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“I suppose that’s good.” Zor nodded in approval. “It means you can keep a secret.”
I rolled my eyes. There was nothing good about this situation.
“I’ve seen your magic.” I said bluntly. “You can teach me how to control this, or how to hide it, right?”
“Perhaps. Though I have an invasion to plan.” Zor’s mouth tipped up into that cold, cynical smile. “I doubt I’ll be able to make the time. You might have to find someone else to babysit you, princess.” From the look on his face, I knew exactly who he had in mind.
“Raz will never speak to me again.”
I scowled. “You know, since Solok kidnapped me, only one person has helped me. My mother.” Zor’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “She told me to claim the magic, which is why I ignored Torin’s warnings.” I looked him up and down.
“The rest of you were determined to keep me weak.” I tossed the towel to the side. “Helpless. Controllable. I refuse to be any of those things.”
“So, you met Adele.” Zor’s face softened. “Your mother was a tool in this war, Anaria, just as you are. She wasn’t gifted with anything but pure blood, but she put us one step closer to ending the Fae King’s reign for good.”
He shook his head, a trace of sadness in voice. “She knew what the cost would be, but she believed in our cause.”
“So…you’ve just left her down there, this whole time? It never occurred to you to try to get her out?” Who were these people who’dsavedme? If this was true, they were monsters, just like the king they were trying to replace. Their new world wouldn’t be any better than this one. Worse, given what I’d seen in the Shadow King’s throne room today.
“The babe needed to be pure Fae, with not a trace of common-born Caladrian or Solaryan blood, which is hard to find these days. A thousand years of a fractured kingdom has diluted the Fae bloodlines, but Adele’s blood ran true, and she was sympathetic to our cause.”
“She’s half-starved in a cage, being raped by Solok’s soldiers.” I advanced on Zor. “That is myfucking motherand you and your little band of traitors abandoned her, wrote her off as collateral damage in your quest to take the Fae King’s throne away.”
The room grew so bright I had to squint to keep Zor in my sights, and he kept backing away, until he was flat against the far wall, his horrified gaze fixed on my hands. When I looked down, black, razor-sharp nails had sprouted from the ends of my fingers and my breath shuddered in my lungs.
They looked like the Fae King’s hands.
What was happening to me?
“We’re nottakinghis throne.” Zor whispered, never taking his eyes off me, gripping the pommel of his knife so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“We are wiping Caladrius off the map and creating a new world.”
Zor tilted his head, and I wasn’t sure I liked the expression on his face. “And you shall be its queen.”
36
ANARIA
Ididn’t know what to do with Zor’s ridiculous statement, so I threw my head back and laughed.
At least it took some of this unrelenting pressure away and the claws retracted back into my fingers like a Howler’s fangs, the pinch of pain as they disappeared made me gasp. I wiggled my stinging fingers, the magic in the room fading to a warm glow.
“You’re delusional. If I’m not a princess, I’m certainly no queen.”
The words rippled between us, along with my desire for them to not be true. I didn’t want to be anything but free. And titles came with too many responsibilities.
“No, we’re not. We’ve been working toward this for a hundred years. The king has no magic,” Zor nodded, that knowing half-smile still on his lips, “And now that you’ve made it yours, he’ll have some trouble getting it back.”
He was serious. Deadly serious, from the look on his face.
“Torin believes this? What about Tavion and Tristan?”
“All of us.” He said firmly and the hand gripping his dagger relaxed. “We’ve spent years putting everything in place for you, Anaria. And before that, we spent an eternity enduring a hell you cannot begin to imagine. You have set us all on a path to freedom, we just have to keep you alive long enough to see our plans through.”
“Then why the note and the secrecy?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer. “Why not tell me the truth?”
“Everything in the note was true.” His face grew serious. “You never should have claimed the magic, it’s dangerous, like Torin warned.” He shook his head. “Now we have to figure out how to keep the king from discovering what you’ve done.”
