Page 85 of The Mirror in the Mountain

Bash got up, shushing my drowsy sound of dissent. He returned a minute later with a damp towel he used to tenderly clean me. Then he pulled me back into his arms. His gentle caress found my stomach, my thighs, fingers tracing patterns the entire journey.

His touch was a love letter and a plea all at once.

I could feel it in the possessive way his hands stroked my face. In each brush of his lips against my cheek, my hair—begging me for the same thing over and over until I finally fell asleep.

Stay with me.

Chapter 36

Estelle

Queen Amerie was dead. Perhaps still alive for now, captured and imprisoned in her own castle as the False King and his supporters took up residence there like an unstoppable, invasive weed. But I couldn’t imagine her usurper would allow her to live long. Not when he was obviously after her crown.

Or was it nowmycrown? It was my birthright. The future I had always been told would one day be mine—even as the words rang somewhat hollow, like a promise that wouldn’t be kept. Yet how was I meant to take on the False King when, after our crushing defeat at Morehaven, I knew that to do so was madness?

He had been able to catch Morehaven unprepared, the queen’s forces already spread too thin defending the other territories. The battle was already over, the feather-gilded gate blocked from our reach by the time their pleas for aid reached us. I shuddered to think of the lives taken to fuel the dark magic needed for such a barrier that it had lasted the entirety of the battle.

Was I meant to go through the Choosing against him? Normally, a conclave would be called to Morehaven, the mostpowerful Celestial representatives from each region then sent on a secret journey for a test I knew little about, despite my supposed destiny. I had once practiced my serene smile in the mirror, to be given to those faceless contenders who didn’t yet know the crown’s choice was predetermined. But these were not normal times, and I knew the False King’s supporters would be on guard to prevent any from participating in the test before he did.

If that mantle was truly meant to be mine, was I to rally our exhausted armies under one banner to oppose his forced rule and likely decimate Soleara in the process? Or?—

My foot caught on a raised tree root I could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment before, and I went sprawling. The night was unusually dark, even beneath the canopy of trees I found myself often visiting when my mind wouldn’t stop whirring. I cursed under my breath as pain twinged up the arm that had taken the brunt of my fall. My fingers flew to my elbow as I pushed myself up, their tips coming away dark with a mix of blood and dirt.

There was something missing. Everything inside me went on alert as I realized the forest had gone strangely quiet, devoid of the usual chatter of its denizens, its absence eerie. Even the gnarled branches of the trees around me seemed to stop their swaying, the stars above dimming like the realm itself was holding its breath.

A faerie circle.

In my haste to flee the castle, to run away from the constraints of a destiny that felt more like a curse, I hadn’t noticed I had stepped directly into a large mound of earth surrounded by a perfect circle of trees. My blood glistened on the moss covering it before it disappeared like just another drop of dew. I winced as I realized I had trampled a few of the enormous white mushrooms that surrounded me. As I reached toward aheadless stem like I might be able to undo the damage, I realized I wasn’t alone.

A sprite was perched on the mushroom top, her enormous, pitch-black eyes devouring me.

She was nude, an electric blue sheen coating her dark skin, its hue matching her hair. I froze, my hand barely an inch away from her, then slowly dipped my head in deference. She cocked her head in response, her blue lips parting to reveal sharp, black teeth. Then sunk into a low bow, her iridescent wings fluttering mesmerizingly as she rose.

“The Queen Who Might Have Been.” Her voice reverberated through the glen, like each word danced around my brain. “Some things still remain to be seen. But some things cannot be changed, not now that they have been put in motion. The False One will come for you. For your progeny. He seeks the girl for his own ends, and to the end of all. So you must flee, now, or all will be lost before it has even begun.”

It felt like the forest mist had invaded my mind, each word adding to my shock and confusion. My mouth opened, closed, then opened once more. “He seeks…what?”

The sprite seemed to grimace; a baring of teeth that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Surely the one who would have been queen can understand something so simple as the need for flight. To protect one’s own. To evade the fight until the time is right.”

“I only meant…” My words caught in my throat as what she said came back to me in full clarity. “The False King wantsEva?”

My daughter. Precious, precocious little Evangeline whose little bursts of darkness would float around her like a lively second shadow. And if the False King wanted her…

“Why?”

The sprite tilted her head at me, then nodded as if glad I had finally gathered my wits about me. “The False One will take youall if he can. But the former queen ensured the child’s fate, and his obsession, when she told him who the next High Queen will be.” Those black teeth glinted in the night. “And she will tell him how totakeit. Or perhaps she has already for this path to be so clear.”

His obsession withher. Because she would be…

“No,” I blurted out. “I’mthe?—”

The words shriveled on my tongue. Had Queen Amerie ever said it would be me? My mind flashed through snippets of memory, scouring for any hint this could be a lie. But all I could hear was my departed father’s voice crowing about what the High Queen had foretold: that the crown of gold in my eyes marked the next true queen.

Both of my children had my eyes, almost exactly. Down to the speckled flecks of gold that converged around their pupils.

I sucked in a harsh breath as everything I thought I knew came apart. Slowly, I let it out, giving myself a moment to mourn not what might have been, but the burden I couldn’t take on myself. Taking the fear for my daughter, the imminent danger she now faced, and honing it into the very blade of fury I would use to protect her.

Because I was the Queen of Soleara. The mother of the true heir of Agadot. And I wouldn’t let her down.

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