many times. “Yes, if it’s true, then I truly am a bastard, not fit to be a royal heir. Believe me, that’s another point my sister, Tatiana, never fails to make.”
He gave a low whistle. “No wonder you sneak into Teslinko. This place is toxic.”
“Yes.” A trace of bitterness tainted her faint smile. “At least there no one looks at me as though I carry some horrible contagious disease.”
He might have laughed at the apt description, but this was anything but funny.
“Why have you never traveled to NorthWard?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Confronted the man rumored to be your father and demanded to know if it was true?”
Immediately she tugged her hand free. The horrified look she gave him made him wonder why what he’d said was so awful.
“Do you think I have a death wish?” she asked, her gaze searching his face. “Our peoples are enemies. They would kill me the instant I set foot over the border between our lands. Not to mention what my own people would do to me if I were to somehow make it back unscathed.”
“Kill you? Why?”
“Because I am a tangible reminder of what they don’t want to believe.” Earnestly, she took his arm, sending another violent shock through him. “I know you’re an outsider and you don’t know our ways. But believe me, my mere existence is a reminder, every single day, of my mother’s foolish indiscretion. I’m amazed the king didn’t smother me in my sleep.”
Now it was his turn to be horrified. “Are you serious? I thought you said your people were the good ones in all this.”
“Which is probably the only reason I’m still alive.” Her tone changed, the abrupt flippantness telling him she had finished discussing the topic.
For now, he told himself. He was beginning to see why his father had wanted him to come here and learn these people’s ways. Perhaps as an example of what not to do.
* * *
To be fair, his suggestion hadn’t been anything she hadn’t thought of doing herself, Willow realized as she and Ruben trudged back toward the castle. If King Puck wasn’t her actual birth father, she wanted to meet the man who was. Unfortunately, she’d never been able to learn his name. She didn’t dare ask her mother and, for all Tatiana’s mean-spirited teasing, her sister didn’t know, either. Without the name, Willow didn’t even have a prayer of finding him.
Which was just as well. Because even if she knew who he was, traveling there to meet him would risk setting off an international incident. Assuming the man would even see her, never mind acknowledge her as his daughter.
Worse, she might be viewed as a danger. After all, she carried royal blood, a mixture of the Bright and the Shadows. As such, she could be seen as a visible symbol, proof that unity was possible between two such diverse groups. Therefore, she would be considered a threat to those who wished the two factions remain enemies.
Again, this was fine with her. She had no desire to become friends with any Shadows. Ever since she’d been a small child, like all the other Bright children, she’d been threatened with them whenever she’d misbehaved. They were like the monsters that lurked in the mist.
Now, as an adult, she knew they were just people. A lot like the Brights, but different, too, in many fundamental ways. She had no doubt that they’d harm her if she were careless or foolish enough to wander into their territory.
The Shadows Court was rumored to be menacing, full of intrigue and deadly magic of the type that would drift into one’s room at night and steal the very breath from your lungs. The thought made her shiver.
Despite her appearance, which assured she’d fit in, she didn’t believe she possessed an evil bone in her body. She could no more pass as a Shadow than one of them could pass as a Bright.
She could never go there. Nor, she told herself as she had on many sleepless nights growing up, did she want to.
Ruben made a sound, bringing her back to the present. They’d made it to the top of a small rise in the land, enabling a grand view in many directions. Flowers and green, as far as the eye could see.
“I thought by now we’d be able to see the palace,” he said, sounding perplexed.
“We’re almost there,” she said, making her voice sunny and cheerful, as befitted a Bright. Then, feeling Ruben’s curious gaze on