Page 2 of Crown of Mist and Heat

"Cavan said he knew who my real parents were." My mind hadn’t stopped racing since. Speculation, which ultimately led me nowhere. For all I knew, I should be calling him Daddy.

"They kept records," Jezalyn said. "They've been keeping track of us. That was how they knew to take us into the temple in the first place. Chances are, the name of your mother and whoever fathered you are in there."

I'd already come to terms that the man I thought of as my father probably wasn't. This might be as close to a confirmation as I might ever get.

"We might be actual sisters then," I said, half-joking. This whole situation was twisted as hells. Sometimes dark humour was the only way through.

Hycanthe gave me a look like she hoped not. The feeling was mutual.

"You can ask to see if you want to," Hycanthe said. "I didn't bother. It's just a name. It's meaningless."

"It was consensual," Jezalyn said to her.

"So they claim." Hycanthe wasn't appeased at all.

"You both went through heat?" I asked.

They glanced at each other.

Jezalyn's cheeks turned pink. "We did," she said carefully.

I looked from one to the other.

"Oh."

I smelled the different scents the moment they walked into the atrium, but I didn't realise the cause and significance until now.

"One of you is an alpha and the other is an omega." That would explain the sudden unease, and the way Jezalyn put herself between me and Hycanthe.

"I'm an alpha," Jezalyn said. "But I am a woman." Her chocolate brown eyes pleaded with me to understand, to not be judgemental.

"Of course you are," I said, light but firm. "You're my sister. Both of you." Even if Hycanthe hated my guts.

"We're a pack," Hycanthe growled. "Jezalyn and me."

I looked up at her evenly. "I have no intention of getting in the way of that. I have my own pack."

The mating bond I shared with them told me three were still in the city, but not nearby. The bond with Zared was stretched so thin, I was surprised it hadn't snapped. He was alive, but that was all I knew. Either he was too far away for me to sense what he was feeling, or he was still out cold from Dalyth tampering with his memories.

"What are you doing here, then?" Jezalyn asked pointedly.

I glanced towards the door. Fae hearing being what it was, the guards outside might be listening to everything we said. Instead of speaking out loud, I used the Silent Maiden's hand language. One we were all too familiar with.

I briefly told them about Ryze's suspicion that Cavan was trying to mess with the weather, leaving Jorius in permanent summer. And then about his aspirations to take all of Jorius from the other three Fae courts.

"I came in here to look for you and try to get you out," I signed finally. "So he can't use you for whatever magic you have. You and any other former Silent Maidens who might be here. It's not just you two, is it?" From what Ryse believed, there had to be more than the three of us.

"There are six more," Jezalyn said. "Three from the year before us and three from the year before that. It seems to be a magic number." She didn’t seem convinced it was anything more than coincidence.

I frowned, but couldn't see any particular significance either. It may be nothing more magical than luck. Or the gods’ sense of humour. They seemed to like fucking with Fae and humans alike.

Hycanthe frowned. "You came here to get us out? Why?"

"Like I said, I don't want Cavan to use you for your magic. Do you have any?"

Whatever I pictured coming here, this wasn't it. At the least, I’d expected to find Tyla here. We'd hug each other, then find a way to get out of the city. I hadn't let myself think beyond that moment. I hadn't, I admitted, thought about what might have happened to Zared.

The plan, which he strenuously objected to, was for him to stay with the other men and for me to come here alone. We'd misjudged how long it would take Cavan's people to find us. It was a small mercy they hadn't killed him on sight. Or when we arrived here, at the palace. Sending him home was unexpected and unwelcome at the time. In retrospect, it was the least of several evils they could have inflicted on him.

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