A little.” It was surprising to find out there was a curse in the first place. Now again, to know that my fundamental understanding of the curse may not be so accurate. “So tell me: if the prince didn’t attack his father, what happened?”
Stellen’s jaw visibly tightens, even though his hand remains gentle around my arm. “The king attacked his son.”
The opposite of what Antony told me. “How? Tell me everything.” I’ve jolted forward, my head tipped back to keep Stellen’s face within my sight. “I want the truth.”
An uncanny smile plays around his lips. “You deserve the truth. But right now, my greater concern is this blood bind and the possibility that the False Queen foresaw not only your existence, but parts of your life.”
I take a breath. He’s evading for what might be the first time since we started talking, and I’m not sure why…
I need the truth. But if he’s unwilling to give it to me now, then pushing for it won’t help me.
Not least because the present danger of the blood bind is a far greater concern.
I take another breath in what has been a series of deep breaths. “Okay, then. If I allow myself to consider what could be possible… If the False Queen saw the future and wanted to stop her curse from ever being broken, she could have had blood binds cast on all the things that were used to forge the blade. Not the fire itself, obviously, but certainly the anvil. That way, she could destroy them and ensure the curse can’t be broken.”
He inclines his head. “She could have. That’s one explanation.”
I’m already seeing holes in my theory. “If she wanted the instruments destroyed, why not simply do it herself at the time? Smash them to bits. Threat over.”
Stellen shrugs. “Maybe she made some deal with the Merovian who cast the bind? Something that meant she had a reason for keeping the instruments intact?”
“Sure, but if the bind was about destroying the hammer, then why did it transfer to me?”
Stellen presses his lips together, a slow movement. His chin tips up a little.
His reaction is so noticeable that it dawns on me…
He was waiting for me to come to this.
“It wasn’t about destroying the hammer.” My voice is strangled. “It was about destroying me.”
Bitter bile rises to my throat. She must have known I would be born. She must have foreseen it. Instead of destroying the hammer, she used it as a vessel, just asStellen said.
By using the blade, the False Queen could reach into the future and attack my mind. With the hammer and the blood bind, she could attack my body.
“On the night you were born, a shower of stars blazed across the sky,” Stellen says far more softly than I was expecting, and I’m not sure why he’s talking about the night I was born right now, but his eyes are suddenly bright, mesmerizing.
“Breathtaking, diamond-bright light spread across the three kingdoms,” he says. “Unforgettable. Antony would have been maybe three years old at the time. Maxim was only a baby. But I was old enough to remember the sky. Something shifted in our world that night.”
I died that night.
I can only imagine the scent of the white roses my highborn mother could create with her power. I can only dream of her arms around me. But somehow, I can clearly hear her screams of grief as her home burned and she believed I’d died within those flames.
“Imagine foreseeingthat.” Stellen’s voice is cold now as he closes the gap between us, his gaze pinning me. “Imagine knowing that one day your opposite would be born. A fae who could undo everything you had done.” His lips rise into a cruel smile. “How she must have raged.”
His grip is firm but not painful. “This blood bind attacked your body. To embed into your skin, to bind you as a living, breathing fae, would require the skill and power of the most powerful Merovian. Not only that. It would require a needle-sharp precision.
“Blood binds cling to objects, not flesh. This bind has dug deep. And now, it’s evolving. It may well be working through multiple stages with different purposes.”
My jaw clenches. “That isn’t comforting.”
“I’m not here to comfort you.”
