Page 97 of When the Moon Met the Sun

I flinched at the ease with which she said that sentence. As if the fact didn’t haunt me in my nightmares.

Byn tilted his leg towards mine until our knees were touching—a silent support. A lifeline.

Matea didn’t let the small movement go unnoticed.

“What does the death of King Horace have to do withyou?” Byn asked, picking up the slack when I fell short.

“His wife, your mother—Queen Elore? I was… important to her. King Horace would have hunted me to the ends of the world if he knew I existed, simply so Queen Elore wouldn’t have anything tying her back to the South.” She paused. “I assume you’ve figured out that she was Southern by now?” she asked.

I nodded. “Why would my father have put in so much effort to hunt you?” I asked, wishing she’d just get to the point.

“Because… Queen Elore was my mother, too,” Matea said, softer than she’d spoken before.

The statement felt like a punch to the gut.

That was why I felt like I recognized her that day at the market.

She lookedsomuch like Mother. Her heart shaped face, the firm set of her jaw, her straight nose—even the green of her eyes matches the color of my own.

Both inherited by a female neither of us seemed to know.

“How—” I gasped. “How is this possible?” I finally managed to get out.

Matea sighed, as though she was already tiring of the conversation. “Elore grew up here, in the South. These,” she motioned again to the two figures behind her, “are her parents, Billie and Geoff Ashford.”

My eyes snapped up to the female’s face—my grandmother’s face—and I couldn’t help but notice the tears welling in her eyes. In that moment, I wondered what she saw when she looked at me.

Suddenly, I remembered the records I studied when I first arrived at The Haven.

I looked back to Matea. “You’re… not lying. I’ve seen the noble house records myself—they stop after Mother’s name.”

Matea gave me a smug smirk, then nodded.

“Elore wielded all five Southern zirilium—not unheard of in our noble houses—but she loved helping others more than anything else. She used her abilities to become a trokav for the Southern army when she was young. Back then, the Ocrein Isles hadn’t closed their borders yet, and our two peoples mixed freely. She met my father, Ethan, on the battlefield, where she found him gravely injured and left for dead. She ended up nursing him back to health over the course of a few months, and during that time, they fell in love—hard and fast.

“They welcomed me to the world a little over a year after my father was back to full health, having carved out a small life for themselves here in Cairnyl. My father was going to take Elore’s last name and become a member of the noble class, in order to be with her. Even though he was a loyal soldier, Elore didn’t care about social status—she herself worked hard as a trokav in every battle that came and went. Until one battle, when… they didn’t come back.”

She took a deep breath, but didn’t give herself time to think before barreling ahead.

“When I was just a few months old, The Ashfords, my—our—grandparents, were told that they had both been slaughtered in battle. It was an especially bad battle—we had been taken completely by surprise, and it was all hands-on deck. But when the battle ended, their bodies were never recovered. It was like they simplyvanished.”

A chill ran down my spine as I listened to what she was saying. There was no way she knew.

Right?

“But then, another eight months after the battle where they supposedly died,Queen Elorecame into the picture in the North. When I was old enough to start piecing things together, I didn’t think much of it at first. Just a coincidence, right?” She laughed under her breath.

“Well, after years of trying to figure out what happened to my parents, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I journeyed to the North,” she shot Byn and Teagan a concerned look, likely because crossing into the North was forbidden, “and stayed in Hollis for a couple days, gathering clues. There—”

“How did you make it there and back without being caught?” Byn interrupted.

Matea looked as though she had to hold back an eye roll as she extended herhand.

Then melted into the shadow of her chair within the blink of an eye.

Byn pressed his lips together tightly.

Matea appeared again in the chair, then asked, “Make sense?”

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