by James Tate
She smiled sadly. “You look so grown-up. I’m so sorry I missed it.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Eighteen years, then. That means you had to have taken a life-threatening injury. Marks only remain when a huge amount of magic is pushed through someone.”
My eyes widened. “You saved me?”
“I must have for you to bear my mark.” She gave me a sad smile. “But it also means someone wanted you dead and probably still does.”
Ice formed in my belly, and I groaned. “King Titus. He rigged these stupid trials to root out the missing princess and see her killed.”
“King Titus?” Ophelia wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Don’t tell me that slimy git is sitting on my throne! And what is this about the trials? If they don’t know you’re still alive, how can there be trials?”
I bit back a laugh at her apt description of Titus. “They’re for his sons,” I explained, and my cheeks flushed.
“Oh yes, I see how it is.” Ophelia grinned and nodded knowingly. “I take it that his boys are less abhorrent than Titus himself?”
“Mm-hmm,” I nodded, feeling uncomfortable discussing my three love interests with a woman who was my country’s greatest ruler, my mother, and dead.
Her grin broadened, then dropped abruptly. “Shit, I thought we had more time. Or I didn’t think about how much time I would need to meet my grown daughter...” She sighed and looked down at her hands in her lap, which were suddenly holding her golden crown. All the red stones were back in their rightful places, and when I touched my sewn-up pocket, I found it empty.
“So, this is for you, my darling Zarina.” She held the crown out to me with both hands, and I hesitantly reached for it. “It sounds like you have a long, hard road ahead of you, but I know you will come out on top. Search beneath my sanctuary, and you’ll find a few things that might help. Don’t trust anyone, not even those handsome princes, who I can already see have stolen your heart. Promise me you’ll always, always follow your intuition. It’s our gift, and it will keep you safe.”
“So then, how did you die?” I asked in a small voice, already knowing she didn’t know the answer.
She reached out, stroking my hair behind my ear and wiping a tear from my cheek. “If I had to guess? I ignored that little tingle. Don’t make my mistake, baby.”
Suddenly, I realized that this was probably the only time I would ever see her, and anxiety clawed at my skin. “Wait, don’t go yet. We have so much to talk about! Like, who did you think was messing with the land’s magic? What do you know about the other gods? Who was my father?” That last question was something I really wanted to know now.
Before, when Zarina had been the poor, little missing princess of a dead queen, I’d never given her father a second thought. The ruling line of Teich had always been held by a queen, passed from mother to daughter. It wasn’t uncommon for our queens to never marry, and that wasn’t something that anyone was particularly bothered by.
Except when it directly involved me.
Call me crazy, but now that I’d met my mother, I badly wanted to know who had fathered me. Was it someone she’d loved? Or just a political arrangement to ensure an heir?
Ophelia paled, and her brow creased with a deep worry line. “It’s safer that you don’t know your father, darling girl. If it hadn’t resulted in you, I’d have said that was the worst mistake I ever made. As for the rest...” Her lips continued to move, but the sound faded away so abruptly I could no longer hear what she was saying.
“What?” I asked, panicked, “I can’t hear you!” I grabbed at her hands, but my fingers slipped through her skin like she was made of mist. Desperation choked me, and I slid to my knees, sobbing as she faded away.
I’d only known her a few minutes, but the soul-crushing sadness at her departure was debilitating. How could I suddenly miss her so much when she’d died almost two decades ago?
Wiping the tears from my face, I sat up and inspected the crown in my hands.
“Now what?”
21
“Well, that was touching,” a man commented, and his low, seductive tone sent chills of sheer terror through me.
I scrambled up from the ground, whirling around until I spotted him leaning against one of the decorative pillars of Ophelia’s—my mother’s—sanctuary.
“You,” I breathed, eyeing him warily as my fingers tightened around the crown in my hand. “You’re the one who saved me from the fire in Wakefield.” I would recognise that voice anywhere. Soaking with danger and violence, it scared me to the point of trembling. But he had saved me before... so why was I so afraid?
“That I did, Rybet Waise,” he agreed, pushing off the pillar and stalking across the room toward me. “Or do I address you as Her Highness Princess Zarina, now that mother dearest has spilled the beans?”
The closer he came, the farther I backed away, until there was nowhere else to go. My back hit the wall, and he continued to stalk closer.
“Who are you?” I demanded, but my voice shook. Now that I saw him clearly, there was no mistaking he was one of the gods. Even without that radiant, inner light, the sheer perfection of this man would have been a dead giveaway that he wasn’t human.
He was tall, maybe around Ty’s height, but built with a slimmer musculature—like Zan. His black hair was cut to the perfect, on-trend style, and his shadowed jaw almost seemed like a mockery of mortal’s constant need to shave.
“Come now, my pretty princess. That’s not the question you really want to ask.” He grinned like a predator. He’d stopped just short of where I was pressed against the wall—not close enough to touch, but far too close for comfort. “If I said you only have one question and that I’d answer honestly... what would you ask?”
I held my breath, my mind whirling and my body tense. What would I ask?
As I frantically tried to find the right question, the terrifying god reached out and brushed his finger down the front of my travel-stained, green dress. Color seemed to bleed from his fingertip as it traveled across the dirty green fabric, and within seconds my dress had transformed into a full-skirted, scarlet ball gown.
“I do love to see you in red,” he purred, grinning at me with a hint of sharp teeth before tapping on the crown in my hand. “This will look spectacular on you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “You can touch it?”
“I’m a god,” he replied, like that explained everything. “Time’s up, beautiful. What’s your question?”
There were a million things I could have asked. Who killed my mother? Who was messing with the magic? How did I stop it all? Questions which would have been useful. Yet what escaped my mouth when I parted my lips was...
“Who is my father?”
The second the question hit the air, I clapped a hand over my mouth. Stupid, selfish, pointless waste of a question! What about something that could help the people of Teich? Who even gave two shits which random nobleman’d had a fling with my mother?
The perfect, handsome, terrifying god in front of me grinned wider, though. “Smart girl,” he murmured. “I was worried you might ask a pointless, self-sacrificing question for a moment there.”
“Well?” I pushed, maintaining my bravado while my heart beat so fast I feared it might pop. I’d voiced my question, for better or worse.
“Your beautiful mother was a very naughty queen indeed,” the god informed me, clicking his tongue in mock disapproval. “She had a passionate, dangerous affair with someone who ultimately caused her death... and yours, almost. Your sire is none other than Sal himself.”
Blood drained from my head so fast I staggered. If my back hadn’t already been against the wall, I would have fallen.
“Wh-what?” I stuttered in disbelief. “Sal, god of fate. That Sal?”
“Sal, ruler of the gods,” the gorgeous, fearsome god taunted me. “The very same. You know, the last time a god had an affair with a mortal, he was killed.”
“But not Sal?” I breathed, feeling the whole ro
om tilting.
He shook his head with an irritated look. “Not Sal. He’s in charge, after all. Now, you must know enough god-lore to know Sal’s wife is rather the vengeful type and not one to let an infraction like that slip past without punishment.”
“Oh my stars,” I gasped, covering my mouth with my free hand. “Rache. That’s why Aana tried to kill me?”
The god shrugged and stepped away from me. “You were hidden for a very long time, but that protection has worn off. Now thanks to the stupid mortal who is damaging the land’s magic, we are all free again.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded, frantic need for information overriding my fear of this god.
“It means a game is afoot.” He started walking away but tossed a smirk over his shoulder. “But you need to work one thing out. Are you a pawn, a player, or a prize? Either way, I’m so looking forward to playing with you.”
With a suggestive, loaded wink, he disappeared.
* * *
Priestess Rema’s mine shaft room came back into focus slowly, but when it did, I needed to stifle a startled gasp. The room was full to bursting with women, all bowed down with their foreheads pressed to the ground.
Their human foreheads.
Each and every woman in the room was totally human, and unless they’d been hiding somewhere that we hadn’t seen them... then the people of Ironforge were cured of their mutations.
“Wh-what?” I spluttered, gaping at the scene before me.
“Told you that you’d fix it all,” Sagen muttered, sounding surly as she folded her arms over her chest and huffed. “You’ve already started.”
Bewildered, I turned to the priestess Rema, who smiled at me with perfect human lips. Her pastel purple hair draped over her breasts and pooled on the seat beside her, and her eyes were the color of the Schon Islands Sea... or what I always imagined it would look like.
“Our late Queen Ophelia’s crown has been claimed by her rightful heir,” she announced to the bowed ladies packed into the room. “The gods are pleased, and through the grace and mercy of Barmzig, the residents of Ironforge have been cured of their curse.”
My back itched, my mother’s mark nudging me toward a clearer truth, and I narrowed my eyes at Rema. Suddenly, I saw her for what she really was as a faint glow emanated from her skin. Pain bit into my fingers as my grip on the crown tightened, and I opened my mouth to confront her.
“Tonight, we celebrate,” Rema continued, addressing the gathered townsfolk, “for our new queen is among us. All hail, Queen Zarina.”
A cheer went up, echoing through the mine shaft, even as Rema—or, I suspected, Barmzig—winked at me conspiratorially.
Ladies of the town began crushing closer, reaching out to touch me, and Rema stood from her seat to speak softly in my ear. “I’m on your side, child. Not all the gods want you dead.”
I tightened my mouth, overwhelmed by the volume of knowledge I’d just acquired. “Just most of them.”
Rema—Barmzig—just shrugged. “But not all. You have a huge task ahead of you, but tonight I think you deserve a break. Dance, drink, love your princes, and above all”—she gave me a serious look—“keep this safe. If you’re not ready to wear it, then hide it. There are dark forces in play. Strong ones. You don’t want this falling into the wrong hands.”
I gave her a short nod and looked down at the elegant headpiece in my hands. “Where do you suggest hiding it?” I asked, then looked back up at her... except, she was no longer there.
“Ba—uh, Rema?” I frowned, looking around for her. The women of the town were all standing now, though, and chattering excitedly. The only thing stopping them from pawing at me was Sagen, who was standing between me and them with a don’t-fuck-with-me look on her face.
“We should get out of this cave before we end up smothered by your adoring public,” she suggested with only a smudge of sarcasm. “Why are you pulling that face?”
“Where did Rema go?” I asked her, still searching the crowd for the beautiful, purple-haired goddess. “I was talking to her, and then she was just gone.”
Sagen arched one perfect brow at me. “Fuck if I know. Come on, let’s go free your lovers from that cell before they end up killing each other.”
I cringed and nodded. That possibility seemed all too real for my liking.
With a few less-than-polite pushes from Sagen—who had somehow become my personal guard—we made it out of the mine and began heading back to the town hall where our companions remained locked up.
It was slow going as we made our way back down the cobblestone street that led to the town hall building, as people seemed to be coming from everywhere. That main street quickly became jammed with women, all chattering and cheering, touching one another’s faces in disbelief, hugging and crying with joy... It was a moving sight and not one I could easily ignore.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to.
“Calla!” Lee called out, running up the street toward us and sweeping me up in a huge hug as he spun me around. “We were so worried. What happened? How did everyone suddenly become human again? And why did you have to change your dress?”
Pulling back from his embrace, I peered down at my full-skirted red gown and winced. Apparently that fearsome, meddling god hadn’t just changed my outfit in the vision but also in real life.
“Uh, long story,” I murmured, holding up the crown to show him. “But I found this.”
“Holy Sal,” Lee breathed, and I cringed.
“Maybe don’t go swearing to any of the gods anytime soon,” I suggested. “I’ll explain later.”
A warm hand stroked down my back and rested on my waist, turning me to face Ty. “We were ready to stage a prison break to get to you,” he informed me with an intensity in his strong face that made me shiver. “You were gone for so long, and then Greta suddenly showed up without all the fur and let us out...”
“Greta?” I queried, then spotted a woman with curly, chestnut hair standing nearby.
At her name, she stepped forward and dropped a low curtsey to me. “Thank you, Majesty. My daughters have been given their lives back.”
I gave the woman a small, awkward nod of acknowledgement. “I really didn’t do anything,” I muttered. “It was all Rema’s doing. Or Barmzig.”
Greta gave the hand signal of a prayer to Barmzig. “Our goddess of mercy has always been good to us, but she wasn’t able to break our curse until you arrived.”
“Majesty?” Ty exclaimed, staring at me in shock. “Don’t tell me—”
“She’s our lost heir,” Greta cut him off, bubbling with excitement. “Our Princess Zarina, daughter of the great Queen Ophelia. We are beyond blessed.”
I gave Ty an awkward shrug. “Apparently. Turns out there was more to this whole quest than we realized.”
“Shit,” he cursed, looking annoyed.
My heart sank, and bile curdled in my guts. How stupid of me not to consider what this meant to them. What had the revalation that I was Queen Ophelia’s blood heir made them? Certainly, the people would no longer consider them the royal princes of Teich, not when their father was a usurper and a murderer. Of course, they wouldn’t be delighted by this news!
Neither was I, to be honest. Even when I’d thought I might win the trials as Lady Callaluna, I’d never been excited by the prospect of becoming queen. No one would want all that responsibility, would they?
“Ty—” I started to say, then cut off when Lee grinned broadly and slapped his brother on the back.
“I’ll accept your defeat as payment enough, brother.” Lee snickered at Ty as his grin spread wider. “Just say it. ‘You were right, and I was wrong.’ Go on.”
Ty growled under his breath and glared at Lee. “I’d rather pay you the bag of gold when we get back to Lakehaven.”
“Wait, what?” I frowned at the two of them in confusion. This was not at all the reaction I’d expected. Not that I’d really had time to put any thought into it, seeing as I’d s
eriously never anticipated being Queen Ophelia’s missing heir.
Ty heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. “Lee guessed you might be Princess Zarina about a week ago,” he informed me. “But he wouldn’t share his reasoning why he thought that. So I called bullshit, and the asshole made me bet on it.”
I glared at Lee and folded my arms over my chest. “Oh, real nice. You didn’t think that maybe you should have shared this with me, at least?”
Lee shrugged and looked equally uncomfortable yet unapologetic. “Would you have believed me?”
Pursing my lips, I glared a moment longer before shaking my head and sighing. “No. Not in a million years. I probably would have laughed at you.”
I glanced around and spotted Zan. He was hanging back, away from the rest of us but close enough to hear what was being said. Cocking my head to the side, I gave him a questioning look, but he just gave a small headshake.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, Majesty,” Greta said with a nervous smile. She glanced over to an older woman, who was wringing her hands in an apron. “We don’t have much here; this was a working village before our curse struck and has only fallen into disrepair since. Even so, Alma would like to provide rooms for you all in her inn.”
The older woman’s cheeks flushed red, and she bobbed her head in agreement.
“We would be honored,” I assured her with a smile.
She grinned in relief and gestured for us to follow her toward a building not far behind her, which sported a sign proclaiming it “The Hammer and Anvil Inn.”
My companions followed her, but Zan snatched my hand and held me back from everyone else.
“What?” I asked him, watching him warily. We had been in the middle of an argument when I’d left to speak with Rema. Did he want to revisit the topic of me choosing? Because that was a subject I just wasn’t prepared to discuss. Not after all I had just learned of my parentage.
He peered at me with his dark, guarded eyes for a long moment, then glanced up at the ominous, red moon glowing above us. “When we got released and I saw the moon,” he said softly, “I thought something bad had happened to you. You know what blood moons mean.”