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I’ll admit, I enjoy the rapt attention. I only wish she were closer to me.
She drops her gaze to her hands, but I don’t miss the way her cheeks flush and her lips press together, as if to stifle a smile. “I apologize if I sound like I doubted it. It’s just shocking to me, that the same person who saved me that day in the market would conspire so cruelly against you.”
“Not just me, my entire family.” I release my shirt, letting it fall. “But I do not know that she is the same person.” I’ve dwelled on this but never spoken about it, not since the day Zander confided to his inner circle about her supposed amnesia. That I’m willing to share it now so freely with a mortal is foolish and reckless, but I want to gauge her reaction. “Princess Romeria died the night of the attack, of that there is no doubt. Captain Boaz put a merth bolt through her chest in the rose garden. He saw her corpse. I trust Boaz to recognize one.”
“But then … how …” Gracen’s words drift.
“Did you hear of the daaknar unleashed on Cirilea that night?”
“I heard, but I never know what to believe. That wasn’t just rumor?”
I shake my head. “High Priestess Margrethe summoned Malachi that same night, and the next thing we know, Princess Romeria is alive again.”
Her eyebrows pop. “And you think Malachi brought her back to life?”
He brought someone back to life. Who, though, I am no longer certain. “When she woke up, she didn’t remember who she was or what she’d done. A complete loss of memory.”
“She could have been lying to save her skin.”
“That’s what I assumed at first. But the princess in the castle after the attack is not the same one I escorted south from the rift before her wedding to my brother. That one was sweet and seductive, and said all the right things to manipulate those around her. This one?” I smile as I think of the day Zander foolishly put her on the dais. “She’s brash and clever and funny, and she seems to care genuinely for mortals. And she loves my brother.”
Gracen seems to absorb this, her anxiety from earlier no longer consuming her. “So then perhaps Malachi gifted us a better version?”
“Perhaps.” But Malachi granted new life to her, and he would not give that without expecting something in return. The fates will blind you with a shiny coin before they cleave off a pound of your flesh, my father always claimed.
“Do you think this version of Princess Romeria means Islor harm?”
“Not explicitly, no, but it does not matter because the guidance she offers my brother will cause damage all the same, and he does not see it. He is infatuated with her. Besides, there is only one version of her that people care about, and that one has caused us harm. Irreparably so. Her close association with my brother, the choices he was making for Islor’s future … too many of Islor’s lords and ladies would never have accepted her on the throne, even before they learned of the poison. And now that it is filtering through every corner of the realm, poison that is the very blood that runs through her veins, her intentions mean nothing.”
Gracen bites her bottom lip in thought. “The night of the tournament, when you … were appointed king …” She chooses her words carefully.
“When I used my brother’s army to seize the throne, you mean.” I know how I’ll be remembered by history, if Master Sicily chooses to capture it accurately. I hope he also captures my reasons, which were never anything but with Islor’s best interests at heart.
“Would you have executed Princess Romeria had you caught her?”
“Yes.”
Gracen flinches, and a part of me regrets being so frank.
“Either her amnesia is real, or she is an even better manipulator than her predecessor. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. The poison that plagues us flows through her veins. There can be no future for Islor if Princess Romeria lives. Whoever she may be now.”
Gracen studies her hands a moment. “There is much gossip within the castle. I don’t know what’s true and so I pay attention to little. But I heard Caster Wendeline helped with the princess’s scheming.”
“Wendeline played her part, but she has revealed nothing of use upon questioning. I doubt she ever will.” The only thing the caster cared to admit was that Zander had no clue about her deception.
“She’s still alive?” Gracen’s eyes light up. With relief, I realize.
“She is, for now. I haven’t decided if she can be of use to me yet. Why, do you know her?”
She shakes her head. “I mean, I met her the day we joined the royal household. Princess Romeria took us to see her in the sanctum. She fixed Mika’s hand.”
