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Ryther settles on, "Weak."
I don't like that word one bit.
“Where did you grow up?” Valdred asks again.
My lip is trembling.
“San Francisco. I was—” I hesitate. “I was adopted.”
I can’t believe him. I can’t. Yet…
“My parents found me one day in the woods.”
“They couldn’t have resisted. Our children are to be protected—it’s written in their entire self, like a spell. The child of the high queen…she would have been so charming they wouldn’t have any choice but to take her in,” Ryther explains, to Valdred, I think, though his eyes never leave mine. “And she adapted. Fairy children always do. She’d have subtly glamoured herself to resemble her family.”
I remember how everyone was surprised when I grew to look like them, though we share no blood.
Now I see.
Despite logic, my own eyes, and a feeling in the pit of my stomach all seeming to agree, I can’t believe it yet. It’s just too much.
“So, I’m your old queen’s...heir? She was some sort of overlord, right? That means I rule you?” I can’t believe I manage to say that with a straight face in front of those two men.
They’re going to protest, for sure.
One is a prince in his own right and Junis said he ruled all of Ilvaris.
And the other… I’ve known him for the space of an instant, less than an hour, but Valdred shows him deference. Even if it weren’t so, I could have guessed he is important. Powerful. It is in the way he carries himself, like a predator and a leader.
Like a king.
“The high queen ruled above all in Ilvaris,” Ryther replies. “And this is what you will be once you claim her power and wear her crown.”
I find myself smiling. That’s it. I have a way to prove, for certain, that he’s talking nonsense.
Earlier today, I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of ever smiling again. Now it comes with ease at my impish mischief. Am I losing my mind?
“Then kneel,” I tell him, feeling downright giddy.
The shore is still and silent—even the least of ants, the smallest night bird, and the rats in the woods still and watch.
Valdred is the first to lower one knee to the ground and bend his head.
Ryther looks at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, maybe even approval. I get the feeling he sees me like a puppy, or maybe a child proud of her stick figures.
I lift an eyebrow, challenging him, though a shiver runs along my spine. He either lied to trick me into believing this farce, or he must lower himself like the prince of the court of bones, before a five foot two instructor and flute player.
My mouth falls open as he bends his knee.
In my heart, I accept it then, with this man at my feet. He'd never kneel if it wasn't true. I might not know a thing about him, but to my marrow, I am certain of this.
Which means that I am the child of the fairy queen.
PART TWO
MISCHIEF
Twenty-five years ago
