Page 18 of Crown of the Courtesan

“I still don’t understand what the images meant. They came in flashes of fire. Waves of fire. Until I was in such pain that I thought I’d never return. I lost track of all time, but one thing remained the same. Tabitha kept recurring. Again and again. Wearing the circlet and covered in blood… and behind her was… was…”

“The witches…” King Xander’s face pales even further, making him resemble a corpse, as he whispers, “They haunt my dreams as well.”

Terror filling my veins, I shakily ask, “Who are the witches?”

But he doesn’t answer. He looks around the circular room at the servants and healers, whose faces are agape. “Not a word of this leaves this turret. Captain Wellcrest will record every person in attendance and ensure everyone on the list is executed if this information dares to leak. You may leave your names with him. You are dismissed.”

Wellcrest motions for a scroll and quill.

The healers and various servants share furrowed brows and unspoken gazes before they gather their supplies to depart.

“We are running out of time. You’ve been wretched enough in this mess; now tell the girl about her mother,” King Xander snaps, not long after the room empties.

“It’s not my fault!” Phyrne wrings her hands. “Theodora wanted it this way.”

“Let me make myself clear: I care not that you’re my cousin and death beckons me. If you twist this to your benefit, I’ll see to it that you accompany me, hand in hand, into death,” he warns.

“They made sure I died a thousand deaths in the blink of an eye for keeping this secret. You don’t know the punishment I’ve already endured.”

The king bellows, “You’ve endured? You’ve endured! You dare look me in the face and speak those words?”

My lungs constrict and burn. How could Phyrne have lied to me my whole life?

Theodora. The Courtesan Queen.

My mother.

She turns toward me. “Listen, Tabitha. If I could go back, I would.”

“What happened to her?” My throat is too tight. Everything feels unreal, as if I’m watching from the outside.

“You deserve to know the truth, and I’m sorry it’s taken this long to get it.” Phyrne stares at the licking flames, her hysteria slowing. “It’s been twenty-eight years… twenty-eight years since Theodora collapsed in front of the Bidding House. It was nearly midnight, and she was in so much pain, so much agony. Something was obviously wrong, so I brought her inside. She was acting differently, straining and bearing down. That’s when I realized she was in labor. It was peculiar. Her stomach wasn’t round with the girth of pregnancy, and blood poured from between her thighs. Before I could call for the midwives, she gave birth standing upright next to the hearth, pulling the tiniest newborn to herself.”

“And who was the baby?” wheezes the king, his face gray and withered.

“Tabitha Rilea. The woman before you.”

Nine

My knees threaten to give out, and my head spins. A beast deep within me fights against this revelation. It’s more likely that Balor is correct, and this is some scheme.

Some sick joke.

But who in their right mind would do something like this?

Phyrne swallows hard. “Theodora grabbed the letter-opener off my desk and cut the lifecord herself. When the afterbirth came out, she threw it into the fire. It burned the strangest color… then she grew agitated all of a sudden and started slurring her speech.”

A log in the fireplace cracks in two with a large popping sound, causing Phyrne to pause her story and wipe her tears. I startle myself when my voice urges, “Finish.”

“Burning with fever and talking in riddles, she kept saying the baby didn’t belong to the king. I realized the delirium would escalate if I failed to call the midwives. I promised her I would return with help. She pleaded with me to stay and confessed she suspected poisoning. Her face was so white when I left her… and when I returned to the room, she was—she was gone. I was only away for a minute. Two minutes at the most.” Phyrne blows her nose into a handkerchief from her pocket. “I thought she fled with the infant, but then a small cry came from a little nest of fabric on my desk. She’d left you in her cloak.”

My knees finally give out, but Wellcrest guides me onto the settee before I hit the floor. I try to speak, but a strange, garbled sound emerges. The familiar whispers taunt me, low and husky, in the back of my mind.

King Xander’s shoulders droop before he asks, “Why did you fail to inform me?”

Defiance laces her tone as she faces him and says, “Because of the note left with the baby.”

“What did it say?”