Page 63 of Tower of Tempest
“She kidnapped our daughter,” the queen replied, voice sharp enough to slice the statue of Spirit Sky in two.
That stopped me. “Your daughter?” I asked slowly, not understanding.
The queen continued to stare straight ahead. “Twenty-two years, four months, and sixteen days. That’s the last time I held my baby girl in my arms before I put her down to sleep, humming a song to her. It’s not a well-known song because I made it up. Yet you know it. How is that possible?”
It wasn’t. My mind was still stuck on that number. “Twenty-two years...” I trailed off, racking my brain. I would’ve been a baby, newly born. Surely Gran wouldn’t have left me in the tower to traipse off and steal a princess...
My chest tightened, squeezing the breath from me. The queen finally turned her gaze to me, green eyes bright with tears, the lines of her face more pronounced in the daylight.
“You have my eyes,” she said softly. “Your father’s hair, though you wouldn’t know it now that his has turned white.” Her lips twitched. “You’ve got the same wing color as I do.” She trailed a finger down my cheek. “Those same round cheeks with freckles. I’ll admit, many have looked similar who’ve come before. But none of them”—her finger hooked under my chin—“have known that song. Imposters who claim they’re the lost princess are easy to spot because of how badly they want to be her. Yet you...”
My entire body felt like it had been dunked in ice cold water. “What, exactly, are you saying?”
“I believe you’re my daughter. The one who we thought dead for twenty-two years. Princess Arabella Gustavias of the sky court.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
LOCHLAN
It had been a week since I’d seen her face. A week since I’d teased smiles from her, made her roll her eyes or let out an exasperated sigh from my outlandish comments. One week, and I still saw her face in my dreams. Yet this time, it wasn’t of her in the tower. It was her smiling at me, her grabbing my hand, her sitting on a fountain and splashing the water.
I shoved a hand through my hair as Leoni bartered with a sailor nearby, trying to get him to take us to the shadow court.
“You don’t even have to get off the ship,” she said, voice growing agitated.
“I don’t go near there,” the sailor replied in a thick accent. “Invites too much trouble.”
We stood on a cliff that jutted out from the top of the isle, a road winding down and around the mountain, all the way to the bottom. This was the only pathway out of Valoris for non-winged elementals. Horses stood in a line, ready to bring visitors down the path, where ships waited. I was, at least, thankful for that. I’d been worried we’d have to trek down the damn cliff. If we ever got out of this place, which wasn’t looking likely.
Leonihad spent the last week talking to every sailor that lived in Winded, and no one wanted to take us to Sorrengard, no matter how much gold we offered.
“It’s not dangerous,” Leoni argued, throwing out an arm.
Driscoll leaned over. “At least she’s not insulting him this time. Certainly didn’t help matters with the last one.”
No, it hadn’t. Not when she’d called him a fatheaded walrus. He did look like a walrus, but that insult had effectively ended their conversation.
“You think I haven’t heard the rumors?” the sailor said, tugging at his thin black mustache. “I know the pirate lord sails those seas, attacks any ships that come too near.”
“We know the pirate lord,” Leoni gritted out. “He’s a friend.”
The man’s eyes practically bulged at that.
“And she lost him,” Driscoll muttered.
The sailor backed away toward his waiting horse. “You’re friends with the pirate lord?”
“He’s really not that bad,” Leoni shouted as the captain shuddered and mounted his horse, tapping its sides and encouraging it to get onto the road—and away from Leoni.
Others passed us, a winged attendant assigning horses to them as they went on their merry way.
I clapped a hand on Leoni’s shoulder. “Maybe I should do the talking from now on.”
She rolled her eyes. “You can’t flirt your way onto a ship, Prince.”
I summoned a smile. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”
“Anything would be better than watching you scare away another sailor,” Driscoll pointed out.
