“Anything?”

“He’s alive.”

“Thank the Gods.”

Katarina opened her eyes, as she listened to her mother’s sigh of relief and the sound of crew member’s boots pounding down the gangplank as they unloaded the ship.

An impressively ornate carriage sat waiting, along with a long line of servants sent from the palace to receive the Daxarian Queen.

It had been a particularly expedient journey to Zinfera, with help from three wind witches from the Coven of Wittica and a water witch to ensure that any storms they encountered could be managed.

“Have you received word from Jiho?” Kat asked as she turned away from the ship’s rail to make her way over to the gangplank.

The moment the ship had docked she had been trying to feel throughout her threads of magic her connection with Tam, as she struggled to feel it before.

“I did. He did not disclose everything in the missive for safety purposes, but it sounds as though your brother and Eli are in a significant amount of danger. His second son, Jeong, is still with them as well.”

Kat bobbed her head. “Will Jiho come to Gondol?”

“That would not be wise for Jiho, so I doubt it very much.”

“Why is it not wise?”

“Her Highness Soo Hebin does not like him, and if we remind her that we are close with his family it will not serve us well as we try to learn what is happening. From all accounts, Soo Hebin is prideful. It will be bad enough that she will have to lower herself to you.”

A wolfish smile tugged at the corners of Katarina’s mouth. “I do love terrible people with too much pride. They’re easy to torment. And with him traveling to Zinfera to help us, it isn’t like we’ll be her favorite people anyway.”

“You are a queen now,” Annika reminded sharply. “The fate of Daxaria’s people, whom you protect, rests on how well you can conduct yourself. As for the man the king had join us… He is someone outside of my hands. It is good we traveled separately, and that he is in Bani now.”

“I’m not going to be a pushover to this Soo Hebin woman,” Kat interjected, drawing her mother back to the topic of the corrupt concubine.

“You leave Soo Hebin to me. Acknowledge her, but say as little as possible,” Annika counseled, her voice still carrying an edge at the thought that her daughter would maybe lapse into her more mischievous antics.

“You really do know how to douse my fun,” Kat said with a sigh as she touched down onto the dock then turned to offer her mother her hand.

The duchess’s gaze narrowed at the gesture.

Kat waggled her eyebrows. “I get to wear trousers and help my aging mother down a gangplank. Deal with it.”

“I will shove you into the sea and make it look like an accident,” Annika informed her daughter coolly.

“Pfft. I’d just grab a bit of seaweed and wear it as a scarf the rest of the trip. Try me.”

Annika closed her eyes wearily. “I forgot what a calming influence your children have been.”

“Yeup. And now I’m a free woman on the hunt for your own favorite child.”

“I have no favorites. I love you both.” Annika’s eyes snapped open furiously to scold her daughter for saying such an awful thing, but the sudden look on Kat’s face stopped her.

“What?”

Kat slowly moved over to a young dockhand handing out flyers to sailors as they passed him.

Snatching one of them, Kat’s eyes bore into the page intently before looking up at her mother.

“Kat…?” Annika ventured, her brows furrowing with worry.

“Mum… Did… Eli… Or Brendan Devark, happen to mention that she was actually a princess?”

The duchess’s stricken reaction answered her daughter’s question. Then Kat brandished the WANTED page at her mother, who gripped it with her eyes flying over the picture and the text beneath it.

“I think my brother and his assistant are in a great deal more trouble than we bargained for.”

“Godsdamnit,” Annika managed breathily. “That was why… That was why she didn’t want to come back.”

“Why did she come back here if this was a risk? Eric offered her the chance to stay,” Kat whispered urgently as she noticed out of the corner of her eye a royal Zinferan attendant drawing closer to greet them.

“I don’t know. Bloody hell. This is… Godsdamnit we need to find them quickly.”

“Your Majesty, Katarina Reyes, and Your Grace Annika Ashowan. I greet and honor you on behalf of our Zinferan emperor.” The steward stopped a few feet in front of the mother and daughter and bowed deeply before them, his bright orange shirt eye-catching amongst the sea of dirty cream, white, and black tunics flooding around him.

Regardless of the shock Annika Ashowan had just received, her face transformed miraculously quickly into one of calm composure as she lowered her chin in acknowledgment at the man.

He then gestured to the carriage awaiting them.

Giving her mother another look, Kat stepped forward her hand gripping the hilt of her sword, her mood thoroughly blackened.

It also didn’t help that she could feel unseen eyes following her, and a little voice in the back of her mind started to warn her that things were going to be incredibly, terribly, messy during her stay in Zinfera.

***

“Thank you, again, for helping us.” Tam bowed to Sua and Hajung, who stood in their kitchen.

Sua with her arms crossed, a wooden spoon in hand, and Hajung, appearing to only just be waking up.

“We didn’t help you. We just ignored a couple of strangers and took their money,” Sua argued curtly.

“Bye, Sua.” Luca darted forward from Eli’s side and wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist.

Tam, Eli, and Jeong all smiled as they watched Sua’s resolute stoniness crack as she lifted her wrinkled hand to pat Luca’s silky black hair.

“I’ll miss your tart’s,” the boy murmured into her middle.

“It’s good you’re leaving. You’ve eaten through most of our stock. I take it you’ll be as tall as your father one day.” Sua gave a suspicious sniff as Luca finally released her then moved over to hug Hajung.

“Truly. Thank you. We’ll continue our journey and steer clear of your village so as not to bring you any trouble,” Tam added warmly.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Sua gave a short jerk of her chin in acknowledgment as Luca returned to Eli’s side and grasped her hand.

“I do appreciate you helping Hajung with his crop,” Sua addressed Jeong who smiled and bowed in appreciation of her words. “Now get on. And good luck getting home.”

Tam turned to the cottage exit, cast a smile at Jeong to confirm he was also ready to go, and opened the door for Eli and his son.

“Are we going to do a lot more walking?” Luca asked, drawing Eli’s attention at the faint whine in his voice.

“Yes. We already told you that–”

“Well.”

A breathy, indignant voice stopped Eli dead in her tracks.

Iciness filled her blood.

“Elisara, to think a child of mine should wed a peasant and bear his child… Gods… The shame.”

Eli sensed Tam stepping out behind her, with Jeong following as they took in the scene.

A Daxarian woman with auburn hair heavily streaked with gray stood wearing a bejeweled purple dress that was very much so like the styles worn back in Daxaria. Though the older Zinferan man standing behind her wore a matching color, his own clothes were distinctly Zinferan.

Behind them was a giant cage on wheels fit for moving something the size of a horse, and twenty armed men that stood lined up at the ready in front of the pure white carriage that sat waiting.

“Pardon me, but who are–” Tam started to say, but was interrupted by Eli who croaked.

“Mother.”

*

Tam stiffened at Eli’s side, and he turned to look at her. He instantly saw the soul sickening pain wracking her being as her watering gaze didn’t leave the woman’s face.

“Come along. If you come peacefully you can ride in the carriage with us. You,” Marigold Nam then lifted her nose disdainfully at Tam. “Take your runt and forget she exists.”

“He is not a runt!” Eli suddenly shouted. “He’s my son, and you can go to hell! You aren’t my mother any more, remember? You sold me off to the emperor!”

Tam had never heard Eli speak so vulnerably, or emotionally. He realized the intense shock and trauma from her past had managed to break through the fortress she had around such feelings and thoughts… And being able to witness a true portion of her brokenness broke him a little inside to see.

“I made you a princess in a palace. Cry about it in the carriage. I brought a silk dress for you to change in. Her Highness Soo Hebin is very generous in allowing you to return to court. Now come along.” Marigold waved her daughter’s impassioned words off as though they were mere fruit flies.

“Soo Hebin is the one who sold me into slavery!” Eli moved forward, furious tears gathering thickly in her eyes as her eyes bore into her mother with blind emotion.

“Enough with your theatrics. It’s bad enough we had to leave Bani to come get you,” Marigold sighed before leaning to the side to stare at Jeong. “You look familiar. Why?”

Jeong said nothing, but his eyes did move to Tam out of concern.

Back in the kitchen, Tam could hear Sua and Hajung whispering.

This was bad.

Horribly bad.

Tam immediately started trying to calculate if he could magic all four of them into the void, but he was still pretty tired from his experiment with the bucket from the previous day…

Oh Gods. He actually might have to reveal his identity.

Dammit. I could lie and say I wanted to elope with Eli… Or that we already got married… Or–

Marigold let out another irritated huff, then curled her finger lazily, drawing her husband forward.

Lord Geun Nam looked every bit as irritated as his wife did, and he couldn’t seem to even bring himself to look at his daughter despite not having laid eyes on her in more than a decade. “Elisara, you will do as your mother says and get in the carriage, or we will make you ride in the cage.”

Rational thought left Tam’s head as he drew himself up to his full height and stared daggers at Lord Nam. He was preparing himself to tell Eli’s parents that they could try to force her into the cage, but they wouldn’t be alive shortly thereafter, when Eli spoke again.

“Gods. How can you be so awful at something so easy?” Her voice rasped.

Marigold scoffed, but her eyes glittered with cruelty. “I beg your pardon?”

“You… You are the worst parents I have ever met. You once said you couldn’t love me, father, because I was a girl. And because I was your first born? I’d shamed you. Then you, mother, said you couldn’t forgive me for making father angry at you. And when I got my magic, you said I was an animal and not allowed to be around my siblings.”

Tam’s murderous impulses were becoming quite potent.

“You said loving me was hard. And so you sometimes let yourselves forget to do it, because otherwise…” Eli paused, licking her lips that were becoming dehydrated from the tears and snot that streamed down her face as she cried in pain over the decades of pain and anger. “Otherwise you’d leave me in a street somewhere and hoped I’d die without adding dishonor to the family.”

Luca looked up at Eli, tears rising in his own eyes, and behind Tam, he could hear Jeong’s sharp intake of breath.

Tam was barely able to notice over the intense buzzing in his being how Luca leaned his head against Eli’s side. The boy’s grip on her hand tightened, drawing her gaze down to him briefly.

Upon seeing Marigold roll her eyes in response to her daughter’s words, Tam brought himself back to stand at Eli’s side.

He watched the way Eli’s breath came out more slowly, and he could tell she wasn’t through with them just yet.

“I have Luca now, and because of him, I see it isn’t hard. It isn’t hard at all to love a child. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Unfortunately you two are just some of the worst people I know.”

An impressive steadiness settled over Eli when she next looked back at her mother.

“I have Luca, and his father. I have my family. Don’t ever say you’re related in any capacity to me again.”

“Are you quite finished with your tantrum?” Marigold tilted her head, as Lord Nam jerked his chin at the armed men behind him, setting them into motion.

Lord Geun Nam reached out as though to seize Eli’s arm. “Elisara, you really should–”

Tam’s hand shot out and caught the man’s throat in a vice grip.

“You will tell them not to move a step closer,” he informed Marigold softly, his dark eyes ominously calm.

Marigold stumbled back in surprise and fear. It took her a moment to heed Tam’s order, but it didn’t really matter. The armed men seemed to have a decent enough understanding of the situation, and had already stopped their advance.

“You aren’t going to be taking Eli anywhere,” Tam continued calmly. “I will be taking her, my son, and our friend here with me. You can leave as well, and pretend you never saw us. Or. Things are going to get very, very unpleasant.”

Lord Nam was turning purple as he tried to claw at Tam’s hand.

Marigold gave a single nod, and Tam released the nobleman.

Coughing and gasping, Lord Nam stumbled back while waving his arm forward at the men, ushering them to attack.

Tam kept his sights on Marigold. “I’m assuming it was Yun, your son’s assistant, who is responsible for alerting the concubine about Eli’s presence. And I’m guessing it is because he thinks he can get something as a result. I’m also guessing that he told you I’m most likely a witch. So. I will say this again. We will leave here without any problems. Or I will be your last problem.”

Marigold sidled over to her husband, and rested a hand on his back as he gradually managed to straighten and regained his breath.

The Zinferan nobleman openly seethed at Tam.“We did not come alone either,” Lord Nam spluttered haughtily. “Daxaria sent their own coven members, and as I hear you are from there, I know you will have to answer to them. Besides, if you hurt a duke, that would immediately give you the death penalty.”

Tam had started getting excited at the news that members of the Coven of Wittica were coming. It meant they were saved! But then he balked. “Duke? Finlay Ashowan is here?”

Marigold’s nose scrunched up as though someone had wiped poo on her upper lip.

“No. It is Duke Os–”

“Well, well, well. I’ll be damned. Fancy. Meeting. You. Here. And on the day after I arrive no less!”

Tam’s head snapped round to look to his right.

It turned out that there happened to be an additional twenty men surrounding the cottage that he hadn’t seen drawing closer from both of their sides of the cottage.

But he couldn’t even make himself worry about them, because swaggering casually over to him away from the soldiers, with his sword sheathed and resting against his shoulder, was none other than Duke Oscar Harris.

One of Finlay Ashowan’s closest friends, who also happened to know Tam very well.