Page 101 of The Crown’s Temptation

His breath caught. “You know her? Does she live?”

His voice cracked.

“Please.”

He hated how desperate he sounded. “Tell me anything.”

“Everything.”

“Is she alive?”

The little girl considered the question. “She’s very beautiful.”

She smiled.

Colsar swallowed hard.

“Yes.”

His voice trembled.

“But is she alive?”

“She was here last night.”

The world stopped. Every sound. Every thought. Everything.

“She watched the babies while someone read them a story.”

His knees nearly gave out. She had been here and stood only a few feet away. She had seen their children.

Alive. She was alive.

Alive.

“I told her I’d seen you sitting here before.”

The girl shrugged. “Even though I never let you see me.”

“She asked me to tell you something.”

Colsar could barely breathe.

“What did she say?”

“She said she loves you.”

The words shattered something inside him.

“And she said she’ll find a way back to you.”

The sound that escaped him was barely human. It was relief and hope and grief and love all at once. It was every emotion he’d buried over the past weeks erupted all at once. Tears blurred his vision before he even realized they had begun to fall.

“She is trapped here,” Aviaryn continued. “So I do not know how she plans to leave.”

She pointed deeper into the darkness.

“But her Adjasar was here.” She paused. “Axar. He is strong and powerful. My creatures tell me he left to find a cure and look for her killers.”