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“What do you want, Mother?”
Practically bursting with excitement, Elora shimmied her shoulders, causing the black teardrop pendant hanging from her neck to glitter in the light. “Rathmort finally proposed a union between he and I.” When Celeste showed no reaction, Elora said. “Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“Congratulations. You two deserve each other.”
“You might show a little more enthusiasm, darling. Once it’s official, I might put in a good word for you. You shouldn’t be punished forever . . . as long as you’ve learned your lesson.”
“And what lesson is that, Mother?”
Elora’s eyes turned as dark as the stone around her neck. “Never go against the coven.” She sighed then, and visibly brightened. “If you could go back, you’d do things differently, wouldn’t you? Now that you’ve had time to think on it.”
Celeste gazed up at the woman she’d once trusted and cared for but now only loathed and answered honestly. “Yes. Yes, I would.”
3
“She couldn’t have,” Xanthia insisted. “She wouldn’t have.”
“She did,” Khalstorm replied. “The night of my engagement, I walked in on Celeste standing over Lizbet’s lifeless body with a bloody dagger in her hand . . . after she’d slit Lizbet’s throat.”
Rayu gnawed on a nearly stripped bone of meat. “Andwebarged in onKhalstormstanding over Lizbet’s body holding a bloody dagger. Considering that your father had murdered his own queen that same night, you can understand why no one believes your story.”
At the mention of his mother’s awful fate, Khalstorm spoke through clenched teeth. “My father was no’ himself. Elora seduced and bewitched him.”Just as Celeste tried to do to me. “And Celeste vanished before you entered the room.” Just as he’d been about to take his revenge. That night had been a flurry of devastation, chaos, and confusion. His entire life had shattered. Before the discovery of Lizbet’s terrible fate, his father, King Onnath, had been discovered by his own guards dragging his deceased queen toward the furnace room—presumably to incinerate the body. When Khalstorm had arrived on the scene, his mother’s body had been discarded on the floor while the belligerent king battled wave after wave of his own furious guards, spitting with outrage as he’d cried, “It had to be done! She needed to go!” So out of his mind was the king, that he’d fought his own men like a rabid beast. He’d fought to the death. And while Khalstorm, drowning in shock and grief, had held his mother’s cold, lifeless corpse, he’d watched his father die as well.
Rayu tossed the bone he’d been chewing into the fire. “Everyone tries to blame their crimes on witches.”
Khalstorm shot back, “It only makes sense to blame those responsible.”
“It was up to us to prove the facts. There was no evidence. No one in the kingdom corroborated your story. No one had even heard of this Celeste or Elora.”
“They were there!” he insisted. “Living at the castle for months.”
“So you want us to believe everyone else just forgot about them?”
“It seems so. Perhaps Elora placed a spell on everyone.”
“Everyone but you? Is such a spell even possible?” Rayu asked Xanthia, who’d been listening intently.
“I’ve not seen such a large spell cast, but I can believe my mother’s involvement in such a scheme. However, I cannot believe Celeste would have participated. She always had a sweet and caring disposition.”
Khalstorm had once thought so as well. He’d seen an angel where there was a snake. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“I’ve been exiled from the coven for over ten years.”
“A lot can change in ten years.”
Xanthia suddenly appeared troubled. “Still, I just can’t believe she would do something like that.”
“I guess when you find her, you can ask for yourself.” Khalstorm stood and turned toward the tent.
“Where are you going?” Rayu demanded, about to jump up and follow.
“Relax. I’m just going to catch some shuteye. We have a long journey ahead.” In the tent, Khalstorm stretched out on a pallet farthest from the entrance and let his eyes slide shut. Sensing that Rayu had followed him in, he cracked one lid open. “I donna need a babysitter.”
“And what’s to keep you from running when I’m no’ looking?” Rayu countered.
With a baleful look, he lifted the heavy manacles around his wrists that were attached together by a few feet of chain. The metal was strong, but not dragon proof.
Rayu sat on the palate across from him and folded his arms over his bent knees. “We both know that isn’t enough to stop you.”
