Page 84 of Royal Lies

"So, shall we get everything out at once? One day, I was reading a book, when suddenly both my brothers barged into my room. Both thesensibleone and theintolerableone teamed up to throw me into some random realm, I don't even know, without a single regard as to my safety-" The only sign of her temper was her quick pacing as she recounted our past actions.

"W-well it was safe-" I tried explaining how we did check to make sure the realm we had sent her to was safe and suited her tastes.

Her icy beams turned towards me, “What.” I quickly shut my mouth staring blatantly at the white marbling of the floor. I think I'm just going to start counting the amount of snowflakes on the ground.

One snowflake.

Two snowflakes.

"As I was saying without asingleregard for my safety. No matter how safe the ‘ratings' are about the realm, who's to say the spot you tossed me towas? On top of all that, have you ever consideredmyfeelings on this? How much do you want to bet that you two were going to do it again? But don't worry, I've already taken precautions so that you can't do that in this life. We're siblings, blood or not, we stick together. Through shadows and flames, we help each other, we don't just leave one another or force the other one to leave, even if things get dangerous. Have you ever thought about how much worry and pain you broughtmewhen you did that? Before you say anything,yes, I did worry. I worried if you both were alive or not." Her voice had started to crack at this point. Worried I dared to look up at her glistening eyes.

"If you both were even eating asmundaneas that sounds. I am your little sister, youngest or not Iama part of this family,and we are all Wolves. We donotjust abandon one another, forced or otherwise." Tears were streaming down her pale white face. As Eli and I made a move to help clean up her tear-streaked face the only imperfection to her adorable petite features. Snow held up a hand halting our movements. As always she was a Wolf to the tips of her head to the bottoms of her feet, she didn't dare let us help her. We Wolves had a reputation to uphold.

"I tried to come back you know, I wasn't able to until something- I don't know but a light burst in my vision, and the next thing I knew I was reborn back in this realm. I guess what I'm saying is I missed you both, a lot. And a lot has happened too, like a lot, things are really messed up in the realm, and father- I don't know what happened but one day he started acting weird. It was when that new queen took over for the Griffins. Then the shadows, lords, all the shadows. They were everywhere. Are everywhere. I don't know if you saw it on your way here, brother." She said turning to Eli her composure coming back as her impassive mask fit back into place like it never left at all.

"But these shadows, they’re different. There’s something about them. They’re far more… knowledgeable than when Lucarious controlled them. It's as if they have more power." Snow finished as she stared back at Eli, her mask firmly back in place.

Eli frowned, never the one to hide his emotions as he shook his head, "No, I mean we encounteredonebut I don't think anything about it was strange. It was all so hazy I don't recall. Wait, I think… Everetta tried to kill it with her light but it didn't work.”

Snow sighed as I cocked a brow at Eli, "You didn't think that was suspicious."

Eli rolled his eyes ever ready to defend himself against any fae who might criticize him, “Well, I had a king to overthrow,shadows were the furthest from my mind. Besides, I also- Never mind."

Well, at least he was smart enough to shut his mouth about controlling Everetta's memories. I would have smacked him across the head if he hadn't. Just how idiotic had my brother become?

"So somethingisgoing on with these shadows but what?" I asked, trying to come up with the answer myself as I stared back at my siblings in confusion.

"They shouldn't have been able to live after an attack by Evie, it doesn't make sense." I elaborated because shadows shouldn't have been able to get stronger. They were stagnant things, monsters, creatures, shifted fae, call it whatever, but they shouldn't be able to grow in power.

Eli sat with his legs crossed by the fireplace covered in ice and snow. Despite the roaring fire below, no teardrops dripped from the white frost covering the mantle. We Wolves didn't need the fire to keep us warm. Our bodies had already grown accustomed to the cool climates of this court. Perhaps that was why they had renamed this place the Winter Court. Its unbearable latitudes, the constantly frozen streets, the howling winds of the north, the roaring tides of the cold constantly bashing against the mountains.

Home.

I stared back at the brother who had caused my lover a great many hardships and sighed as I sunk down on the chair between him and my sister. Glancing from the corner of my eyes I caught Eli and Snow doing the same.

We watched our younger sister take a sip of the tea she must have had the servants prepare. Her elegant cool placid face was as calm as ever despite the tears that had marked it not long ago.

My sister never cried much.

Was transferring her away in our past lives really that hard on her? Perhaps, we made a mistake. But if she had stayed would she have been safe? Then again we all reincarnated anyway. Still, it grieves me to know that I had caused her pain.

"The shadows have spread, ever since I was a little girl in this life. They've been growing in numbers. When I was born in this life Lucarious had already been dethroned by the Duchess of Autumn. At least that is what they're calling her. No one knows what her origins are. I've tried collecting some information on her but all the informants I sent were slaughtered, to say the least. Sent back to me with their heads disassembled like puzzle pieces." Snow popped up a black and gold cardboard box on the see-through iced table in the middle before us, her cool winter magic touching the tips of her hands. No doubt some spell must have been used to preserve it or else the blood would have soaked through the layers of paper by now.

The box itself was in pristine condition. The black coloring seemed to shimmer in the light, way too extravagant for a mere box. The gold ribbon tied across the thing made it seem like more of a gift than what it was.

As we all stared inside the opened box I heard the bile rise up my brother's throat as he worked hard not to let it out. His right hand wrapped over his mouth as his left clenched his stomach, "I think I'm going to be sick," Eli waved his hands in the air no doubt to manifest the little ice bucket before him as he vomited, dunking his whole head in.

Snow rolled her eyes, flicking her hands to remove the odor of whatever Eli had eaten and regurgitated from today.

Staring back down at the mess in the box I spotted what looked like a dark brown eye and a mangled right cheek torn from the hollow gap in the woman's face. Her remaining left eye stared back, clouded and unseeing. Her nose seemed to have been severed in half from her face as the bottom peak of her noselay in a bright red pool at one of the right corners of the box. Her hair was a tangle of crimson and brown, nearly black as I picked up the crusted little pieces of dirt glued to her mane.

Horrified and disgusted, Eli looked at the clump in my hands.

"Oh lords, I think I am going to be sick again. Why would you touch it?" Eli croaked as he hurled into his ice bucket again.

"Hmm, the texture, remind me again sister isn't the Phoenix Court known for their wide different assortments of Deserts? It's rich sands and exotic plants. Black sand on the other hand can only be found in the throne room of the Phoenix Court. Which means." I began as I flicked my hands cleaning my blackened figures.

"She must have been in the throne room when they tortured her.” Snow finished for me as she stared back at me. Her eyes were glistening with knowledge that only she knew. She was keeping something from me or more likely she was trying to tell me something. But why can't she just tell me out right?

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