Page 43 of The Curse of a Kingdom
Devon dropped his pastry on the dish and dusted his hands. He was buying himself time from speaking. “She is elsewhere. You know how she is—hiding all of her family from us.”
“How did the Society find them? Did you . . . ?”
“I found her, which is why I got stuck in this predicament in the first place.” His sigh of annoyance was telling, and damn if his brother’s reluctance didn’t make him confused. “But enough of that. I found something with the . . . item you brought me.”
The book. Orion perked up in his seat.
Devon pulled something from his pocket and slid it to Orion over the table, while his other hand took the bone china cup that no longer held steaming tea. “The translation might be off. I'm a bit rusty.”
Orion looked around him but found no one was around. This meant little, as his father had spies everywhere, even in the damn vegetation. He opened the folded paper; Devon’s neat scrawls were familiar. “It’s not much,” he commented, looking at his brother over the paper.
“There wasn’t much left in what you brought me. Most of what was there was not important—recollections of yearly expenses on improving the garden and some updates to the town. There was a brief mention of the Society visiting, but the juicy bits were burned. I did find a few tidbits that might interest you.”
Orion dropped his gaze back to the parchment. The more he read, the slower his heart drummed. The sudden dizziness that hit him had his head spinning.
The child of royal blood came to this world sick, poisoned by evil, and was taken into the world of shadows, away from the land and our people.
Did this writing mean him? The world of shadows was considered the transition place. Where souls went to get winnowed to a better or worse fate. Purgatory.
He swallowed and fought the urge to crumple the paper in his hands; he kept coming back to the words sick, poisoned, evil.
Evil.
Had his mother led him to find this book to show him that she’d had a reason to get him away? She had not killed him . . . but people considered him dead until not long ago.
“Oh, you got the tortured face on. Am I going to have to convince you this might not be about you?”
“No.”
“This could be any other royal, Arkimedes.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The thickness in his throat told him otherwise, and he wished it was true. “This is something I can work with, ask questions.”
“If you were evil and sick, the king wouldn’t have received you with open arms. But by all means, we can just leave and be done with this madness. Go back to our city and—”
“I’m not going back to the Society of Crows, Devon. I don’t want to go back to that life, I told you. I feel this is where I'm supposed to be.”
Silence took over for a moment before he continued reading, but the leftover paragraphs just spoke of resistance toward accepting the human soldier in the royal guard. No mention of the queen.
“Oh, there was something else. I didn’t get to write it down, as I was in the middle of reading when the guards came to get me. The book mentioned a prophecy. It was at the end of the book, and since most of the pages were charred, the dates were a bit difficult to access.”
“There is likely another record of it in the library.”
Devon nodded with a hum. “It would be strange if they only tracked it in one book.”
Orion folded the paper his brother had given him before putting it inside his pocket. Now he had a task—go back to the library and find that prophecy. “Thank you, Devon.”
“Sure. But the true payment is not being stuck inside that room. I would like to see the cat again, at some point.”
Orion nodded, even though he felt cold and sick at the idea. He had to battle this urgent need to keep them apart. Nothing good was going to come out from trying to prevent her from seeing him, not when they were engaged, and she was a distraction he didn’t want or need. “I will see what I can do.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
NAVA
Nava pressed the sliced cucumbers against her swollen eyes. She’d cried until she had no tears left. This morning, the redheaded fae who’d tended to her for the last week had woken her up by opening the balcony windows.
Leela had gotten one good look at her face and disappeared from the room for almost an hour. She’d returned with sliced cucumbers and a juice she’d claimed would help with heartbreak.
