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Cleora’s eyebrows rose even higher. “A truthteller?” she intuited easily. “Truly? Who is it? Do they work for a Doma?”
Kerrigan bit her inside cheek and shook her head. “I can’t tell.”
“She forbid you?”
“No. She’s a friend.”
“A truthteller,” Cleora mused. “And you broke out of her spell?”
Kerrigan nodded. “With the truthtelling and with Tarcus’s commands, it felt like there was something pushing against my mind, and I found its weakness and broke out of it. I just thought it was magic resistance.”
“Hmm, indeed,” Cleora said. “You are a mystery.”
Fordham considered them both. “I hadn’t thought that the portal turning on was magic use. Would you say it was?”
Cleora met his eyes and nodded. “Absolutely.”
“And all the rest that she said?”
“Yes.”
Kerrigan blinked. “But … they took my magic.”
“Perhaps they did. Perhaps they didn’t.”
For the first time since the horrible day when Bastian had forced a circle of thirteen to draw her magic out of her body, she felt hope. Magic was such an intrinsic part of who she was and always had been. Even a sliver of hope was worth all the torment she’d gone through.
She reached blindly for a chair and sank into it. “You think I still have my magic.” Her eyes searched out Fordham’s. “Could we still have the bond?”
“What bond? A crux bond?”
“A mating bond,” she whispered.
Cleora glanced between them uncertainly. “I see. I don’t know much about Fae. There aren’t enough of them around anymore, and the libraries were mostly burned. So, I can’t speak on a mating bond. But if the magic is still there, the bond could be there too.”
“How … how do I find out if I still have magic?”
“You haven’t been able to consciously use it since the circle of thirteen?”
“No.”
“Not even reaching the spirit plane?”
“No.”
Cleora sighed. “I don’t know how much I could do here. We’d need to go to Rhithymna. I have the tools at the Emperor’s Academy to do the testing there, but not here.”
Kerrigan deflated. “And to get them back?”
“I’ll do my best,” Cleora said with a sad sigh. “This is unprecedented territory. It might take some time.”
Time. The one thing they were short on.
“Right. I guess we should focus on winning the tournament first.”
“What exactly are you going to do about that?” Cleora asked. “There’s only one victor. And I know Vulsan. He’s been my patron for a long time. Once he makes a proclamation, nothing short of He Who Reigns himself can stop him.”
Kerrigan shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. There’s still time.”
Cleora looked doubtful. Kerrigan hardly blamed her. They needed to figure out what to do about the tournament that didn’t involve one or the other dead, but she didn’t see any easy options. Vulsan was a problem. She’d made a spectacle of him with her fight. He wasn’t going to let her get away with it. He’d stack the deck to win. And what would she do to win? Kill her mate? She couldn’t do that. It would destroy her. She pictured herself on the arena floor, Vulsan pointing his thumb down and forcing her to drive a sword through Fordham’s exposed chest. She shuddered at the thought.
“That’s only partially what I wanted to talk to you about,” Kerrigan said, pushing the thought out of her mind. She’d never do it. Never. “There’s more.”
“More?” Cleora asked. “What more could there be?”
“My father sent me here for a reason. Not just to get help, like I said.”
“What reason could that be?”
“He’d been here before.” She glanced down. “Eighteen, almost nineteen years ago.”
Cleora blinked once slowly. “That’s your age.”
“Yes. My mother is here, and he said she could help.”
“How could she help?”
Kerrigan swallowed hard. “I’m not sure yet. I have a hunch based on what I’ve seen here in Domara, but I haven’t trusted anyone with the information to confirm it. Have you heard of Keres Andromadix?”
Cleora went pale. “Keres Andromadix is your mother?”
She nodded. “That’s what my father said.”
It was Cleora’s turn to sink into a chair opposite her. Her gaze swept Kerrigan, as if trying to make out her features for the very first time. “You’re her daughter.”
“I think so. Why? Why do you look like that?”
“Kerrigan,” she said slowly, “do you not know who Keres is?”
Panic set in. Was her mother a terrible person? Had she slaughtered thousands? Was that why her father had tried to keep her hidden? Was it not Vulsan who was the true monster, but her mother?
“Do I want to know?”
“Keres Andromadix is the daughter of the emperor,” Cleora said. “The first child of He Who Reigns. And the only one without an heir.”
Kerrigan heard the words. She felt them click into place. All the things she had known, but hadn’t really slotted together. The question she’d had about whether or not she was Doma and dismissing it. Her refusal to ask questions about Keres when she had discovered who He Who Reigns even was. It all came to a head here.
