Chapter 40
Now
No words came out of my mouth as sapphire and emerald eyes met mine. The canyon that had opened inside of me exploded. He was all I could see. The world ceased to turn, the tides refused to rise, rivers dried up and forests burned and the stars fell to the ground. I opened my mouth to speak but all that came out was air.
“Petra, I’m sorry,” he choked out before a soldier punched him in the gut. “I’m sorry.”
“How?” I whispered, my voice shaky. “How is this possible?”
“It had been a bit harder for my men to find him, being theInvisible King.And not only the Invisible King, but a king who preferred to live his life disguised as a Royal Guard. I was the only one who knew, isn’t that right Belin?” Calomyr was silent, staring hard at him. “Our plan was working perfectly until the bastard fell in love.” I could feel the hurt on my face as his gaze moved from Castemont to me, his head shaking slightly. “I needed him under control. A training yard accident was the perfect lie.
“And you never even thought to ask his full name. Stupid,stupidgirl. We had an alias picked out for the occasion — Calomyr Bellsin. Perfectly believable. The play on words was my idea, thank you.” He chuckled to himself. “But apparently just Calomyr worked for you.” He clicked his tongue. “Belin Cal Myrin. A bastard born in Taitha. Somehow found himself living in Eserene, eager to please. When I arranged for him to join the Royal Guard, he was more than happy to rise to the challenge. And how convenient for me — the son of Umfray’s brother.” Realization crashed into me. King Belin wasn’t a distant cousin of King Umfray. He was hisnephew.
Kauvras tensed, as did Miles beside him. “Watch your tongue, Castemont.”
“Why? Is it because–” He stopped, looking back and forth between Kauvras and Calomyr. His mouth fell open then erupted into a wicked smile. “You didn’t know?” The tone of his voice was liquid evil as he cocked a brow, lowering his chin. “You didn’t know you had a son. You believed the lie that our Invisible King was a distant cousin of yours.” He let out a breathy chuckle, the noise ricocheting chills through me. My mother still hung between two guards as her husband dismantled multiple lives right in front of her.
Kauvras was silent, staring at Calomyr with the nearly-same eyes that stared back at him. The muscles in Calomyr’s his jaw twitched with muscles as he clenched it harder and harder. Kauvras took a deep breath and inclined his head to look down at Calomyr. They hadn’t known.They hadn’t known.“It appears he is my son.”
Calomyr spat at his feet, immediately receiving a blow to the face by a guard. Kauvras’ face was still filled with pure confusion. He truly hadn’t known. “I was told I was a distant relative of Umfray’s through my mother’s side, that I was somehow next in line for the throne. Whether that is true or not, I never have been and never will be your son,” Calomyr hissed. He once told me that he dreamed of the day he’d see a man with the same blue in his eyes as his own, the perfect match that the green in his mother’s were to his, and he’d know it was him. His father. His eyes moved from Kauvras to me and back again. “Whatdo you want?”
Kauvras only continued to stare down at him, stone faced. “To begin with, we want Eserene,” Castemont declared. Calomyr scoffed, a soldier quickly connecting his fist with Calomyr’s jaw once again. “Let me rephrase,” Castemont continued. “Eserene is ours.”
“Over my dead body,” he snarled back, mouth bloodied.
“Very well then,” Castemont answered. Kauvras hadn’t moved from where he stood, his stare still fixated on his son. A nod of Castemont’s head and Calomyr was on the ground. My muscles froze but fire burned within me.
He snapped his head up to me. “I wanted to tell you,” he whispered. “I loved you from the first day I saw you, Petra.” And in the face that I had memorized, in the face that had become less and less clear in the years since, in the face that I mourned so fiercely, I saw it. The truth, whatever it was, lay with Calomyr, and I was going to find it. He had told me to trust him, and I did.
Steel rang as the soldier pulled his broadsword from its sheath. “Belin Cal Myrin, former King of Eserene, you have been sentenced to die.”
Castemont leaned in, whispering in my ear. “I finally recognized Marita when I saw the scars, the ones I left on her body when we were young. Just like old friends.” My blood ran cold for a split second. Marita’s story…it had been Castemont. Tyrak was the one who saved her. Where was Tyrak? “She always looked so pretty in red.”
Something was happening inside of me, his words stoking a fire. It was growing too hot, the steam burning my throat, begging for release. “And Ienjoyedkilling her, Petra, just like I enjoyed killing Wrena, just like I enjoyed sending my men to start the fire in your shit hole of a house. I would have enjoyed killing your sister, but the Saints took care of that for me. But nothing,” his lips brushed against my ear, “nothingbrought me more joy than pushing your father from that cliff.”
My vision went white as I exploded, white flame shooting from my hands as I screamed from the depths of my soul. Whatever had been building inside of me was now shooting from my skin as tangible fury. Chaos erupted from every one of my bones as they broke and reformed and broke again, as I released every ounce of my hatred for Castemont, for Kauvras, in the form of pure, undiluted power. Every window in the throne room shattered as the stone castle shook. I was no longer in my body but in the flame itself as it scorched and charred everything around me.
It wasagonizing,the searing pain running through every fiber of my being, every piece of my soul. I felt the source of the power pounding in my chest, beating furiously like a drum in sync with my racing heart, begging for me to keep going, to keep burning. My head was so full of fury that I felt like it would explode. But through the pain, through the torment that was the culmination of every loss I’d suffered, every obstacle I’d overcome, every single thing that had broken my mind, my body, and my spirit, it felteuphoric.I was made for this moment. I was made to burn.
This was the firestorm Ingra had spoken of.
Holyfuck.
I was her. She was me.
I…Iwasthe Daughter of Katia. The thought poured into my head like it was thick black smoke billowing from my fire. I was a conduit for the power of the Benevolent Saints. I was fire, I was light, I was the rage of the sea and the fury of thunder. The earth bowed for me, the stars bowed for me, the wind and the rain and the night bowed for me and only me. Iwasfire burned and ocean tumbled.
“Petra!” I heard a distant echo through the mayhem of power and anger. “Petra!” It was him. Calomyr’s voice. But I couldn’t stop. Flames swirled around me, winds whipping my hair and the skirts of my gown at my command. My skin felt like it was melting, and I reveled in it, reveled in the fact that this was finally it. I was going to burn myself into nothing more than a pile of ash and I wasready.
And then I saw it. A lighthouse in the storm. A tiny speck of yellow light in a sea of red and white fury. A voice sounded through the hurricane, one I’d heard before. “Lay your flames down,” she said, her voice as soothing as it had been the day our house burned down. It was the voice I’d heard in the Eserenian throne room, when I’d been struck down so many times that death was reaching for me.
“Hello?” I screamed into the mess of fire and wind.
“I am here,” she answered. I raged against her, not wanting to hear that voice, not wanting to face the fact that I now knew who it belonged to. I had to ask.
“Katia?”
“Yes.”