Page 132 of Twin Crowns

“We should have buried her. She deserved that, at least.”

Rose placed a hand on Wren’s shoulder as she stepped into the room. “All these years at Anadawn, and I never even knew she was here. Hekepther from me. He kept her from the world.” Her voice wobbled as she drifted to the window, where the sun was melting into the evening sky. “Oh, Glenna, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “We will make this right. I promise.”

Wren lingered on the threshold, a hand pressed to the phantom wound in her side. Only this morning, she had lain dying on the riverbank and now she was here. And Banba was not. They had changed out of their ruined wedding dresses, spent hours scrubbing the blood from their hair, and yet Wren still felt unclean. Guilty. She had failed her grandmother. She had cursed Banba to a fate worse than death, and now the witches were left without a leader.

Rose shoved a birdcage out of the way to retrieve the painting underneath. It was the portrait Glenna had shown Wren the night before. Rose held it up to the light.

“That’s Ortha Starcrest,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “I’ve seen her once before. In a vision at the Mother Tree.” She frowned as she beheld the girl sitting next to Ortha. “But who on earth is that?”

Wren joined her sister by the window. Her gaze lingered on the other sister. A part of her didn’t want to say her name aloud, as though it held an ancient, wicked power. “That’s Ortha’s twin sister, Oonagh.”

Rose gasped. “Twins. It’s just like Banba said.”

Wren glanced sidelong at her sister, feeling a strange twisting in her gut. In all her life, Banba had never uttered a word to her about the existence of Oonagh Starcrest. Until this very moment, Wren had believed that Glenna was the only living witch who even knew of the lost twin.

“What did Banba tell you?” she asked her sister.

“Nothing. It’s as if she was afraid to say anything at all.” Rose frowned at the portrait. “I don’t understand. Why are there two crowns?”

Wren recalled the seer’s words to her in this very tower the previous night, the story she had unraveled in the darkness as she told her of Oonagh Starcrest. Wren had squirmed hearing it, but she knew it was a truth she owed to her sister. After all, the Starcrest sisters were their legacy.

“Because they were both queens,” said Wren. “At least before it all went to hell.”

Rose clutched the painting to her chest, her eyes growing wide. “Tell me what happened.”

So Wren did.

“A thousand years ago, the witch queen Moira gave birth to twin girls. Ortha and Oonagh. They were born holding hands, so close they were said to be of one mind. One soul. The twins were powerful, too. And their power was at its strongest when they were together.”

Rose’s brow furrowed, and Wren knew she was thinking of that strange explosion in the Vault, the blinding power that had burst from them when they’d held each other. Wren didn’t know if what had happened was a good thing or a bad thing, only that it had unsettled her.

She could tell it had unsettled Rose, too.

“Ortha was mild-mannered and fiercely clever. She had a soft heart and an inquiring mind,” she went on. “Oonagh was rebellious and prone to outbursts. She had a sharp tongue and a sharper temper.” Wren tried not to linger on their similarities, especially knowing what came after. “But the girls loved each other, and they believed they could rule together.”

Rose grimaced. “So they just...bothbecame Queen?”

“It was Moira’s Law,” said Wren with a shrug. “She didn’t want to separate them so she rewrote the rules of the kingdom.” A pause, then she added, “That was a mistake.”

“But Ortha was a good queen. Wasn’t she?”

“The best we ever had.”

The silence stretched.

Rose shifted uncomfortably. “And... Oonagh?”

“Oonagh ruined everything.” Wren turned to the window. The Vault was a blackened shell upon the hill. Guards were still milling back and forth, retrieving the bodies. “As the kingdom’s love forher sister grew, Oonagh got jealous. And obsessive.” Wren rested her elbows on the windowsill and looked toward the trees. “One day, when she was riding her horse through the woods, she trampled a fawn. It was an accident. But when the animal’s blood seeped into Oonagh’s fingers, everything changed. She found a new way to be powerful. To be better than her sister.” She glanced at Rose, over her shoulder. “She turned to blood magic.”

Rose clutched at her sleeves. “Bloodmagic? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“The witches like to pretend it doesn’t exist. It keeps the young ones from getting ideas....” Wren offered her a half-smile. “And the older ones, I suppose.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “So Oonagh killed animals for power?”

Wren nodded, still trying to navigate the difficult truth of it. “At first. But blood magic is twisted and difficult, and when you take something that doesn’t belong to you, you lose a part of yourself. The more Oonagh took from living things, the less human she became. Her magic twisted. And so did her soul.” A shudder passed through Wren at the memory of the seer’s words, at how haunted she had looked when she’d offered them to her.

“And that’s when Oonagh turned to human sacrifice,” Wren said.

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