Page 78 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

“No, they’re not.” Rakel folded her arms over her chest. “Your eyes are pink because you’re part elf.”

“No—”

“You’re a quarter elf. All half-elves and full elves have red eyes. Anyone with less than that usually has pink eyes, unless their elven blood is very strong.”

That couldn’t be true. Kolfinna had always believed that pink eyes were normal. The fae always had vivid eye colors. Purple. Green. Orange. Yellow.Pink—or so she thought.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“I didn’t. I was investigating the area the queen left you behind at.”

The cave with the rune writing. Where Kolfinna had first discovered what the heir meant. Her blood ran cold. It wasn’t too far from here.

Kolfinna swallowed. “I’m not who you think I am. Maybe I’mrelated, but?—”

“Someone broke the runes,” Rakel interrupted, watching her with half-lidded eyes. “I checked. You were sealed away in a cave with powerful runes. They were supposed to protect you, and when I checked the cave, they were broken. By the residual mana, I can tell that the seal was broken some sixteen years ago. How old are you now? Eighteen?”

Her heart beat faster.

“It aligns with your age. Your eyes are the same pink as Princess Kolfinna. Your name is the same. You have half-white hair, which aligns with your elven blood. You seem to have healing properties”—she motioned to Kolfinna’s body—“seeing as how you’re up and about after my snakes poisoned you. You are who I think you are.”

Kolfinna’s head spun and she suddenly felt weak to her knees. She couldn’t be the evil queen’s daughter. It just didn’t make any sense. Queen Aesileif was legendary, mythical, andthere couldn’t be a way that she was her daughter. That Kolfinna was the daughter of a terrifying, powerful half-elf commander. Plain old Kolfinna. Who was no one special. Who had no parents. Whose only family member had died a year and a half ago.

And now this woman was saying that she was a long-lost heir?

That couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.

“M-My hair wasn’t always white,” she said, grasping onto the one thing she could deny. “I had black hair before?—”

“Did your elven powers recently awaken?” Rakel asked. “Sometimes, for those who have a smaller percentage of elven blood, there needs to be a traumatic event that triggers your magic to awaken. Did something happen to you recently?”

Hilda. The torture room. Her near death experience.

Kolfinna felt dizzy.

“Is your eyesight better than usual? Can you hear things you didn’t hear before?”

“It’s not possible. How can I be over a thousand years old?” she whispered. The fae queen and the half-elf commander were from a different time period. If what this woman was saying was true, then Kolfinna was ancient. She didn’t belong here. All of this sounded like a fairy tale.

“When someone is sealed away, they are perfectly preserved. Haven’t you seen it before?”

Her thoughts raced to Revna in the Eventyrslot ruins. To the other fae women who were preserved in their coffins.

Her stomach twisted into a tighter ball.

If Kolfinna was the heir, then that meant … Commander Alfaer would come after her. He would use her to awaken the queen. Ragnarök would win. There would be a war.

“Are you well? You look pale.” There was a hint of concern in Rakel’s voice, but there was also that triumphant arrogance. Like she knew she had hit the nail on the head.

Kolfinna stood straighter, but it was hard when those blood-red eyes were boring into her, as if seeing every imperfection. Was she disappointed that Kolfinna didn’t meet her expectations? That the daughter of the half-elf commander and the ruthless queen was so ordinary?

Just thinking that made her want to throw up.

The daughter of the half-elf commander.

Her entire life was a lie.

“Your Highness?—”

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