Page 49 of Terragnata and the Heir of the Earth

VIRIBRUM

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HOME SWEET

Iwoke with a pounding in my head, a throbbing in my joints, and that strange burning sensation on my left hip. I peeked one eye open to see swaths of sheer cloth draped from four posters around me.

Bed, I’m in a bed.

A grand one, at that. Set in a mass of pillows, heavy duvets, and golden silk sheets. A matching sleep shift brushed over my skin. I stretched out my limbs, which seemed to ache with something more than the stiffness of sleeping too long.

I pulled up my shift to reveal faded bruises covering my stomach… as if I’d been beaten, but weeks before.

Strange.

I drew back the bed curtains and examined the room. It extended long rather than wide. Massive velvet fabrics parted from windows that must have been a half dozen yards tall, revealing a stark drop off to the cliffs a hundred feet below them, flush with a roiling sea. I peered out the window, looking at the long drop, remembering what had transpired before everything had gone black.

Cas. My childhood crush, best friend, and my intended husband. He’d stood in front of me a man, so changed from theboy I’d known. The memories had not yet settled in my head—they swirled as if disturbed from a long sleep. But who Cas was to me, who he’d always been, was clear as crystal.

An impressive stone fireplace smoked between the windows, likely lit in the past hour. At the end of the room perched anenormouscopper clawfoot tub with a thick water pipe overhanging the rim, and steam curling out from it. I had seen illustrations of those contraptions—that allowed for heated running water. We had nothing like it in Argention, and I vaguely remembered maids filling my tub—before I came to the human realm. It sat nestled in the corner next to two more opposing windows, a matching chamber pot, and a fine dressing station.

I relieved myself. Someone must have been in here recently, given the drawn curtains, crackling fire, and prepared bath. Before I could investigate further, the door opened.

A young Fae servant girl walked in, carrying a breakfast tray. My stomach betrayed my still untrusting mind and gurgled for all the room to hear.

“Oh! Good! Yer up, finally. Me tought ye would sleep tru anoder day!” she exclaimed. “Me brought ye brekkie, jest en case.”

The many unknowns froze me on the spot, and at the top of the list was whether or not I had dreamt Fayzien to still be alive. A sneaking feeling in my gut told me it was not a dream.I should have known the bastard wouldn’t go down just like that.

The servant busied herself with a cheerful attitude, setting up the tray by the seats across from the fire, and putting a kettle on the coals to heat. She had chestnut hair and soft brown eyes and looked no more than fifteen. “Ye know, m’lady, there ain’t much en thes world that isna betta’ than a fresh cuppa tea.” She winked at me.

“What is your name?”

“Olea. Ef ye canna tell, I’m te be yer hand lady, ye see.” She curtsied.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “I have one question I need you to answer right now, Olea. It’s very, very important. The Manibu, advisor to the Queen Rexi, the one they call Fayzien—was he here when I arrived?”

She giggled to herself. “Oh yes, the blue-eyed one, ye dinna remember? He es easy en me eyes, te be sure, especially after healin’ from hes burns—he was a bet charred fer a day after he arrived. A powerful Wetch, ‘at one. Everyone be talkin’ a’ hem now, cuz when ye soiled yerself weth yer vomet, well, he lost hes stomach, too. The Rexi was fumen’. So much so she sent hem halfway across the room weth her magic and left. She doesna take te weakness, from what I can tell.”

I sank onto the rim of the tub, my knuckles turning white as my hands gripped the edge.

“So it’s true,” I breathed.He must have portaled at the last second, only having faced a small lick of Ezren’s fire.“And the queen, she is my mother?”

“Why yes m’lady, she es. I ain’t never seen her before. I heard thes was the ferst she set foot on Fae ground, though she was married to a Fae before a’ course. But a mother knows no bounds, when et comes te a child, hey?”

My head swam with memories, but none of them were images of the Rexi. Now, I saw almost exclusively Cas. How could I not have remembered who the purple-gold-eyed boy was to me? He’d been my best friend, partner in crime, and confidant growing up. I had always known we would marry. He used to give me small tokens of amethyst or tanzanite, purple gems set in rings or necklaces, or beads on a dress. A promise of our future, he would say, just a boy of eleven when he did such things. My heart swelled at the memories, the fondness andinnocence in them. I wondered what kind of male he’d grown to be.

“And my betrothal to Cas? Is that still… expected?”

“Aye, a’ course. Ye two were betrothed a’ berth, or so hath been said. I dinna know the full story, but ye two were supposedly inseparable as Faeries. The whole country knew a’ yer engagement; many even speculated ye’d be Salanti.”

Salanti. The word held no familiarity, another mystery of this world I’d been ripped from. I rubbed my temples. My mother wasnota dead, nameless Witch from Nebbiolo, as Jana had told me. Not only was she very much alive, but she reigned as queen. Which made me a princess. And a betrothed one at that. Every last one of them had lied to me. Ezren. Jana, Dane, Leiya, Leuffen—the lot of them. They made me think I was just some famed warrior’s daughter who could stop a war by showing I lived—not a political piece in some power game between kingdoms. I suddenly knew why Ezren was so hesitant to touch me, why he refused to lay with me again after that first time, why his face turned green when he’d learned what I’d named my ship.

He knew I was engaged to another. And he never told me.

Heat pricked my eyes and my throat ran dry, my pulse quickening. I’d always known Jana was using me and had accepted that. But she’dswornshe did not deceive me, and her words were empty. More gutting than anything, I hadn’t anticipated this feeling of betrayal from Ezren. Perhaps his lies cut the deepest because I never expected them. The smallest voice inside me laughed cynically. Despite my efforts, I had started to trust Ezren.

I should’ve known better.

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