Page 76 of Fae Crown

“So then what happened to the workers who actually built the house?” I asked though a part of me already understood it was easier not to know.

Dashiell frowned. “Dead, of course. For a very worthy cause.”

Of course, I thought bitterly before clamping down the next question I wanted to ask: Had the workers chosen their fates? Had they been the ones to decide whether or not their deaths were for a worthy cause?

In the end, I didn’t ask, left to wonder if I was a coward for still being eager for more even as my father was revealed to be as callous as the queen herself.

Dashiell rubbed the coverlet between his fingertips. “Construction barely just finished. But we couldn’t wait. With Talisa obsessed with ending you,and with you suddenly with Odelia, there was no time. Your presence endangers her.”

His astute gaze snapped to mine. “How did you find her?”

When I hesitated, he added, “I’ve been turning the matter over and over in my mind. But I see no way how you could have discovered Talisa was draining her very own sister of her power.”

I gasped.

“So you didn’t know?”

I shook my head, unsure I could say anything unless it was to curse the queen with every foul word I’d ever learned in Nightguard.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point to holding back the information now,” he said.

“Please tell me. I’ve wondered about my mother for as long as I can remember. Even when Zako told me she was dead, I … I missed her.”

Dashiell smiled absently, as if at a memory. “You would have loved her. She was truly magnificent. She would have made a formidable queen.” His smile soured, undoubtedly focused on who wore the crown intended for her.

“Tell me everything,” I said softly.

He leaned both hands back onto the foot of the bed and crossed his legs at the knee. “His Majesty was also formidable.Isformidable,” he corrected with a meaningful look at me I didn’t engage. “Oren was the strongest drake of his generation. He led the Leantos clan admirably before King Erasmus decided he was tomarry Odelia. Together, Oren and Odelia would rule Embermere upon Erasmus’ retirement.”

I’d heard some of this before but didn’t dare interrupt. Better to learn a fact several times over than never at all.

“Erasmus only ever wanted sons. The Ethers granted him five daughters. But when Odelia came of age, he recognized that she would be a queen as great as any son could have been a king.

“The match was made, and Oren and Odelia were fortunate enough to fall in love. Do you know how rare that is? To love each other in a marriage arranged for political purposes? Practically unheard of. Oren and Odelia knew they’d been blessed with the fortune of dragons. They took nothing for granted.”

Dashiell’s stare emptied as he gazed at the flowers at my bedside. I wondered who had picked them. Had it been Edsel?

“Then what happened?” I eventually prompted.

He shook his head to clear it of whatever memory had captured him. “Tragedy. An absolute tragedy.” He frowned so deeply that lines bracketed his mouth. “Odelia grew sick. It was subtle at first, the changes in her. But before long it became obvious. Odelia was losing her mind. At first she just became forgetful. You’d tell her something and she’d insist you hadn’t the very next day. Then it became the next hour, the next minute. And the woman had been so sharp too.”

Again that deep frown, a sad shake of his head to the tinkling of mournful chimes. “We tried to hide itfrom Erasmus for as long as possible, but soon there was no hiding her descent into madness. The same as some of her ancestors. The family curse. An equally doomed and blessed bloodline.

“Her temperament also changed. She’d never been gentle. Oh no, not Odelia. Erasmus had raised her to be the son he wanted. No, the woman could have led armies to the very entrance to the Golden Forest of Faerie and probably succeeded.

“But even though she was strong, she wasn’t unkind. She respected honesty and integrity in her advisors, in her subjects. She was fierce, but she was fair.”

“Wow. Wonder what that’s like,” I muttered.

He snapped his stare to mine, accusation unfurling across his narrowing eyes.

“I meant the queen. Talisa. How different things would be if she were interested in the same virtues.”

His eyes relaxed. The sorrowful downturn of his lips returned. “Aye. Indeed. How different everything would be. How different my king would be… You know, he can’t look at you without remembering all he’s lost?”

So I’d overheard…

“You look so much like her. He sees her when he looks at you.”

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