Page 59 of The Crown’s Temptation

I stared at her.

"My mother waited."

"For what?"

"Until she was carrying children."

"Children?"

She nodded. "My brother and me."

Silence.

"She crossed into Tearsar while she was pregnant."

I swallowed. "So you were born outside Morrath."

"Exactly."

"Which means?”

"Morrath cannot bind me."

I thought about that. "So your mother escaped."

"For us." She smiled sadly. "She gave birth." A pause. "And then she died. The blood she had taken wasn’t enough to keep her alive outside of Morrath.” The words were said without emotion. “I never knew her."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "I was adopted by a family traveling through Tearsar. They brought my brother and me back to Veynar."

I frowned. "If all of that happened, and Colsar requested your return, then how did you end up here?”

Her hands stopped. For the first time since entering the room she hesitated. “The day before I was due to leave the palace, a seer told King Orsin of my origins.”

The room felt colder.

"What do you mean?"

“King Orsin said he had agreed to return me." She looked at me. “But he never said that he would return me untouched.” She laughed bitterly. “I was told I should be honored because King Orsin of Yorali believes I was worth bedding. He had never had an Ivakar before, he did not know if the power was transferrable or not.”

“He wanted to siphon you,” I said, remembering Sadie’s screams and Nox fighting against dampener cuffs.

"He liked beautiful things." She reached for another towel. "But outside of his daughters and some of his wives, he rarely touched them first."

My stomach twisted at the word daughters.

I stared at her. "He had other men for that." Something inside me twisted. "To make certain they pleased him."

"That’s—”

"I know."

She resumed drying my hair. "I never met the first one." I looked at her. "He entered my cell." She smiled. "I clawed both of his eyes out before he managed to say three words."

I could not help it. A laugh escaped me. "You did?"

"He screamed magnificently." She looked almost proud. "The second guard became rather angry."