Romeria
Abarrane gawks at Zander as if he just slapped her across the face. “That is not possible.”
My heart drums in my chest. Where is he going with this? Is Zander trying to get me killed? Does he want mutiny among the warriors we raced here to find?
Or is what I feared most unfolding before my eyes? Is Zander back to wishing me dead?
“You speak as if you understand these things. None of us do. Not even those in Mordain.” Zander watches her.
“You’re right. I do not understand,” Abarrane says slowly. “Are you suggesting that Princess Romeria is not born of this world?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you that the person who stands before you now is not the princess of Ybaris at all.”
Abarrane’s gaze swings to me, dragging over my frame. “Who is she, then?”
I struggle to hide the tremble in my limbs, but this feels very much like the night I was in front of Korsakov after I stole his daughter’s diamond ring, a multitude of blades laid out, any of them sharp enough to cut off my hands—or more—with a single swing.
“That is a good question.” Zander resumes pacing. “Princess Romeria did exist. She is who traveled here from Argon and plotted to kill me and my family. And she died by Boaz’s arrow the night we were to marry.”
“And yet she stands before me now.”
“Because Malachi made it so.” Zander’s lips purse. “Many years ago, in rebellion against King Barris’s wish for peace between Ybaris and Islor, Queen Neilina bade one of her casters to summon Aoife to create a weapon that would destroy Islor’s immortals. Aoife granted her request with the birth of Princess Romeria, an elven whose tainted blood was designed to rid the world of our kind”—his jaw tenses—“and whose appeal was intended to ensnare my heart.”
“So it is true, then,” Abarrane hisses. “You are spellbound to her.”
Bewitched, everyone has been whispering, unable to see Princess Romeria for her evil because he was too busy trying to get under her skirts. It’s not just a rumor …
“It was true,” Zander grits out. “Now that I know with full certainty, it is true no longer. The spell is broken.”
His words wash over me in a cold wave. They sound like a promise—a definitive end.
What did Gesine say to him? I frown at her back, but she is intent on nothing but her task.
“Malachi must have discovered Aoife’s goals to rid the world of us, and so he made plans of his own. When Margrethe summoned him to resurrect the princess, at the behest of Gesine”—he regards the kneeling caster—“Princess Romeria returned in physical form only.”
“That is impossible,” Abarrane whispers, her words a growing theme in this conversation.
I would have agreed with her if I weren’t living the reality.
“This Romeria was not faking her bout of amnesia, per se. She knew nothing of the fates, our lands and our people, or of elemental affinities. She’s never seen Argon’s castle or met her queen mother. In her former life, she was a jewel thief who until recently believed herself to be human.”
Abarrane’s eyes narrow. “If she is not human, then what is she?”
“Zander.” I finally find my ability to speak. What is he doing?
But he’s watching the commander closely. “A key caster.”
“That is …” Abarrane’s eyes flare, and for the first time, there is something other than courage. I see a hint of wariness. Of panic. Of fear. “What purpose would Malachi have for sending a key caster here?” She asks it, but the answer is undoubtedly forming in her mind.
“We believe he wants her to open the nymphaeum door.”
My apprehension spikes as I watch the pieces clicking in Abarrane’s expression.
I am Aoife’s weapon, sent to eliminate her race.
The king’s judgment can no longer be trusted.
I’m here to unleash the Nulling’s monsters at the behest of Malachi, the fate who has cursed this world many times over.