Page 112 of Starchaser
Mother looks at me, gestures at the pirates. “You remember Clemson and Davina Mercer?”
Clemson and Davina turn to face me, each dropping to one knee, their heads bowed.
“Dawnrenderhas spies everywhere,” Lewis whispers in my ear.
“Just wait until you hear about the chauffeur,” Charlie adds. “Old Boris has been in Mother’s pocket since before we arrived at Bludgrave.”
Clemson looks up, her expression genuine. “I believe we got off on the wrong foot,” she says.
“We’re sorry to have stepped on any toes, Your Highness,” Davina adds with enough sincerity that I can hardly reconcile this version of her with the giggling courtier I’ve come to despise.
My head spins. “I need to sit down.”
“You can sit in the war room,” Mother says, getting to her feet. “There’s much to discuss, and I’d hate for you to be late for the party,” she adds, a small smile on her lips. “It’s being held in our family’s honor, after all.”
“We expected you to sleep through it,” Lewis says with a grimace. “But it’s the thought that counts, right?”
“She’s awake!”
“I can’t believe she’s really here!”
The walk from the parlor to the war room is a blur of bowing servants and excited whispers. If it weren’t for Charlie and Lewis guiding me down the halls, I might never have reached the armchair waiting for me in the large treehouse they call the “war room.” Even after I’ve taken my seat, my head pounds and my chest aches, but at the very least, my vision has stopped spinning.
Mother and Father stand side by side at the head of the table, flanked by Killian and Orella, who I notice more than once casting sidelong glances at each other. Lewis keeps looking over his shoulder at the doorway, and Charlie leans on the back of my chair, crunching on something he’s stashed in his pocket. The four Myths—Tollith, Elatha, Bronmir, and Grendwin—keep to the opposite end of the table, and Clemson and Davina fill the gap, somewhat unrecognizable in their matching leather frock coats.
The two sisters waste no time debriefing the room, and for a moment, I wish I was back in my bed, before I knew I was a princess—or an heir, for that matter.
“He’s used his knowledge of the Dire to navigate through most of our defenses,” Clemson says, dragging her finger over the map.
“You’re lucky you managed to avoid him for as long as you did,” Davina adds with a pointed look at Mother. “He must have been right on your tail.”
I lurch forward in my seat, my pulse leaping into my throat. “Titus?” I ask, searching their faces for any indication that he’s all right. “Is he—” I stop short when I realize the room has gone eerily still, as if everyone is bracing for impact. I look to my right, where Lewis refuses to meet my gaze.
“We’ve lost four ships to the Reaper in the past week,” Clemson says bitterly. “Good people.”
I stand, imploring Mother to look at me, but her eyes are fixed on the map in front of her. “He’s been compelled!” I insist. “We can help him. If we capture him, we can—”
“Aster,” Father says softly, shaking his head. “He’s been compelled by Morana herself. The only way to break that compulsion would be if Titus consumed a drop of her blood—blood from hercorporealform.”
A drop of Morana’s blood—the same cure I was searching for to save me and Will. We can still do this. I look between Father and Mother. “Then we need to find Morana.”
“It’s not that simple—” Killian starts, but I ignore him.
“Use me,” I say, gripping the edge of the table, the room spinning once more. A sharp pain splits my skull, and I press the heel of my palm to my forehead. “You were already looking for her—at Castle Grim. You said she was after something that would give her the strength to find the heir, but that wasn’t true, was it? You knew she had already found the heir.…” I choke on the lump in my throat as the reality of what I’ve just said pierces my heart like a blade. “You knew she was afterme.”
Oh.
OhStars…
“You were using me as bait?” I stagger backward a step, my heart hammering. I was more than willing to lure Morana out with my blood when I thought it would help us obtain the cure for Will, but knowing now that Morana wanted me for a different reason, and my mother knew, all this time…
Mother winces, and I almost think she might—for the first time in my life—second-guess herself. But then she lifts her chin, injecting authority into her posture once more. “In orderfor Morana to have reclaimed the power of the Lightbringer, she would have had to take her corporeal form, which she hasn’t done outside of her own realm in centuries. She wanted to take you to the Burning Lands, but we never would have let that happen.”
She grimaces, the lines around her eyes softening. “Underlings crave despair—they feed on your fear, your doubt, your confusion. Morana was toying with you, feasting on your sorrows, but we knew from the beginning that she never intended on killing you there, at Castle Grim.”
“If you would have told me”—I shake my head, blood pounding in my ears—“I could have done something! I could have—”
“Morana fooled us all,” Mother says, her own frustration evident in the way she clenches her fists, her jaw tight. “We knew she was near, but we didn’t know that she had possessed Leo, nor that she had compelled Titus. We suspected that she was somehow working with Queen Calantha—perhaps even possessed her—until all signs pointed to Eliza. Still, we had a plan: Leo and Titus would marry, they’d bring down the wards, and our forces would attack and take control of the Eerie before Morana could reveal herself through Eliza and make her move. Before Morana could doanythingto harm you or take you away.” Mother’s gaze softens as she looks at me. “Of course, we know now that we had it all wrong.”
