Page 48 of The Crown’s Temptation

"Who are you?" I finally say.

She looks at me. Then she changes.

The teal bleeds out of her hair. Her eyes shift. Her whole face turns into something softer and more familiar and I stare at her and feel the room bend slightly because I am either dreaming or losing my mind.

"Maridale?"

She smiles. The warm one. The real one. "Hello, my lady."

I look at her for a long time. "I'm dreaming."

"You are not."

"Then I'm losing my mind."

"Also no." She comes and sits at the edge of the bed. "Though I understand why it feels that way."

"Who are you?" I say. "Who are you really? Why did you pretend to be my maid when you are clearly something else? Or are you something else, now pretending to be my former maid?”

"My name is Maridale. Maridale Vaelor."

I stare at her. Then understanding pressed in.

"Eravic's sister," I said quietly.

She nodded. "I did not pretend," she says. Her voice goes quieter. "I know how that sounds. But I did not pretend." She sighs. "Something happened to me. I needed a change. Eravic offered to let me travel with him but I did not want that either. I wanted a fresh start somewhere I had never been before, without privilege or bound loyalties. I just wanted to be myself. So I went to Veynar."

I remember what Eravic had told me. “Why weren't you veiled there?"

She sighed. “I do not need to be veiled. Not truly.”

I stared at her.

“Eravic and I have the same parents,” she explained. “I was born before him.”

I stared at her blankly. Everyone knew Lord Vaelor had been married to a Sarenal queen who had abandoned him. There were songs about it sung in taverns all over the thronelands.

Eravic had told me his sister was veiled. But even Aunt Petunis had said it when she was teaching me court politics. The only viable Vaelor heir was Eravic. The younger sister was illegitimate.

“My mother got pregnant with me before marriage,” she said quietly. “Then married my father, and they had Eravic.” She sighed. “Normally he would just have needed to sign legitimacy papers, but my…condition made him ashamed.”

She laughed bitterly. “He wouldn’t sign them, and recommended I live life veiled, so that people would not get confused by the two halves of me.”

I remained quiet, trying to process all of it. My head was still pounding from whatever horrific dream I had experienced in King Orsin’s palace.

Meanwhile, Maridale was here telling me she was two people stuck in one body and her father and mother married after her mother gave birth to her and he had declared her illegitimate.

“So I was raised veiled,” she finished.

I frowned. Lord Vaelor was part of Alarna’s court. He had always seemed so pleasant.

Her voice interrupted my thoughts. “And they are not entirely wrong. I am a Vaelor, I cannot lie and value honor like my brother.” She paused. “But Dali does not have Vaelor abilities or limitations. My Vaelor half is bound by those rules. Dali is my Saren side, a Siren from Sarenal, and they certainly harbor no such restrictions against lying.”

Across the room I hear Teorin shift. I look at him and he is watching her the way you look at someone you think you might remember and are trying to place.

"What is the green version of you?" I say.

She explains what a Saren is. What they can do. What she can do. I listen and the room stays blurry at the edges and I let it.