Page 130 of Ruthless Scoundrel
I half turn, hoping my glare looks scathing enough to tell her the interruption was—once again—very poorly timed. “Yes?”
“We need to speak with you both,” she says, and then turns away.
“Ooh, we’re in trouble,” Reina whispers in a singsong way that makes me snicker.
Honestly, I’m eager to be in the same room with my mother again. I’m aching to hug her, to ask her about my father and sister, to apologize on my knees over and over for how fucking long it took me to get to her.
So long. Too long.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right,” Reina says as she pushes my hair from my eyes.
I nod, despite feeling like I might vomit from all the emotion coursing through me.
We walk hand in hand toward the captain’s chamber below the helm. Alejandra waits for us at the door, a severe expression pinching her brow. My mother and the Illyan woman sit at a navigation table that’s been cleared of its maps, compass, and stamen.
My mother gives me a slight smile and it flips my fear on its head. I want to run to her, to hold her so close to my heart that she can feel how desperately I’ve missed her, but I maintain my composure. I take a seat beside her, and Reina comes to stand between us. She reaches out and takes my mother’s hand, joining it with mine.
“Thank you, daughter from my son’s love,” my mother says and I translate.
Reina’s eyes glimmer and she smiles, then moves to sit on the other side of me. Alejandra comes last, pushing her chair out of the way so she can loom over the table.
“We have a very serious matter at hand, but I believe some context first would help,” she says in Fynish, looking at the Illyan woman. “Prophet Brunay? Care to fill them in?”
“Brunay? Is that a common last name in Illya?” Reina asks.
The woman chuckles. “It is, but I am who you think. And it’s just Cora now,” she says to Alejandra. “I haven’t been a prophet for many years and you know that.”
Alejandra rolls her eyes and turns toward a table laid out with wine and an assortment of food.
“Alastair spoke of you only once in my presence, but it was with much love. He misses you,” Reina says to Cora.
“Alastair?” I ask, a tiny spark of jealousy blooming in my chest at the mention of another male’s name.
Reina smiles at me. “Lily’s personal bodyguard.” Her smile vanishes in a blink, and she looks back at Cora. “Do you know if he’s all right? If Lily is? What about Alyse?”
“Calm, princess,” Cora says, holding up her hands. “I will tell you everything I know to be fact, and everything I have foreseen, past and future.”
Alejandra brings a serving tray to the table with a variety of cheeses and crackers, then pours the wine. “I said this would be a story to have over drinks. It’s going to be a long one, so pace yourselves.”
I take a sip of the wine, though I’ve never been very fond of it, and settle in as Cora begins.
“The dark goddess Ashai and her sons were banished to the lowest level of hell eons ago for transgression against the Ten. Her motivations are not entirely known, but for the last five hundred years, she’s been building her power here on Gaien, a between-realm from the Underworld and the Overworld.
“We know she wants to manifest a physical form here, but my visions have not shown me why, only that if she does, she will crumble the foundations of society, scar the land, and annihilate ninety-five percent of all living creatures. She will turn Gaien into a wasteland from which the goddess cannot recover.”
Reina takes a deep breath. “And the physical form she wants to take is mine, isn’t it?”
Cora nods gravely. “Yours, or one of your three sisters. For the transference of her accumulated power to work, the host mustbe a close blood relative. At least, that’s the only way it’s worked in the past.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. There’s so much I don’t understand.
“The kingdom of Fynren has been ruled by Ashai for nearly three hundred years. She confiscated or destroyed all records of herself and of the magic her followers used to perform, and my visions did not reveal to me how she first came into the body she used to usurp the king and take control.
“Her son, Typhen, rules as the king, a subservient god of malice. Her son, Dimir, has not revealed himself to me, but from what Alejandra has reported, I have reason to believe he may have taken control of the kingdom of Wolfsheim.”
“This is so much,” Reina says, then takes a large drink of her wine. She winces, then keeps chugging until her cup is empty. “That is absolutely horrid,” she says with disgust as she sets the cup down.
Alejandra laughs and pours her a refill. “It’s sailor’s wine, princess. What do you expect?”
