His wife’s brother? Her mother had a brother?
Why hadn’t Cali been told she had an uncle who ruled his own kingdom?
“Emir and I aren’t done with our negotiations,” Captain Kelsey said.
“The disease has spread to my own family,” King Marek shouted. “And my daughter is missing. Dead for all I know!”
“She’s not dead.” Captain Kelsey’s voice held a twisted humor. “She’s here.”
“What?” King Emir’s eyes boggled.
Soraya raised a brow at Cali, her gaze just as curious. Cali’s heart walloped in her chest.
“That’s not possible,” Cali father said. “The boundary can’t be crossed.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Captain Kelsey said. “You may not have torn it down with your attack, but you did damage it.”
“I didn’t know what it contained. I never would have… But how do you know Caliana is there?”
Captain Kelsey rested a boot on the chair’s rail and held onto its back. “My son tells me how disoriented Princess Soraya has been acting since he met her. From the start, he’s suspected she’s not the real princess of Lunae Lumen, and now so do I.”
King Emir balled his hand into a fist, his posture going ramrod straight. Cali’s throat constricted. She couldn’t comprehend it. It sounded as though her father was part of spreading the necrosis from the first place. It had come from the boundary? When had he attacked the boundary?
Captain Kelsey’s suspicions increased the fear she’d felt earlier. What would he do to Soraya now that he knew she, Cali, and King Emir had been deceiving Captain Kelsey all along?
Bae’s frightening expression, his demands to know who she really was. Her earlier trepidation resurfaced. All of his attention, had any of it been real? Or had it all been to get her to come clean? It was the same thing she’d been trying to do to him, but still, the realization nestled in like a splinter.
“Caliana is there?” King Marek demanded, his voice taking on an imperial tone she knew all too well.
“My son hasn’t been able to decipher her real intentions for being here, but his suspicions were confirmed just this afternoon. Moments ago, actually. She made it quite clear she wasn’t Princess Soraya. Well played, Emir, though what you intended by using the princess of another land, I can’t say.”
“What are you talking about? What son?”
King Emir stood, ignoring the questions Cali’s father asked from the crystal. Sweat beaded down the king’s temples. “It doesn’t change the terms of our agreement.”
Captain Kelsey considered this, fingering the handle of a dagger at his belt. “But it does. The deal was for your daughter and my son to wed. Not his daughter and my son.” He pointed to the glow on the table. To Cali’s father.
“What son?” King Marek demanded again. “What deal have you struck, brother? What does my Cali have to do with it?”
The truth sank deeper than a stab. Bae knew. He had known all along. Even the night he’d come to her room and taken her to the gardens, the night he’d asked for a kiss. He’d known then she wasn’t really Soraya. And he’d wanted her anyway.
Hadn’t he?
“The deal stands.” King Emir straightened as if that would add to his statement. Distress glowed behind his eyes, hanging around him like a shroud. Cali could see it now, traces of similarities between him and Cali’s mother. The shape of their eyes. The set of their jaws. “This doesn’t change anything, I assure you. We can set things right. I’ll have Soraya come down now. We can—”
“So you admit to deceiving me?” The captain’s voice was as blunt as a sharpener’s block. “It changes everything.”
In a flash, he drew a dagger from his belt and stabbed it into the king’s side. King Emir gaped, releasing an awful groan that scraped Cali’s ears. He doubled over, clutching at his ribs as blood flowed between his fingers.
Captain Kelsey removed the blade with a vicious yank before stabbing him again. This time, he held King Emir close enough to speak into his ear, though his voice was loud enough he didn’t need to. “I will keep our deal. Just not with you.”
Soraya screamed. Cali quickly tucked a hand over the princess’s mouth, pulling her away, but it was too late. Captain Kelsey stared upward toward the ceiling.
“Find out who that was,” his voice bellowed from below. The guards obeyed, and Cali dragged Soraya toward the hall they’d entered in.
Chapter 15
Soraya panted heavily in Cali’s arms, staring at nothing. “My father. He killed my father.” Her breathing was escalating, her eyes bulging wide, her shock taking over. She trembled, prying at Cali’s hands until Cali finally gripped her by the shoulders and shook her.
“You know nothing, do you hear me?” Cali said. “We weren’t there. We weren’t anywhere near that council room.”
She guided Soraya blindly along the darkened circular hall. “We have to get outside, as quickly as possible. Does this passage lead outside?”
“Who were they speaking of?” Soraya asked in a daze. “They know you aren’t me. They called you— Oh goddess, my father. His guards. They did nothing!”
A soft copper light broke the darkness. Soraya’s skin was a desert, crackling with golden foil, the cracks seeping out and creating a kaleidoscope from the shattered fragments of her pain. The effect spread up her arms, to her teeth, to the usual sapphire of her eyes. Soraya shook as gold replaced the whites, metallic foil replacing flesh.
Cali retreated, horrified and entranced all at once. Soraya’s magic was slowly overtaking her. What would happen when it did?
The stairs began to hum. The stones in the walls shook in their places like bones in a grave.
“Soraya,” Cali said, a tinge of fear trickling down her spine. Not only fear of what Soraya might do, but also fear of getting caught.
Soraya’s eyes closed, and her whole body spasmed while golden tears seeped from beneath her closed lashes.
“Soraya.” Cali made her voice firmer.
The grout peeled away from between the stones in the wall, as if being picked at by invisible fingers, leaving more room for the stones to judder and loosen themselves from their places. Even when Lyric had used magic, it hadn’t overtaken her like this.
Gritting her teeth, Cali moved in when she only wanted to run in the opposite direction. Taking Soraya by the shoulders, Cali shook her again, hoping it was enough to snap her out of it. “Soraya! You’ve got to calm down. Calm down, all right? Look at me.”
Soraya blinked several times, her eyes replaced with golden light. Cali kept her grip tight on the other girl’s shoulders. Slowly, Soraya’s clarity began to return. The golden foil effect was beginning to diminish. The stones ceased their rattling, and the floor no longer felt like it was about to drop out from beneath their feet at any second.
“Ana…?” Soraya said. “I’m sorry—I—” She slumped against the wall, as though the sudden burst of magic had been grueling.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Cali said. “I have some things to explain to you, but I need to make sure you’re coherent enough to understand them. I know you need time to grieve—but it can’t be right now, not with the Kelseys searching for us, and not with the disease spreading like it is back home.” Her father had said it had spread to their family. Had he meant Cali, or did her mother now have it? “Now your kingdom is in peril, too, and from the sound of things, my father was part of causing the disease in the first place—”
The confusion Cali’s mumblings brought on seemed to be enough to get Soraya’s attention. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“My name is Caliana Brahmvir.”
Soraya’s brow puzzled. More of the gold faded, returning her skin to its normal pale hue. Her posture had wilted slightly, but she remained upright with a new stroke of curiosity in her voice. “Brahmvir? Of Zara?”
“Yes. You said your mother died of poison,” Cali said, hoping to maintain the distraction, to keep Soray
a from crumbling the tower in which they stood. “I vaguely remember hearing of an aunt who died from such a malady.”
Soraya’s eyes tapered. “You aren’t a servant, are you?”
Cali shook her head. “I think there’s a reason I look so much like you. Why our hair, even our eye color, is the same. I think we’re cousins.”
Soraya considered this. “You’re Caliana. The daughter King Marek spoke of.”
Cali wished she had her ring with the Brahmvir seal on it. As it was, she sallied on, determined to make Soraya believe her. “I’m the princess of Zara. I came here because a terrible disease has spread across my kingdom, and I was told a remedy could be found in the plants here, magical plants we don’t have access to.”
“That’s why you were so concerned about the glitz foil, about the book of plants. How did you hear of such a remedy?”
Cali hesitated. “An outcast in my kingdom.”
“A woman? With magic? Only princesses have magic.” Soraya’s lips formed an O of surprise. “Is she your sister?”
Cali was stupefied. “Of course not. She said she was exiled from her own land. In any case, she told me of a cure.”
“An outcast?”
“Is that a problem?” Cali said.
“I’d just be careful trusting anyone you don’t know. What is she doing in your kingdom?”
“She helped me, didn’t she? I’m going to die when I return, Soraya. This woman told me before I left, my symptoms will return with me the minute I return. A very dear friend of mine is dying right now, as are half the people in my kingdom. I have to find these plants and get home as quickly as possible.”
“You can’t leave now,” Soraya said, hugging herself tightly. She leaned against the wall, one foot on the top step of the stairs leading down to her chamber, and the other on the second. “Not with my father dead and with the Kelseys after my kingdom. You can’t leave me alone in this.”
Cali considered this. She wasn’t sure what to do, but Soraya was right. With her father dead, she wasn’t yet crowned princess. The ceremony hadn’t been performed, which meant the throne was up for the top contender to take. In this case, Captain Kelsey would make sure it was his son.
Cali still wasn’t sure what the conditions of Bae’s curse were, but whatever they were, she couldn’t leave Soraya to deal with that alone, either.
“I can’t abandon my people,” Cali said with despair. “I know you need my help, but they’re dying.”
Soraya lowered her head. Tears no longer trailed down her cheeks, but the hint of desperation was enough. “I understand. I’ll help you find the plants you need. But you have to help me before you go.”
Cali threw up her arms. “What can I possibly do to help you?”
Silence ticked between them like a bomb about to go off.
“Convince Bae to oppose his father?” Soraya suggested.
“You didn’t see him on the beach today,” Cali said. “He’s cursed. He can’t sail any longer, and he was livid when he realized I wasn’t you, and I didn’t have the magic to protect him from the finfolk. Bae threatened me, Soraya, or he may as well have.”
“But you guys felt a connection, didn’t you?” Soraya asked.
“He isn’t about to give up the ocean because we have a connection,” Cali argued. “You’re his ticket to sailing again, not me. And from the sound of things, Captain Kelsey is still trying to find a way to lower the boundary between our lands.”
“It can’t all have been for show,” Soraya said. “At least find out how he feels about you. If it’s enough of a spark, you might be able to convince him.”
Cali doubted it. She squeezed her eyes shut. “That means I’ll have to tell him everything. I don’t know if I trust him enough to be in the same room alone with him, let alone spill everything about myself to him. What if he goes straight to his father with everything I say?”
“It’s worth the risk. At this point, he’s our only hope. For me. To avenge my father.”
Cali pushed against one of the loose stones that somehow didn’t want to return to its place. The image of Captain Kelsey stabbing King Emir played over in her mind. What if it’d been her father? Her kingdom?
She doubted anything she said would make a speck of difference to the pirate prince. He’d said it himself. He’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Not even the pleas of a girl he’d spent only a few days with would sway him.
“Why don’t you let Bae meet you?” Cali suggested. “Maybe this union of yours could still take place.” The minute she spoke the words, she regretted them. It wasn’t only the shock in Soraya’s face. Cali knew she couldn’t subject Soraya to the kind of angry outburst the pirate had directed at her today.
“Or what about your guard? Roland?”
A new determination struck Soraya. She moved forward in the dark with renewed energy.
“I haven’t heard from him in days,” Soraya said, talking over her shoulder as she went. Cali hurried to keep pace. “But I’ll try to find him. The guards who are still loyal to me need to know what happened. In the meantime, will you at least try talking to Bae? Find out what bargain has been struck between the Kelseys and my father. At least do that much before you leave.”
Cali still wasn’t sure how to get home. Lyric told her it would require a sacrifice, but what could she possibly give up here as she’d done in Zara? The safety of Soraya’s kingdom?
“I’ll do what I can,” Cali said.
Chapter 16
The girls returned to Soraya’s chamber in rushed silence. Soraya hurriedly closed the secret passageway behind them and charged to the cage in the corner on the same wall as the door. Cali hadn’t noticed it, or the uncommonly colored bird within. It perked up at Soraya’s proximity, cocking its head and blinking with curiosity. It had a yellow face and scarlet wings. Plumage puffed atop its head, its beak hooked at the end like a hawk’s.
“Will you be all right?” Cali asked her cousin. How terrible, to watch her own father be murdered. Cali wasn’t sure what to do. Where could they go? What could they do?
“I have to be,” Soraya said. “I know you think we should rush out of here, but from the sound of things, Bae already told his father what happened between you two at the beach. Even if we pretended not to overhear their conversation or to have witnessed my father’s mur—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Murder,” she said with resolve, as though she wanted to grieve, but knew she couldn’t yet.
Cali’s heart panged for her newfound cousin.
“Our best option is to call for help,” Soraya finished.
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“I need to spread word about my father,” Soraya said. With shaking fingers, she lifted a tiny latch and opened the barred door of the white cage.
“Filo,” she said to the bird in greeting.
Filo flew to her hand, a practiced gesture, something the bird had obviously done many times. Soraya stroked its beak, and the bird nuzzled in, releasing a contented squawk.
Soraya’s fingers flickered with gold sparks as though each were embedded with light. The motion left a trail of golden stardust down Filo’s tail feathers that faded almost instantly. It was as though Soraya dusted the spell of her command as she spoke it. “Find Roland. Tell him to alert the rest of the guards who are still loyal to me. King Emir is dead.”
Soraya’s voice broke again at those words, and she repeated them, more vehemently this time. “King Emir is dead. Come find me. Help me.” With the added urgency of her voice, a heavier streak of gold seeped from her fingers.
Filo released a high-pitched squawk and leapt from her hand, spreading its wings as it soared out through her open balcony.
Cali goggled in amazement, wishing she had a similar power. “And now your bird will know where to find him?”
“Filo is a rove. I’ve had him since birth—animals are a traditional gift given to princesses at their birth. Or, at least they are here, on th
is side of the boundary.” Soraya trapped her lip in her teeth, the unspoken question in her eyes.
“My parents married without a tournament,” Cali said. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense right now. They defied Undine, and the sea witch punished them for it.” Punished her. The same hatred that had been engrained in her throughout her entire life sprouted deeper roots, a watered weed clawing its hold within her.
“Undine Daray is not a sea witch,” Soraya argued.
“She cursed Bae.”
“Because he didn’t follow her rules. You said he tried entering her home without permission.”
“The spell Lyric used to get me across, it must have been some kind of bargain as well. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked.”
“What do you mean by bargains?”
“Sacrifices,” Cali said. “That’s the only way I was able to cross, and it’s how I’ll get back. Undine won’t give anything without taking something first. Bae wasn’t willing to give anything—he just tried to cross. So she took what he loved the most.”
“Undine Daray doesn’t take,” Soraya argued. “She’s the goddess of life. She gives!”
“Maybe so, but what is given in exchange?” Cali argued. “Haven’t you ever wondered about it?”
“She bestows life out of her great goodness.”
“No one is that generous,” Cali argued. “Especially not someone with that much power. Maybe she’s a goddess to you because you don’t see the other side of things. In Zara, she’s the spirit of death, of ruination. Your father’s soul is probably being carted to her right this moment.”
“I certainly hope so,” Soraya said, hands balled into fists at her sides. “I wouldn’t have his soul rest anywhere else!”
Cali thought of all the other souls that had been carried prematurely to the sea witch. Sudden worry for Darren struck like a cutlass. Did Undine have his soul yet? And what of her mother? She’d been exposed before Cali had snuck away.
Along with the fears, all the questions she wanted to ask her father emerged. What had he done to the boundary in the first place to cause the sickness? Had that been Undine’s doing as well, like Bae’s curse? Had Undine exacted her vengeance—her demanded sacrifice—for the king’s actions from Cali’s people’s lives?
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