‘I was getting messages from her through that cell door all night.I told her to sleep, and in her dreams, I showed her how you looked that day.’Mae touched my hair tenderly.‘She was happy that you were not only beautiful but also kind-hearted.’
I had failed to come back for her in time, and the guilt made me choke on the tears that poured relentlessly from me.‘Was it Merrick who killed her?’
Mae nodded.
‘I wish I could deliver a hundred more painful deaths to him.’Both of my mothers had died by his hand.‘She did something to those knights, didn’t she?To Iain, the man who took me?’
With the blanket I still wore, I wiped away some of the tears and mucus from my face.
‘She used Control Weaving to make them keep you safe instead of killing you and your brother as the king ordered.’
Brother.I had a brother.I put that information aside – there was something else I needed to know first.Something about the man I had spent half my life with.
‘Can Mind Weaving make people lose their memories, even forget who they are?’
‘Your mother was a strong Weaver, which may damage the mind over time.’
So his confusion and memory loss had been my fault too.
‘King Hared found out, didn’t he?Is that why he cut out her tongue?’
‘Yes, he was very cruel to her by the end.I think he loved her very much once,’ Mae said sadly.
‘How can anybody do that to someone they love?’I said, appalled.
‘Those who love us can sometimes cause us the most suffering.Love is an incredibly potent emotion that can easily twist into something toxic,’ Mae said grimly.
Loving someone and losing them was a pain I was more familiar with.‘My brother, does he live?’I asked hopefully.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he?’My heart rate picked up with anticipation.
Mae hesitated before answering.‘The knight delivered your brother to your father.’
‘The man who came through the window?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
I frowned.‘I don’t understand how he could transform himself into the king.I thought only women were Curs— I mean, Weavers.’
‘His sister would help him.It was an illusion used to get him past the guards.’
‘Where is he now?Why didn’t our mother keep us together?’
‘It would have been too easy for King Hared’s men to find you both if you were together.Twins, a boy and a girl, would be easy to track,’ Mae explained.
She still hadn’t told me where my father and brother were, but I thought I knew why.Did he have an accent?He spoke little in Queen Yaris’s memories.
‘They are in Ephemeros, aren’t they?My father wasn’t from Pedion, so they hadn’t married?’Her father wouldn’t have wanted a man from Ephemeros to take the Pedion throne.
Mae nodded wearily, confirming my suspicions.External forces truly were working to get me to Ephemeros.
Mae’s face was drawn, and shadows filled the cavities under her sad eyes.The past few days spent trying to wake me and now sharing my birth mother’s memories with me had taken a toll on her.
I rose from her bedroll.She wasn’t the hugging type, so I hovered awkwardly, trying to think of the right way to thank her.
‘You’re welcome,’ Mae said.‘Now get some food and sleep.Having someone in your head will make anyone tired.’She yawned and then smiled sleepily.
