Page 97 of Enchanted Crown
“Iknow you will keep us safe,” she continued while looking me in the eyes. “All of us. I do not fear you, King Keiran Valanova.”
“I’m not a king,” I again repeated like a fool. The longer we were in Corsha, the more bizarre it seemed to get.
“Yet.” She gave me a look like I was the one who was barely older than a child. With a little shrug she turned her back to us. “Come along.”
Keir?
Things just got weird here. I don’t understand it myself, but I’m fine,I assured her.
Keep sending me updates?
I will.
Dex put an arm across my chest. “Uh. He is not going anywhere.”
“He certainly is, Dex Chabot.”
“How do you know my full name?” he bit out.
She turned slowly, again smiling. “Forgive me. I forget you do not know much of my culture. I am QueenAurelia Rassi. As they told you. Here in Corsha, the king or queen is not decided upon by bloodline, but rather by the strength of our Enchantment.”
“She is the most powerful Enchanted in Corsha,” the first man, who I now understood was some type of guard, confirmed.
“How long have you been queen, Your Highness?” John asked politely.
She flashed him a smile. “I was able to see Theon Valanova’s darkness moving before it ever reached our shores. That was when I first came into my powers. I came into them early; we believe because of the seriousness of the visions. And I was not the only one. Corsha was at risk of being destroyed.”
So she had been all of what, five or six years old when that happened?
She continued, “I foresaw numerous things in the following years, including, of course, the rise of the brother kings.”
There was that damn phrase again.
“And just over a year ago, once I reached the age of sixteen, I was crowned queen.”
She held out her hands and gestured toward our ship. “We receive visions. We can also project a vision if our sight is strong enough.” And as she closed her eyes and lifted her hands, our ship was there one moment, gone the next.
“The hell?” Dex ground out.
With a wave of her hand, our ship was back, the men looking like they had no idea they had just disappeared from view.
“You were not poisoned,” I stated as shock rolled through me in waves. “You do not need to be healed because you were never poisoned.” She was not stuck at this age like Dra Skor had been, she just truly was a teenager.
“We were not,” she confirmed, “because I saw it coming. Yes, it is the reason there now sits a crown upon my head, but it is also the reason Corsha survived at all. Had your father found out weevaded his disease, there would have been bloodshed. War.” She shuddered slightly as if haunted by the thought.
Had she seen that as a possible future? Screw her age and why she was ruling so young, I just wanted answers. “How did you keep my father from getting to Corsha?”
She gestured in the direction of the buildings. “We worked together to cast a vision much like the one you just saw. The tricky part of our projection of visions is that it changes what someone may see but not what they hear or smell. So when your father’s men came to poison our water supply in the dead of night, though we knew, we hid and allowed them to think they were successful, when really we were catching all the poison they were dumping.” She took a deep breath. “As they went island to island to our fresh water sources, so did we, staying out of sight, except for a few strategically placed Enchanted. We ensured the poison did not go where they wanted it to.”
That stunned all of us to silence. They had outwitted my father. I was shocked but at the same time wanted to applaud them for it.
“And then from that point on, when any ship which was not our own would come to the docks, we developed a warning system. Our Enchanted would cast the vision, projecting a deserted Corsha while we all went silent to give proper impact to the vision.”
“So all this time?” Amory bit out, almost a growl. “All this time and you have had full use of your Enchantment?”
Amory looked ready to pummel the young queen, though I was determining the more she spoke that she was wise beyond her years. A child genius now their queen.
The queen gave her a quick nod. “Yes, though we have not always been safe. Far from it, actually.”
