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“That’s how they found me,” Amarra went on. “The queen was furious at me for trying to hide. She even tried to take you away from me, tear you out of my womb, and kill you on the spot.”
The tears finally dropped.
“But my mother intervened,” she continued. “She was a woman with connections throughout the realm. The queen didn’t want to upset her by killing her only daughter. So the queen reversed my transformation and they gave me enough time to give birth to you. My mother wanted nothing to do with her grandchild.”
“Because I was tainted,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. “The queen and my mother agreed that the queen would take you once you were born. I didn’t know at the time that she was planning to turn you into a monster. I thought she would kill you.”
“So you gave me to Kalyden and Oren,” I said.
“Yes,” Amarra nodded excitedly. “I knew Oren from our youth. He was always kind and caring.”
“He wasn’t,” I said.
That seemed to have shaken her up a bit, but she went on.
“I know that now,” she said. “But I thought he would take good care of you. So I gave you up.”
“And then what?” I asked. “Didn’t the queen ask what had happened to your baby?”
“I told them you were stillborn,” she said. “I used my magic to make them think I was telling the truth. We buried a log in a grave. Everyone thought you had died.”
We stared at each other for a short moment.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“What?” she asked.
“That was twenty years ago,” I said. “What happened between then and now?”
Amarra’s lips twitched. She seemed like she was caught in a lie.
“I came to see you every few years,” she said. “I watched you from afar. You seemed...”
“Happy?” I asked, anger rolling in me. “Well-fed? Taken care of? What did I look like?”
“Alive,” she replied, meeting my gaze.
“And that was enough for you?” I asked. “What did you do when you weren’t graciously coming over to check up on me, every few years?”
“The queen ordered me to stay in my parents’ house,” she said. “I was shunned from our community and my mother wanted to hide me too. For the first few years, I took it.”
“Oh, you took it?” I asked. My voice was louder now. “You didn’t get invited to balls? That’s horrible... You must have suffered so much. And there I was, getting beat up and burnt whenever I dropped a cup and it got chipped. Kalyden took away my magic and told me I was a human changeling. I thought I had to hide. I lived in the coal room. Do you know how that room smelled? At night, I sometimes couldn’t even breathe.”
“I’m sorry,” Amarra said. “I didn’t...”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” I stopped her. “Why did you even leave Qam? You could have given me to my father and...”
I stopped. I didn’t know anything about him. Perhaps he would also refuse me.
“I know,” Amarra said. “He would have taken good care of you. But I was young and stupid. I thought I could do it myself. I’m...”
“You said you took it for a few years,” I interrupted her before she could apologize again. I did not feel like hearing more useless apologies. “What did you do after that?”
"I joined the resistance,” she said.
She looked... hopeful. It took me a moment to realize that she was waiting for some kind of praise for her decision.
