Page 73 of The Uncrowned Prince

“It was a gift,” the red-haired woman said simply. “From the parents who abandoned me when I was five years old.”

The two stared at one another across the fire, and the tension grew until a burning log crackled and collapsed, throwing off sparks that drifted upwards into the darkness.

“Your parents”—Senaya’s voice was quiet and pained—“believed they were doing the one thing that might keep you safe.”

“By leaving a child to starve to death?” The words were infused with anger, harsh and grating.

“That was not what was meant to happen.” Senaya did not sound defensive, only resigned.

“I thought you hated me!” the younger woman burst out suddenly. “That I reminded you too much of my sister, and you left because you couldn’t stand to look at this face!”

“No!” Senaya came to her feet and took two steps towards the fire before she stopped, hands clenched at her sides. “We believed we’d been found, and we were terrified for your life. We meant only to draw them away.”

Karreya felt her jaw drop as she regarded the two women. This was… Senaya’sdaughter? She had acousin?

“Then why did you stay away?” The other woman’s voice broke. “Why did you never come back for me?”

Silence fell, until Senaya spoke again, barely audible over the crackle of the fire and the rush of the waves.

“We did.”

“You came?” The younger woman sounded utterly disbelieving. “You came, and you just decided to… toleave me there?”

“You had a life there—a place of your own where you were happy and safe. Safe in the king’s own household! Why would we drag you away into the life of a fugitive? Always on the run, never able to trust a stranger?”

“I had a life?” The younger woman threw up her hands and spun, setting her back to the fire for a moment before turning around. “No. I had ajob. I was taken in because the king had a use for me and my magic, nothing more.”

Senaya seemed to blanch. “So Soren learned the truth,” she murmured. “I was afraid he might.”

Karreya was listening so intently—attempting to absorb the implications of what she’d heard—she was almost surprised when Vaniell wrapped his fingers loosely around her wrist.

“Come,” he muttered quietly. “I think this reunion might be better accomplished in private.”

“We are not finished with you,” the elf growled. “But if Leisa wishes it, I will ensure that you sleep through the remainder of this conversation.”

Leisa. That was the woman’s name. Hercousin’sname. The idea still filled Karreya with shock. But it also helped her understand her aunt a little better. When she’d spoken of pain and sacrifice…

If Karreya’s grandmother knew of the existence of another heir—one born with the gift of their family’s ancestral magic—she would have moved mountains in pursuit of that child, and never cared who or what she crushed in the process.

“They should stay.” Senaya’s voice changed. It was as if a different woman had taken her place—one unused to having her commands disobeyed. “Whether you know it yet or not, they are deeply connected to the tangled web between us.”

Leisa glared back stubbornly. “Tangled web? Whatever might have bound us in the past was severed when you abandoned me, apparently not once, but twice. When you sent my uncle to find me instead of coming yourself. The only thing I need from you now is answers—answers about my magic. I need your help to master it, so that I will not be helpless in the battle we’re now facing. Beyond that…” She shook her head. “I have no hopes, no demands. Whatever trouble connects the three of you, I care about only insofar as it impacts the future of Abreia.”

Some pieces of that were only half true, but Karreya was beginning to understand it. Beginning to grasp how the heart clung to old beliefs in order to protect itself from disappointment.

Senaya sighed deeply in answer and tilted her face upward to gaze at the brilliant night sky. “The stars are so beautiful here,” she said, almost dreamily. “I have often wondered whether you were alive to see them. Whether you hated me for the choices I made. It seemed at the time that the only thing I could do as your mother was protect you from the world that had destroyed everything I loved.”

A pause followed, as her hands clenched and unclenched and her lips pressed together to hide their trembling. “Over the past few years, I began to consider whether I should seek you out to explain my reasons. But in the end, I left that choice to you. Stayed away, out of an abundance of caution. And yet…” Her chin finally sank to her chest. “My world has found you in spite of my efforts. Found all of us. And it will destroy you in turn, if you do not understand what you face.”

“Forgive my interruption”—Vaniell addressed the others with a gracious tilt to his chin and his free hand tucked behind his back—“but if we are all a part of some strangely entwined fate, might we take a moment for introductions?”

He seemed to have forgotten that he was still holding Karreya’s wrist, and she, for whatever reason, had not reminded him. Even in that moment, when his fingers slid down to clasp hers, she did not pull away or flinch at the contact, and when Mistress Bethia sighed, Karreya only shrugged in utter indifference.

“Leisa,” the young woman said abruptly. “Adopted daughter of King Soren of Farhall, former bodyguard to Princess Evaraine, and married to him.” She jerked her head at the elf.

“Kyrion ven Athanel,” he said in that stern, deep voice. “Wyvern King of Dunmaren.”

Her cousin was married to a king? Karreya felt Vaniell twitch at this news and thought he grew a bit paler, but it was difficult to tell in the firelight.

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