Page 75 of Three Dark Kings and the Gilded Serpent

A heavy silence settles around me. Miriam slowly reaches for the empty carafe, muttering, “Not enough liqueur in the world.”

The other women quietly rise from their cushions, one of them sliding the table away so they can pull their cushions closer and crowd in around me. They bring with them the soft scents of florals, spices, and citrus. Earthy and warm. Comforting in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever felt.

The woman now closest to me on my right speaks at a murmur, “When Maxim called us before him and asked us to tell him which of us was his birth mother, we couldn’t answer.”

“Worse, because of the way he phrased his question,” says another woman, this one to my left, “any answer we gave would have been a lie.”

“How so?” I ask.

Charis gives a heavy exhale. “Because his mother is no longer with us.”

My heart plummets. “She died?” My focus snaps back to Miriam. “When he was born? You said she was injured and needed help.”

But Miriam’s lips press together.

Around me, the grim silence resumes, an even heavier tension filling the air together with the beat of many pounding heartbeats.

“If only she had died,” Miriam whispers, before her hand flies to her mouth. “I must sound awful.”

The woman now directly to my right says, “Her name was Isha. The former king brought her to the harem out of the blue one day. We didn’t know whence she’d come or who her family might be.”

“It was a week after Zenaida was born,” Charis adds. “So we were already in strict seclusion. The isolation is to prevent anyone outside the harem identifying the birth mother of a royal baby. But it meant we had no way of asking anyone who Isha was.”

As Charis finishes speaking, the other women speak up in quick succession, a flood of disjointed information.

“The king kept us in seclusion for months.”

“He was smitten with Isha.”

“She was never far from his bed. Even when he called for one or more of us to join him.”

“Then she started whispering in his ears.”

“That’s when he got cruel.”

“He never hurt us before then.”

“Her pregnancy only made things worse.”

“A second seclusion before the first had ended. We were so isolated.”

“And still we didn’t know who she was.”

They fall silent again.

Cautiously, I ask, “What happened to Isha?”

The women look to Miriam, who runs a shaking hand through her hair. “When Maxim was born, it became clear that Isha wasn’t an Ember Fae.”

My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“Within moments of Maxim’s birth, he burned hotter than any Ember baby should. It shouldn’t have been a problem. Ember Fae women are naturally protected during the birth process in case of birth fire; a protection that lasts months to allow for nursing.”

“Isha reached for him,” Charis says, her voice hushed. “She wanted to hold him. As soon as she’d touched him, he lit up like a fireball. If she were an Ember Fae, she wouldn’t have been hurt.”

I can’t stop my shudder.

“I didn’t hesitate,” Miriam says. “No matter the mystery around who she was, no matter how much discord she’d brought, I couldn’t leave her in pain. I broke all the rules and rode out on my serpent.”