she was feeling and a part of me wondered if I would recognize my parents if I were to see what they looked like.
The image in the mirror moved, slipping backwards from their deaths to their marriage to their meeting to their childhood. And then as they separated, the scenes focused on the father—so he was the true heir, I thought as we stared in quiet curiosity as his life ran down. From adulthood to adolescence to childhood to infancy. Until…
Nel’s gasp sounded and rebounded around the room as she watched her father’s mother—her grandmother—tossed from the capital castle. Hitting the mud as the King stood above her and guards threw her to the ground. Words were said, but we could not hear. All we could do was watch as she cried and begged, grabbing at the young King Felix’s robes with pleas in her eyes. And it came as no shock to anyone to watch him turn away and walk back into the castle—leaving Nellie’s grandmother in the streets.
“What does that mean?” Nellie’s lips trembled as she asked the question and the images in the mirror went dark.
“She was likely his mistress,” Roan said quietly and though he was normally so commanding in his tone, now his voice was soft and quiet, sympathetic. “And when he found out about the baby, he threw her out. Bastard children of Royals—whether human or Fae—are rarely looked upon with anything but disdain.”
“He just threw her out like garbage,” Nel whispered. “How could he do that?”
Because he was cruel, I thought, though I didn’t voice it. When she turned into me and clutched my sides, I had no choice but to hold her and let her tears soak the front of my dress. I didn’t care if she needed to soak a hundred of them. Her pain was my pain. When I lifted my head, I noticed that while Orion spoke quietly with Groffet, both Roan and Sorrell appeared to be watching Nellie and me. Of the two of them, Sorrell appeared contemplative. He now stared at Nellie with an open curiosity that I knew we all felt.
Nellie as the King's heir? It seemed too good to be true. Too unpredictable and yet … perfectly aligned with everything we needed. For a brief moment, I wondered … but no, the Gods had long ago stopped meddling in the lives of humans and Fae. There was no way they had set this up, was there?
Chapter Thirty
Orion
My brother had once thought me broken, and perhaps, at one point, I might have agreed. The things I survived in the Court of Midnight—the most detestable of Courts—were not for children to understand. Yet, as a child, I had more than understood it. I had lived it, breathed it, and now, as an adult, I would vanquish it.
Hatred. Fear. Sorrow. Pain. The darkest parts of nature were in our blood—Tyr's and mine. These were also the very reasons I had left. Had I stayed, there was no doubt that I would have risen to my brother's side. I would have been a Prince of Midnight as wicked as he was, but in that dark hole where I'd been born and raised, two creatures had looked in and they had reached their hands down to help me out.
Roan and Sorrell. Each of us had our own pains. Our own lives had been fraught with nothing but Court politics, commanding orders from our parents, and control that we had only just managed to scrape back to ourselves before our fourth and final piece—a bright little Changeling—had fallen right into place.
As I gathered my weapons and strapped them to my body, preparing for the battle that was coming, I wondered what might have happened had Roan and Sorrell not come into my life. What might I have been had they simply acted as every other Crimson and Frost Fae before them—turning away in fear from a Prince of a Court known only for its darkness?
I would not be here, I decided, and I would not even consider helping the human King's heir take her place on the throne.
No, I may have been born as part of the Court of Midnight, but as far as I was concerned, I was no longer theirs. I was hers. My little Changeling. Sweet. Fiery. Unbreakable.
Even as my thoughts veered away from the darkness in my mind, I couldn't help but consider the other questions we had yet to answer. No messenger that had been sent