Page 41 of The Curse of a Kingdom
“How did you two become engaged? It takes years for the Society to consider a match, and I have never heard of her before.”
“You have heard of Nava—or the possibility of her,” Devon said, his face abandoning the lightness of before.
“What do you mean?”
“Does the name Forrest ring a bell to you?” The porcelain cup shook between his bone-white fingers. His onyx gaze deviated from Nava to his brother.
Arkimedes’s face dropped. “Celeste’s daughter?”
“The one and only,” Devon said, popping a ripe green grape into his mouth.
“But she couldn’t be. Nava would have to be—”
“Fifteen?” she asked, and his eyes burned through her.
“You are not fifteen.”
“Ouch, kitten, you must up your face moisturizing rituals.” Devon smiled wickedly.
“Devon, you aren’t making this easy.” She seethed. “But he is right, and so are you. I’m Celeste’s daughter and I’m not fifteen.”
“Right, and she had you when she was, what, eleven?” Arkimedes’s voice was drenched in sarcasm. “She wasn’t even pregnant when she left the Society.”
“Well, there must be something wrong with your timeline. I’m sure you can see the resemblance—I have been told I look just like her.”
“Maybe her sister, but not her daughter,” Arkimedes insisted.
“She is her daughter, brother,” Devon said. “Her and the potion maker made this wonderful creature, and we—I—discovered her.”
Arkimedes paled, but Nava’s vision of him glazed over, her skin breaking into a cold sweat. The potion maker? Her father. Why couldn’t she recall him?
He was missing completely. Was he alive? Dead? Had he been a part of her life growing up? Her chest constricted as the walls of her mind closed in on her, and she became a prisoner of her panic.
The memories of darkness and emptiness from when she’d crossed the portal slammed into her like an iron wall. There had been two entities the day she and Devon had passed through the shadow lands toward this kingdom. The voice that had demanded payment, and the shape that had loomed closer.
One of them had taken her father away.
Her breaths became shallow, and she sank deep within herself, putting her half-eaten scone back to her plate, her appetite lost.
“Her skin is lighter. A mixture from her father. And she has the one blue eye like him.” Devon reached to the three-tiered stand that held the pastries. He hummed while deciding which buttery cake to pick. “She is also a potion maker. Like father, like daughter.”
“You look a lot like her,” Arkimedes acquiesced, then his expression shifted. “Are you all right?”
The air left her lungs, and her grip tightened on the edge of the table. She wanted to swallow, but her tongue was as hard as a rock. She couldn’t breathe, or was she breathing too fast?
“Nava?” Arkimedes’s tone was far away, and his face became closer as his hand rested on top of hers, his touch scalding her skin. Why were they looking at her? Was she speaking out loud? Was she screaming?
A couple of bees landed on the table, crawling over her fingers. Why couldn’t she remember how her father looked? Or his name, the sound of his voice? Had he enjoyed singing? Cameron had red hair, so very different from the dark brown of their mother. Perhaps his hair was the same color as his father’s.
Nava gasped for air, stumbling to her feet. The chair crashed against the stone floor. She tipped over it when Arkimedes wrapped his arms around her, bringing her straight to his warm chest. Her knuckles whitened as she grasped the silky fabric of his tunic, feeling his breath hit her face as she closed her eyes.
“You’re fine.” His arm reached behind her back, drawing circles over the fabric of her dress. The touch grounded her somewhat.
Silence descended. Even the birds had stopped singing—or perhaps she couldn’t listen to them.
“Ark, take me back home,please,” she whispered against his chest. She wanted to be back in her house in the Northern Village, wrapped in her favorite, fluffiest blanket that Laurie had knitted last winter.
He scooped her from under her knees. Soon she was flying off the ground, and the flapping of wings moved her hair with the air.
