“She worked in the castle?” She had never told me. I wasn’t sure she even knew. “She knew Fear? She looked right at him and didn’t recognize him.”
Had that been because she was so worried for Tay and me and Lidi in that moment with the burrowers when she came face-to-face with Fear?
“She doesn’t remember everything exactly,” Corbyn said, and I had the sudden feeling I was being managed exactly the way Fear did sometimes, and I suddenly was furious.
“What did you do to her?” I demanded, and his face told me I had hit the right question.
“She chose this,” he told me. “Let me explain.”
“Please do.”
“Maris cared deeply for Fear.” Corbyn seemed frustrated by my lack of understanding. “She wanted to rescue him from the queen.”
I glanced over at Fear, who had a composed face. “He seems to have rescued himself.”
Corbyn’s jaw hardened. “Maris and I lived on the shifter settlement on the island. She was mortal, but she was happy with us. She had served in the castle until she was cast out, without having the chance to say goodbye to Fear.”
He seemed genuinely distressed by the memory. The thought of a connection between Fear and me that dated back to when I was born was unsettling.
“Can you tell me something that will make me believe this is true?”
He glanced at Fear. I thought he was going to claim that Fear would know, but instead he said, “Fear had a stuffed raven toy that he was obsessed with when he was a little boy. One of the servants ruined it. Maris and I took it to the Night Market and had it mended. The enchantment from the Night Market should still be upon it.”
I remembered finding the raven hidden along with the Amber Dragon Compendium in Fear’s closet.
Fear, to his credit, inclined his head without a trace of shame. “I do still have it.”
Corbyn nodded and continued. “Maris and I were hoping to launch a rebellion against the queen and rescue Fear.”
It did not appear that rebellions tended to be very successful against the queen. Something disquieting grew in my chest. “And then what happened?”
Even though we were talking about the past, what was on my mind was what we intended to do: saving Tay and freeing mortals and shifters alike. What he said seemed less like history and more like prophecy.
“Maris and I learned the story of Lightbringer. She was the first of the dragon shifters, and she carries immense power that has not been seen in our world since she abandoned it.”
It might’ve been my imagination, but I could have sworn a sweep of indignation rose through me.
“Maris and I had dreamed of having a child,” he said. “We came to dream of having a hero.”
“A rather long time frame on rescuing Fear,” I said dryly. I turned to him. “I hope you don’t feel disappointed with your hero.”
He offered me a small smile. “I do not.”
I had been joking but said it with what seemed like dreadful sincerity. Only the thought that it was yet another of Fear’s tender deceits eased my discomfort.
Especially when I was failing rather epically at enticing Lightbringer into heroics, or even acknowledging my existence.
“Our plan was not to leave Fear to rot in the castle.” Corbyn’s tone was hot. He seemed as irritated by me as my mother so often was, so perhaps that was another slash in the column under proof of parentage. “Our plan was not to wait until you came of age. But one night, the queen’s Nightwalkers attacked the shifter settlement on the island.”
I thought of the now overgrown island where we, as dragon shifters, went to celebrate, far from the capital. The abandoned cottages there. I could not imagine my mother living in one of them when they were bright and warm.
I glanced to Fear to fill in the gaps. “That was when Ander’s family was killed?”
“Yes.”
“It was a terrible day.” Corbyn looked a little older, worn and exhausted, just recalling it.
“Please explain to me how my mother came to think that you are a monster.”
