by Bec McMaster
Andraste kneels on the bed beside me and eases back the linens.
My baby.
She’s so little. So perfect. All scrunched up and red-faced and squalling. Her hair is matted to her skin with a thick waxy coating, and her face screws up as she cries. The second I touch her, she turns her snuffling mouth toward me, trying to latch on to my finger.
And my heart breaks in two.
I promised. I promised I’d protect you forever and I can’t….
“Please,” I beg Andraste.
Take her away. Get her out of here. Protect her.
And our eyes meet as if she hears me.
It’s been a long time since she’s heard me.
“What do you want to name her?” my sister whispers, and I know this is the only thing I might have.
“Amaya. Call her Amaya.”
A slight variation in honor of his mother.
“That’s enough,” my mother says coldly.
“No, please.” I grab for the bundle, that little finger still curled around mine. “Please.”
Andraste hesitates, and for a second I think I might have a chance. Just one.
“Enough.” My mother’s voice is a whip crack. “Get that child out of here before I decide to see it drowned.”
Andraste straightens, and as she wraps the linens around my daughter, her shoulders square for one defiant moment. “Amaya will be powerful,” she says in a hollow voice. “She is born of your blood, Mother. And as much as you despise him, she’s born of his blood too. Amaya will wield all the powers of the Evernight and Asturian royal lines, and if you harm her, then you will see your greatest weapon against the Prince of Evernight destroyed.”
Greatest weapon?
“Don’t you dare,” I gasp.
“Raise her.” My sister doesn’t even look at me. “Raise her in seclusion so that no one knows of her birth. Train her to be strong and powerful. Love her.” She pauses then, looking down at my baby. “And teach her the truth about her birth—that her father is a monster who stole her mother away and defiled her.”
“No, no, no, no, no!”
They’re not listening. Nobody is listening to me.
My mother steps closer, twitching the blankets aside and considering my daughter’s fate. And then she smiles. “You always were my favorite child, my eldest. You’re always thinking ahead. And you’re right. I’m letting my anger rule me.” She leans down and presses a kiss to my baby’s forehead. “This baby is mine. And she will be the greatest weapon I can ever wield.”
“No!”
Hands pin me down. The nursemaids. And just as I prepare to roll from the bed, another uncontrollable spasm assails me.
“You must push again, Princess,” the midwife says as my vision blurs again. “This is your afterbirth. You’ve lost a lot of blood and you must push, or you might die.”
I don’t care.
“My baby, my baby, my baby….” But the door shuts behind my sister, and all I can see is her figure outlined in a halo of light before they’re gone.
Forever.
And there’s nothing I can do but scream.
“Vi? Vi!” Someone grips my shoulders as I kick and sob.
I blink out of the memory, every inch of me torn open and ravaged.
Thiago hauls me into his arms. “It’s all right, it’s all right. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
But it’s not all right….
She was there, and her little finger curled around mine as if I could keep her safe…. And I didn’t. I didn’t.
I don’t know where she is.
I don’t know what her life has been like, but I can imagine.
Tears stream down my face, but it’s the rage in my heart that can’t be hidden. I always thought my mother had taken everything she could from me.
But I was wrong.
“I will kill her.”
“Vi?”
I let the note fall into his hand, and Thiago’s eyes race as he tries to read it.
“There was a baby. My mother stole my baby from me and then she cursed me to forget her. This is what she was hiding at Clydain.”
I see the moment he understands. Horror shrouds his expression.
It was difficult enough when all I thought I had lost was him.
I reach for that little curl of paper. I only managed to read the first half before my memories broke through another layer of the curse.
There is more.
What mother will never know is this: I swapped the babies. I gave your daughter to the forest, to Old Mother Hibbert, so she will be safe. And the child that Mother has raised is an orphan with limited magic. It was the only way I knew to protect her. Amaya is in the north now. With the unseelie. I’m sorry. For not fighting harder. For not defying mother. For keeping such a secret. It was the only way I could see to protect Amaya at the time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Andraste
Sometimes the best disguise is to hide in plain sight.
Nobody will ever suspect I had a hand in tonight’s events as I marshal the guards and try to put out the fire that still rages. To the court of Asturia, I’m the perfect princess heir. The one who kneels at her mother’s side and hunts at her direction. The one who bowed her head when her sister fought.
But they’ll never see the truth.
I am the knife at my mother’s back, the knife she will never see coming.
I ease the doors to my chambers shut and rest my back against them with a sigh of relief. It’s only now, in the sanctity of my own rooms, that I let my hands tremble.
To see that look in Vi’s eyes—
She will never forgive me now that she knows the truth.
I want to vomit. I’ve held it in all night, but now—
Bile rises in my throat, and I rush to the wash chambers, sliding to my knees and gorging the contents of my stomach into the water closet. It’s not enough. As I lie there shaking, my head resting on the seat, all I can feel is the numbness.
There’s a beast inside me, and it wants out, ripping at my innards with sharp claws. But silence rings in my ears.
I am hollow, and all I want to do is lie here, but lying here means defeat, and maybe I could give in to it, but mine is not the only life that requires this subterfuge.
Amaya.
I see her little face and hear her cries echoing through the lonely forest. Some nights, in my nightmares, Old Mother Hibbert doesn’t come, and I’m forced to flee with the baby, howling wolves nipping at my heels.
But some nights—the gentler nights—I see her smile at me as she leads me into a garden of strange flowers, where she points each one out to me and names them. She’s a little girl in those dreams, and although she looks so much like my sister, she’s sweeter than either of us ever were. Innocent. A child really, when neither of us were ever allowed to be children.
I will protect that with my last dying breath.
And if I don’t get up, my mother will wonder why I’m so upset. And maybe she’ll start questioning my whereabouts when her tree caught fire.
And from there, maybe she’ll start questioning more of my actions.
Get up.
Clean up.
Hide the mess.
Gods, the mess. It’s the push I need to be able to climb my feet and force myself to reach for my toothbrush. The maids will be in soon, and I can’t allow anyone to see me like this or smell the vomit. Mint drives the wretched taste from my tongue, and I scour my mouth raw until my gums bleed.
I clean everything, and then slip inside the rain shower, washing away the remnants of the night until the water has long run cold.
Clean. Dry. Half-dressed.
Empty.
By now Vi will know the truth, and there’s no coming back from this.
It’s the emptiness that slays me as I rake my hand over the foggy mirror. I promised myself I’d never do this again, but my eyes fall on the washbasin, and there’s my dagger, neatly sheathed and tied to my be
lt.
I need this.
I need to feel. To bleed. To cut this poison from my veins so that it’s no longer bursting inside my skin.
Vi. I keep seeing her face. And as I draw the knife and lift my gaze to my reflection, I feel sick again. Just once. Just once to get the feelings out, so I can go back to being the perfect princess.
Somewhere that no one will ever see it.
I don’t even feel the knife slice across the smooth skin of my upper thigh, but the relief is instant. Pain screams through me, and it’s all rising to the surface. I’m no longer hollow. No longer empty. It’s all there, and I need more, and I use the knife again.
There’s never any coming back—
“Andraste! Andi, stop!” Hands close around the knife, jerking it from my grasp, and it’s like waking up from a dream.
There’s blood all over my hands. But all the pain in my heart is now in my skin, and I can breathe. The knot in my chest is finally gone, though when I look up into Edain’s eyes, a new one forms.
Panic flares. “What are you doing in here?”
“Erlking’s cock,” Edain breathes, lifting my hands away from my thigh with an expression of horror. “What were you thinking?”
The fae heal swiftly. By morning there will be no sign of even a single mark. It will all be smooth, unblemished skin.
“I slipped.” Even as I say the words, I realize how pointless it is. Each cut is long and straight and deliberate.
He knows.
Hot eyes rake over my face and then he’s cursing under his breath as he tears his jacket off and rips strips from the sleeves. “What happened?”
I know he’s not talking about the knife.
“What are you doing in my chambers?” I push him away, but he grabs my arm and shoves me back against the basin.
“If you leave this room, I’ll tell your mother what you’ve done to yourself.”
My gaze snaps to his. “You wouldn’t.”
But his lip curls, and he pushes me against the vanity as he tears the linen into thin strips. “Of course I would. Look at you. You’re a mess. What happened out there in the woods?”
“I don’t know. My sister was there with her husband, and—”
“I wasn’t talking about Vi,” he growls. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not just covered in blood for no reason.” He reaches out to jerk the faucet on. The enchantments set over the royal apartments mean hot, fresh water at any time of day or night, but it takes a few moments for the spells to work. Steam begins to fill my washroom as Edain dips a cloth in the pooling water and then uses it to wipe some of the blood from my skin.
“This isn’t necessary.” I’m starting to become aware of the fact I’m wearing nothing more than a towel.
“Well, someone has to hide all the blood.” There’s a flash of his dangerous smile. “It’s what I’m best at, isn’t it?”
Bedplay. Wet work. All of it done in the shadows.
Not even my mother dares talk of Edain’s talents with a knife and the way many of her enemies suddenly disappear. But I’ve seen him slip into her chambers unannounced, and I’ve seen the blood on his clothes and the emptiness in his eyes.
And then news will come of a mysterious death, and my mother will smile to herself in private and offer condolences in public.
“And what are you best at?” he murmurs, wiping the blood from my skin with strangely gentle hands. “The crown princess who stalks around this palace with such a flawless mask it’s difficult to even catch a glimpse of the woman beneath it? A crown princess who spends hours each day drilling with the best of her guards, as if she’s trying to fight an enemy she never names? A crown princess who murmurs caution in her mother’s ear and tries to hide the horror in her eyes when her mother ignores her words?”
He may as well have slapped my face.
“What?”
He looks up. “Sometimes the mask slips. Sometimes I see you. The real you. And if you think I’m unaware of where your sympathies lie, then you should think again.”
No. He can’t know.
I capture his wrists, and for a second there’s a part of me that wonders if I can get rid of the threat—
“Make me promise, Princess. Make me swear that I won’t breathe a word of it.” There’s a savage heat in his eyes, as if he can read me like a book. “Because if there’s one thing we both know, it’s that you don’t have the means—or the heart—to kill me.”
Every inch of me thrums with the need to either fight or flee. The knife’s still on the bench, the hilt slippery with blood, but it’s close enough. “Nobody’s invincible.”
His hand cups my cheek, and then the rasp of his thumb strokes down my jaw. “I am.” He leans closer, and then his other hand comes up to cup my face. “And you will lose if you even reach for that knife.” His breath whispers against my ear. “Because you’re not a killer, Princess. And I am.”
I don’t know how to take those words.
Because while they’re a threat, his hands are gentle.
“But I’m not here to hurt you,” he concedes, “and I’m not going to tell her, so stop looking at the knife.”
“Then why are you here?”
Edain stares at me for a long, heated second. “It sometimes amazes me how blind you truly are. In that, you’re your mother’s daughter. Adaia can’t see what’s right beneath her nose.”
I blink. “Fuck you.”
And he laughs. “Surely you can do better than that, Princess. Now sit the fuck down and let me see your wounds.”
I don’t want him touching me, but I have no choice. He captures my hips and lifts me onto the bench, and then he takes my knife and flips it until he captures the blade between his fingers before he slides it behind his belt.
Then his eyes dare me to do something about it.
Fine. I stare past him, at the wall. “What were you doing out in the woods?”
“Watching the game play out.” He ducks his head and curses under his breath as he examines my thigh. “You’re bleeding again. Don’t move.”
Watching the game play out…. It never occurred to me that Edain is the one I should be watching.
And once again he senses it as he swiftly cleans me up. “Try not to think too hard, Princess. You might strain a muscle.”
My eyes narrow. “I think I liked you better when you weren’t pretending to care for me.”
His laugh is soft and silky. “You’ve never liked me, Princess. Because I am the mirror to your soul.”
His dark hair falls into his eyes as he reaches around my thigh to bandage my wounds. The towel edges up. His breath shivers over my skin, and suddenly I realize I’ve never truly looked at him. Not the way I should have. Because it’s clear he’s been watching me, and while he’s unearthed a few of my secrets, I don’t know anything more about him than the peripheral.
All I know of him are shadows, shadows of the whole.
The reckless, petty, spoiled pet who whispers in my mother’s ear.
The dangerous, charming seducer.
But he’s not just a pretty fae male sprawled across a bed. He’s a sheathed knife. Threatening. Unpredictable. The kiss of steel against your bared throat when you barely realized it was there.
Looking at Edain this close, his dark features barely a breath away, feels dangerous in ways I’ve never noticed before.
Perhaps I could tear his mask off and see what lies beneath those chiseled, urbane edges.
Perhaps we both wear nothing but masks.
We stare at each other for long seconds.
“I know what it looks like in the mirror when you hate yourself,” he whispers. “You and I are two halves of a whole, Andraste.” His thumb settles on my knee, stroking back and forth. “And you can glue the pieces back together and forge them into a shield, but there are fault lines in every inch of you.”
I tense when his thumb moves higher, and he leans closer.
/>
“You hate me,” he whispers, his breath caressing my lips. “I see it every time you look at me.”
“I don’t hate you.” It’s a rare moment of understanding. “I pity you.”
His thumb digs in a little, and his lashes half shield his eyes, but then he’s stroking me again. His thumb questing higher, a question mark against my thigh. “Would you still hate me if I loved you?”
And then his lips brush against mine, and it’s unbearably soft—even as his words knife through my heart.
Love.
Love is ruin. Love is pain. Love is loss.
Love is a lie.
And he mocks me with the sound of that word.
My nails dig into his forearms, but he laughs under his breath, and I can taste it. And then there’s no more pretense that this is anything more than lust as the kiss turns hotter and more dangerous.
The shock of it makes me gasp, and then his tongue lashes mine. Somehow, I have a fistful of his robe, knuckles grazing the silky skin of his chest, though whether I meant to push him away or pull him closer is unknown, even to me.
I didn’t think he’d do it.
And even now I tense in uncertainty.
If Mother caught us, she’d have both our heads.
There is no escape.
There is no hope.
There is only one lie after another, and my mother never knows. She never looks at me—her trusted daughter—the daughter that would never betray her, and ever suspects….
But I’m not the perfect daughter. I’ve never been the perfect daughter.
And the two of us are trapped in her net, desperately trying to keep our heads above the maelstrom that is my mother.
Just this once, I want to betray her.
My teeth sink into Edain’s lip, and then I’m pushing against him, the kiss turning deep and hungry. He senses everything I won’t say.
Make it all go away.
And he does.
And gods, I can’t breathe again, but this time it’s for another reason entirely. This time I feel too much. He kisses me as if we’re both trying to lose ourselves in each other, the slick slide of his tongue a lash against mine. His thumb digs into my uninjured thigh, inching higher.
