Page 13 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
The dwarves exchanged quick glances.
“You’re a faerie,” said the dark-haired one. “You never heard of the dead coming back to life?”
“Not withoutreason.”
“’Tisn’t ours to speculate,” Flora said, not meeting her eyes. “Or reveal.”
Aislinn took a deep breath. “Are you the dwarves that took Prince Caerwyn?”
Flora snorted. “That’s the rumour, is it?”
“My father doesn’t believe so.”
“Oh? And who’s your father?”
“King Hawthorn,” said Aislinn. “Ruler of all Faerie.”
The dwarves fell silent. They stared at each other solidly.
“Not quiteallFaerie,” said the dark-haired one eventually. “One moment.”
They both stepped outside, closing the door behind them.
Aislinn took a moment to survey the rest of the room. It was a small, practical space, with a high-up window that let in four small squares of light. Shelves lined most of the space, filled with books and jars, stuff with herbs and potions. Drawings of medicinal plants were tacked to the walls. She rummaged through the drawers—clothes and bandages, needles with glass containers attached to them.
The last item was a surprise, but Aislinn recognised the rest—this was a healer’s study.
The door banged open again, and in walked another dwarf, the other two behind her. She was bronze-skinned with a head of fine silvery-brown curls, and her eyes were steel and amber. She looked to be in that gap between middle and old age, her face creased and fixed in something like a permanent scowl.
Their dwarven leader, without a doubt.
“I am Minerva Mountain-Cast,” the dwarf replied, her voice deep, as heavy as stone. She folded her arms across her chest, and Aislinn saw that the left one was made of metal. She tried not to stare. “This is my wife, Bellona Winterstone. She tells me your father is the King of Faerie?”
“I cannot lie,” says Aislinn. “It is true.”
“I hear the King took a mortal wife. Mayhap you inherited her false tongue.”
“She danced around the truth enough with Caer earlier,” Flora reported. “Or so he tells me. Seems unlikely she wouldn’t just lie if she could.”
“Look,” Aislinn continued. “I do not mean you any harm, and neither does my father. But King Owen is saying that you kidnapped his son—”
“Stepson,” Minerva corrected. “And we didn’t kidnap him. He ran away.”
Aislinn paused, taking all this in. “I… that’s not what…why?”
“Not for us to tell you, but he might.”
“Why would King Owen want him back—Wait.” Aislinn stilled again. She was missing something. Stepson. Caerwyn was hisstepson.Yet he was still styled as prince—and she’d seen him wearing a crown in his portrait as a young boy.
King Owen had married the former queen. He wasn’t the rightful heir.
Caerwyn was.
And he’d just missed his birthday.
She hadn’t asked which one, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was twenty-one—the age that marked him as an adult in the mortal realm. A successor to the throne.
Not a boy. Not a boy at all.
