back of my hand.
He chuckled again. “Come, I’ve got a feeling that we should follow your father.” He grabbed my hand and led me through the same doors my dad had just exited.
For some reason we moved faster than normal humans and we soon found my father speaking to another man. He handed him reins that were attached to a big, cream-colored horse. My father hoisted himself onto the horse’s back. The guy that gave him the reins looked past me, and another strong emotion jolted through my body. It was my dad, the one who’d raised me: Herbert, Jako, whatever his name was. He looked so different, younger, happier.
“Elena, you okay?”
“It’s my dad.”
“Jako was the man who raised you?”
I nodded and gave him a soft smile. My steps made for him, but Lucian’s grasp found my arm again.
“He can’t see you, sweetheart. We have to go.” He looked past me and I found my real father leaving on the horse. He was in a hurry and we had to run to keep up with him. He kept looking over his shoulder which made me want to duck.
Lucian chuckled every time and pulled me back by the arm to carry on.
He can’t see you, Elena. Nobody can see you, I reminded myself over and over. This felt so weird. If I wasn’t dead then what the hell was I doing here? And how could I run like the wind?
King Albert went into a forest after he surveyed the grounds one more time. We followed him and watched as he stopped and climbed off his horse. He tied it up by a tree and took a small path to his left. We followed him further until he stopped in front of a huge boulder. He spoke an incantation and the boulder rolled out of the way. He looked around one last time to make sure that nobody followed him.
I froze as his gaze fell on me, but he looked back and disappeared through the hole in the rocks. We slipped through before the boulder rolled back into place and saw how King Albert lit a manmade torch and carried on, descending down a steep passage.
“Why are we here?” I asked Lucian softly as we followed the glowing light.
“I don’t know yet, but everything happens for a reason, Elena. I don’t even think that this is our time. I think it’s somewhere in the past.”
“The past? Don’t be absurd.”
“This is Paegeia, Elena.” He raised his eyes and passed me.
I exhaled softly and followed him further down the passage which finally led into another forest. We found a small wooden cabin in the middle. Horrible screams came from inside and King Albert ran to the door. We started to pick up our pace.
Lucian and I entered the cabin with my father and we both gasped when we found Queen Catherine lying on the bed. She was pregnant and looked like she was in horrible pain.
Tanya Le Frey was right beside her.
“Is there anything I can do?” my father said and crouched down at the side of the bed.
I walked to the front of the bed to see the queen’s face. She looked tired as strands of wet hair clung to her face and sweat ran down her forehead, but she was still as gorgeous as she’d been in all the pictures.
“Go get me a blanket and some more hot water. Not too hot, Albert,” Tanya ordered. “And what took you so long?”
“You know it’s not easy for me to sneak out. I actually had to tell Robert to go home. He knows something is wrong, Tanya.”
“We spoke about this, the fewer people who know, the better.”
“He’s my dragon,” my father growled softly as he prepared a huge bowl filled with water.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Queen Catherine grunted.
“Lucian what is this?”
“It’s the day you were born. Someone wanted you to see this. Could it be?”
“Be what?”
“Your mother kept asking me to tell you how much she loved you. She said giving you up was the hardest thing in the entire world. Our time was always so short and I never did get a chance to give you her message. I think she’s getting what she wanted.”
I looked back at the tired queen lying on the bed.
“One more push, Katie, you can do it.”
“I can’t,” she cried.
At once, my father was at her side. He grabbed her hand and she scowled at him.
“You can do this, love. You fought in two wars, c’mon, doing