Page 8 of Curse of Darkness
“I know, Mama,” she says, her eyes locking on Edain. “But she told me I needed to be here. I had to meet him.”
“She?”
Amaya bites her lip. “The woman in the hood.”
Breathlessness punches through me. Thousands of fae wear hoods, but I know exactly who she’s talking about. I’ve been blocking the Mother of Night from my thoughts, and she dared contact my daughter instead.
That bitch. That fucking bitch.
I turn toward the Hallow, but Finn grabs my wrist. “Later,” he urges.
And he’s right.
I need to deal with this here and now.
Because Edain gapes at my daughter as if she’s a two-headed puppy.
“She said you’d be angry,” Amaya says, stroking Grimm’s fur. “but he needed to know. He’s going to help us.”
Edain staggers back against the table. “Who is this?Whatis this? Is this a trick?”
“It’s not a trick.” What is the Mother of Night thinking? “This is my daughter, Amaya. And if you dare breathe a word of this….”
“He won’t,” Eris says confidently. “I can ensure he never so much as speaks her name.”
Finn cracks his knuckles. “Dungeons?”
“Dungeons,” Eris confirms.
“This is what she meant,” Edain says breathlessly. “Andraste’s last words to me were to protect May. She said she was innocent. Andraste knew. She knew there were two of them.” He blinks in horror. “How are there two of them?”
Can I trust him?
The Edain I know is the watchful leopard who stalks my mother’s court. He plays the whore, but there’s no mistaking there’s a sharp mind behind those vicious blue eyes.
“Andraste switched the babies at birth. I begged her to protect my daughter, and so she found a way to ensure my mother never got her hands on Amaya. The other child is a changeling. An orphan she found days after Amaya was born.”
Mother would never have killed Amaya—she has too much potential to cause me damage in Mother’s eyes—but I know what my daughter would have suffered through if she was raised in my mother’s care.
She promised she would raise Amaya to despise her father and know him for the monster she calls him.
She promised she would turn Amaya against everything my husband and I stood for.
She would poison the girl’s thoughts, poison her magic, her soul….
She would turn her into a weapon to be used against us.
Edain closes his eyes and breathes out. “Sometimes I wonder if I knew your sister at all. All these years and she’s been working against the queen.”
It’s a feeling I’ve known too. Once upon a time I loved my sister, but she made it clear she sided with my mother when I first fell in love with Thiago. I’d thought her the enemy too, only to discover she’s been twisting my mother’s thoughts and actions for years.
“The perfect daughter,” I whisper.
His eyes meet mine. “The perfect façade. But she stretched too far. She lost control of the game. Your mother found out everything. And now she will pay.”
Unless we can get her back.
“She had a message for you,” Amaya says, cocking her head as she considers Edain. “She made me repeat it several times so I’d remember.”
