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“You asked me to come,” I reminded her and closed the door behind me.
“I—” She swallowed her next words as a little girl with the same black hair and dirt-covered hands stepped around her skirts, eyes equally wide in fright.
From the outside, I had assumed Eki alone, but the Tower was a place for children. I should have remembered how they snuck ineverywhere.
I bent my knee to bring myself to the little girl’s height. I had no desire in scaring children either. If only the Council feared me like this.
“Hi there, aren’t you a bit young to learn the Goddess’s plants?”
“I’m three.” She scrunched up her nose. “I only touch what Mommy says I can.”
Eki pressed a hand over the little girl’s mouth, only muffling the last word, while my brain shut down.
I stood there, blinking and staring, waiting for Eki to deny the girl’s words and tell her to run to her real mother.
The girl’s eyes told the truth—the irises holding Eki’s dark brown at the center and my icy blue around the edge. Not as mismatched as mine but enough.
“He died,” I finally said, not sure if it was a question or just the statement I had repeated so many times the words could not be denied. “They burned his body.”
“This is Dasha.” Eki nodded to me, her eyes begging me to understand the incomprehensible. “She was born premature, but the healers saved her.”
My other knee hit the checkered stone floor. I had wondered what her words would do, avoided this, but could not have anticipated the rage and sorrow and joy swirling through me. Like the night I had shown my grief on the edge of the Temple District, tears gathered in my eyes.
I was not sure what this little girl—my little girl—saw in my face that made her shrink back into her mother. With a breath, I forced a smile onto my lips.
“Hi, Dasha. That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl, just like hermother.”
“Who’re you?” she asked, demanding despite her age.
I looked helplessly at Eki, unsure what she wanted me to do. She met my eyes unflinchingly, her old nerves showing as if she had only been hiding those as well. Like this changed everything. She was right.
“It’s up to you,” she said, and I knew what she meant.
Dasha could grow up a hidden bastard, never knowing the truth. She could be known but not claimed, and thus given a limited respect. Or she could be who she was, for the lack of marriage between me and her mother was irrelevant. And it was not like we had not tried.
The candles flickered as if the world moved inside the dark greenhouse, a sliver of my magic escaping. I should have guessed when my curse did nothing; instead, I had believed in the powerlessness my father complained of my entire life.
I focused on the serious little girl. Despite the chubby cheeks and two-colored eyes, she was all Eki, but maybe if I got to know her, I would find parts of myself as well.
Already on my knees, I bowed my head and offered her my hand. When she dared to take it, I spoke the words that would reshape my life and Tal.
“I’m Dimitri Alexandre Ivanov, King of Tal, and your father.” The wind swirled around our interlaced hands. She stared at me unflinching, seeming to understand this was a solemn moment. “You’re Dasha Ekatarina Dimiova, and one day you’ll become the first queen of Tal.”
The candles flared. The world stilled. Surrounded by deadly plants, with the woman I once thought to marry, it was done. Though only the three of us heard the words, the decision was made.The fake marriage to Helia, my motivation for improving Tal, and being a better king than my father, was reformed around this little girl I did not know. All the feelings I had carried, the revenge I had dreamt of for the son that never existed, solidified into determination to make the world safe for her.
My second chance.
I could no longer step down as soon as Tal calmed. I could never be free. And I’d never been happier.
Eki broke the silence, tears running freely down her cheeks. She gave our girl a little push toward the glass door.
“Go to bed. I need to talk to your father.”
While Dasha did not understand the full importance of the words and how her life was about to change, she gave me a final long stare before escaping the greenhouse.
When only Eki and I remained, I staggered to my feet.
There were so many questions locked in my throat, but she did not force me to ask; instead, her words rushed out as if she had spent years holding them back.
