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His smile was bright as he plucked a berry from the plate, rounded the table, patting Asger on the head, and flicking one of Gwyn’s long, golden earrings.
Every eye followed him, befuddled. Kage took the chair at my side, shoulders brushing.
“Amazing what a good night in bed can do, my stunning liege,” said Cy, his previous unease at my declaration gone and replaced with a crooked smirk. “We’ve been telling you for some time to get more rest. If I’d known what magic she’d bring, I would’ve sent her to your bed long ago.”
Asger groaned, nudging his newly filled plate away. “Well, I think I’ll wait to eat alone.”
Kage draped his arm around my shoulders and tugged me into his side, twisting his palm about so sunlight glistened over his marital marks.
“These are hers. I remember.” His voice thickened. I squeezed his knee in reassurance until he repeated what we’d learned. A life growing alongside each other, of growing in love, until two days before our union, the sacrifice was made.
Whenhe finished the room was silent. I wiped at a few tears and laced my fingers with Kage’s. “To unlock my magic, the Well of Urd knew I would need to remember, I would need to know why I went to the sacred tree at all. For him. For you.”
“And this list,” Cy said, tugging the parchment in front of him, “these are your questions now that you know some of your past?”
“It is maddening to think you know an entire life, yet we do not recall it,” said Gwyn.
“But you believe it?” I never considered they might doubt what we said. “It makes a bit of sense, don’t you think? Why you were drawn to each other, why I found the lot of you first.”
Gwyn scoffed. “I’m not refuting anything. I believe every damn word. Of course, you and I would be on opposite sides of a battlefield against these fools during studies.”
Cyland hooked his muscled arm around her neck and ruffled her braids until she squealed and clawed at his arm.
“We don’t refute it,” Gwyn went on, “we simply wish to remember it the same.”
Kage glanced at me. There was still much I wanted to tell them, but I agreed with the prince. They needed to remember through their own recollection if possible. It would settle deeper, strengthen them as it had done for us.
“You should go to the Well,” Kage said. “We all know it might not reveal the same or as much, since it is personal to you. I do not believe it can remove the curse entirely, for there are parts of the past I still do not know. I don’t know how the curse began, nor how my parents fell into a slumber. But it might show you something.”
“Then let us go.” Asger shot to his feet, a bright, almost hopeful expression on his face. It seemed wholly out of place for his somber disposition. “I am done watching you fade, so let us be done with this damn curse. We’re so close.”
“Well.” Gwyn crossed one leg over her knee, and sat back in her chair. “I do believe that is the most I’ve ever heard Asger speak in one go.”
Laughter distracted us for a few moments, but soon enoughKage sobered. “We will go, but we do so in shadows. Destin cannot see us.”
Asger nodded. “He’ll have something to say if he sees Adira with you again.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Kage said, a new, jagged bitterness in his tone. “Destin is not my brother. I do not have a brother. The Well showed us that Arabeth ismysister. King Markus and Queen Torie are my parents by blood.”
“I still don’t understand?”
Kage hesitated. His discontent clear on every pulse of tension in his neck. “I am saying there is no Destin of House Wilder. And we would be wise to watch our backs.”
We gathered supplies swiftly,only what we could carry. Odds were we’d be on foot, not willing to take the risk of taking any of the horses in the stable once we’d finished at the Well. Outside, morning lessons and meditations were in full bloom.
Young mages hummed and chanted prayers near an alley of mosaic walls. Designs of two moons cupped in the palms of two silver hands—the symbol of the goddess.
We split ranks, keeping heads down, using the bustle to make our way toward the Well entrance once more. Kappi from Vondell strode down the roads, some appeared to be searching. Then again, it might’ve been my own paranoia trying to convince me Destin knew we were suspicious of his intentions.
He’d been so kind, so welcoming, even sincerely worried about Kage and me when it came to the Immorti. There was a part of me that wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. What if his belief he was part of the royal house was all part of the corruption? Kage himself did not recall his true lineage, believing King Markus to be his stepfather all this time.
Could it be possible Destin was innocent merely based on manipulation from a degenerative spell?
There was another side of me that no longer trusted him anywhere near Kage Wilder. Destin warned me against Kage, my husband as far as I was concerned. I did not need some High Mage to bind us as husband and wife—he was the mirror of my soul.
What if Destin wanted me to be kept from Kage because he feared what we would discover together?
In the corner of my eye, Gwyn stepped into my sights, inconspicuous. Cyland, with his height and breadth, slipped back into the trees and would keep low in the grass beyond the Well, out of sight in the most crowded areas at the Sanctuary.
