Page 14 of Court of Bone and Amethyst

“I once did.” Owyn has an expression for a moment as if remembering something from long ago. “But for the last two decades I have been devoted to only one cause. Most think I died the night of the birth ceremony. It’s better that way.”

The purple flames crackle, illuminating Zyren’s silver eyes. “You were there that night?” A tension runs through his voice like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

“I was,” Owyn says. “Several hours late. Dumb luck due to my horse throwing a shoe on the way. When I finally arrived, late that night, the scene I found…” He trails off and stares into the flames. “I still see it in my dreams each night.”

A shiver works up my spine, and Zyren glances over at me, a look of concern in his eyes. Concern and…fear. He’s not worried I’ll be sad. He’s worried I’ll be angry.

“You said earlier you knew Sarielle would be back one day… how?” Zyren asks him.

“Her mother told me,” Owyn says quietly.

“My…” I can’t even get the word past the fog of tears in my throat.

Owyn laces his hands together on top of the table and looks between me and Zyren. “Let me start at the beginning. As I mentioned, I was to be at the birth party that night, but I arrived late. Now, I wonder if somehow it was my fate all along. If everything in my life led to this moment, this purpose.”

He trails off several moments before speaking again.

“Avonia was already gone when I got here. The fire she’d set ablaze was still burning in places, but I was able to get into the dining hall. I checked to see if any had survived her massacre,but there were none still living. I was just preparing to ride to the nearest town to get help when your mother arrived.”

Owyn locks gazes with me, and my heart stops.

“She told me she’d hidden you, Sarielle, someplace Avonia could not follow, that no one could. She wouldn’t tell me where, as an extra layer of precaution, but she said that one day your guardian would bring you back to Valaron, and that I had to wait until that day, and help you reclaim your birthright.”

“But how could she know that I would succeed?” Zyren asks, shaking his head. He looks perplexed, an expression I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him wear.

“Because you are a guardian.” Owyn shrugs. “And you areherguardian, and Renarys Otreyas chose the very best to protect her daughter.” He pauses a moment. “I asked her, of course, why she would not be here to wait for you herself.”

My heart drops into my stomach, and Zyren’s eyes flick once again to mine.

Owyn shakes his head. “I am sorry. This is a lot all at once.”

It takes me a moment to find my voice, but I nod and say, “please continue.”

His eyes hold pain as he speaks. “Your mother said it was her duty to enact revenge for her family, and she promised that if she survived, she would return and we would wait together.” He closes his eyes for several moments. “But she did not return. Soon, word spread about the tragedy that happened here. After a time, I placed the protection wards you saw tonight, to keep out all strangers. And I’ve lived here the past two decades, waiting for this very night.”

“I came here, the day after the massacre, as soon as I could arrive,” Zyen says, his voice laced with emotion. “I didn’t see you.”

“I hid,” Owyn says. “I thought it best that all assumed I died, too, that night. I traveled to my parents’ castle, just once, to letthem know I lived, but swore them to secrecy also. Other than the two of them, and Merla, no one knows I am alive.”

“I am sorry that you’ve led such a life because of me,” I say softly, a deep sorrow filling my chest. So many have died because of me. Even though Owyn lived, his life was still forfeit, a sacrifice at the foot of my throne. How must it have been, living all alone in a place of such terrible memories for so many years?

“Do not apologize,” he says softly. “It is my fate. I have come to realize that. Just as it is your fate to be queen and restore peace to Valaron. I will help you in any way that I can.”

“The first thing we’ll need to figure out is how to escape this castle,” Zyren says gruffly. “We must somehow get past the thing that hunts us.”

“And where is it you travel with such haste?” Owyn asks. “If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to hear your story, especially what has befallen you since you arrived in Valaron. I heard only rumors of the attack on Selaye when I went to gather supplies at a nearby village yesterday.”

I nod. “Of course. I grew up in a place called the Amethyst Palace, in Eldare, under the tutelage of a High Priest, training to become priestess.”

“Eldare?” Owyn’s eyes widen. “You were in Aureon? But how…” His words cut off, but it’s clear from his expression that he’s turning over the possibilities in his mind. “I did not think your mother strong enough to enact such a spell.”

“I don’t know how she did it,” I say softly. “But she did, and I grew up as an orphan, never knowing where I came from, or why my magic was different from the other girls in the palace.”

Here, my gaze shifts over to Zyren. It seems a decade has passed since that fateful night, when the man I thought to be merely a recurring dream spoke to me. I can still remember the sound of my name on his lips that first time. Little did I know we would be married two weeks later.

“Zyren began visiting my dreams, until one night, a little over two weeks ago, something panicked me, and the surge of magic connected us and brought me here, to Valaron. That’s when I learned the truth. Everything I never knew growing up.”

“That must have been a lot to process,” Owyn says, his eyes catching on mine.

---