Sabine

I glanced at the nearest wall. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Cara laughed darkly. I saw her retreat into the shadows of her cell out of the corner of my eye.

"You have a very unique type of magic for a Telasian. I've never met anyone from this country who knows how to use spirit magic."

"I'm sure there are other Telasians who have learned spirit magic. It isn't like mages can't learn one or the other. I've learned many elemental spells."

"Oh, but your particular strain of magic is different."

"Different how?" I peered into the darkness and only saw a ripple in the shadows as Cara moved around.

She wasn't as weak and fragile as she pretended to be when I showed up. I wasn't sure whether I should be wary of her and her cunning. She could still be a danger.

"You already know that in Stivalia, magical bloodlines are carefully cultivated."

"I do." I nodded.

"We pay particularly close attention to the royal bloodline. As a result, the magic my family uses has a very specific vibration."

I rose to my feet and stepped back from the cell.

"We use the same magic, my dear. The same vibration. That is something passed through the blood. I could sense it on you the moment we met, even with that binding collar."

When I was being tortured, I wasn't paying attention to the feel of her magic but when she attacked in the dining hall, I felt a strange familiarity in her power. Especially after Prince Cole released me. I already thought she was related to me somehow but I didn't think she'd be able to figure it out.

"Who do you think I am?"

Cara chuckled through the shadows. She appeared at the bars of her cell, just on the edge of my light. She curled her hands around the rusting, flaking bars and squeezed her head between them as far as she could, peering at me intently.

"Aura was to be queen. She could have changed things. The only reason she had to flee and curse the rest of us was to protect someone else."

I pursed my lips. How could a curse be used to protect anyone?

"She knew that we would be too preoccupied with breaking the curse to wonder why she did it or even track her down. She'd be able to see her will done without putting her own daughter at risk."

"Risk of what?" The words flew out of my mouth. I clamped my lips closed.

Cara grinned. "Aura wasn't married yet. Our father selected a husband for her based on his magical proficiency and bloodline. Both our father and her future husband would have been merciless if they found out she was carrying another, unvetted man's child."

My knees wobbled and I backed up until I struck a hard surface. I leaned against the wall and breathed deeply. It didn't stop my hands from shaking. All the things I thought, all the fears of who I was came into the light all at once.

I couldn't deny it anymore. I was Stivalian royalty, by blood. How could my mother have hidden that from me? How had I never known?

"So, you see, even if the curse was broken, I wouldn't be next in line for the throne. As the last heir's daughter, you would be."

"I..." I glanced up at Cara's ghostly face. "D-do you know who my father is?"

She cackled and shook her head. "No. All I knew was that she didn't want to marry the man our father chose. If she had any lovers on the side, I was unaware of them. Whoever he was, he must have been greatly overlooked."

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"What do you mean?" My heart hammered in my chest and my legs still refused to stand on their own. I wasn't sure I could fit any more new revelations in my head.

"You took me and all my specially trained mages out single-handedly."

"It was exhausting," I admitted.

"Yes, but you still overpowered some of the most powerful military mages from Stivalia and a royal on your own. You easily surpass Aura and possibly even my father. Your father would have to be almost as powerful as Aura herself."

"You're saying he would have been a top candidate for her husband?"

"Exactly."

I shook my head. "This is..."

"Too much? I imagine it is. You'll have to tread carefully around King Talis. He won't appreciate his star royal mage being from his enemy bloodline."

My skin crawled and I rubbed my arms. Cara seemed to know a lot for someone who was a prisoner. The guards probably talked.

"Then why will you keep this secret? It could be your ticket out of here." I seriously doubted the fact that I was her niece had any bearing on Cara's tight lips.

"I want the curse on my family lifted. As Aura's direct descendent, you are the only one who can break it. If you're imprisoned or dead, you can't break it."

"I've never cast a curse or broken one. That is far beyond my skill." I shook my head again.

"You'll figure it out."

"Why?" I glared at her through the bars.

She gave her frightening smirk again. "Because I'm going to make a deal with you."

My skin crawled and I rubbed the gooseflesh from my arms. Making a deal with Cara felt as ominous as working for the king. Would my life ever be my own?

"What could you possibly give me if I broke the curse?"

"A way out of this nightmare."

I creased my brow and let my arms drop to my sides. It never occurred to me that as someone of royal blood and the heir to a throne, I did have options outside of Telasia. It was all new information.

"And how will you do that?"

"My father would never accept you as Aura's daughter or heir to Stivalia's throne. Most of the nobles wouldn't either. But if you had me on your side, I could convince them."

"You think they'd listen to you after what you did here?" I threw my arms out to the sides.

"Oh, my father's well aware of what I've been doing here. He sanctioned it. He told me to get answers by whatever means necessary," Cara confirmed once and for all.

"Why would you support putting me on the throne of your country? You don't know me."

"Thrones, countries, bloodlines... none of that matters to me. I don't care about my father's war or his politics."

"You just want the curse lifted so you can have children," I muttered.

For the first time, I saw real emotion in Cara's eyes. She curled her knees to her chest and hugged herself. Her eyes shifted to the side and became glassy.

"I would not wish the inadequacy of being barren on any woman." She shook her head. "But if you don't break the curse, you may one day find out. You're part of Aura's bloodline as well and cursed like the rest of us."

I put my hand on my stomach. Children had never crossed my mind with my status as a slave. I realized there could be more to my future than I ever imagined now that I wasn't restricted by a collar.

"You'd vouch for me to the nobles and your father. Then what?"

"You could take the throne and end the conflict with Telasia. You could make the changes Aura wanted," she suggested.

I turned away from Cara and walked to the neighboring cell. My fingers slipped as I curled them around the slimy bar.

Telasia was my home. It had been my entire life. Could I leave Telasia for a kingdom I knew nothing about? Could I sit on the throne of a kingdom where the politics were foreign and corrupted? What right did I have as a slave to assume a leadership role?

It didn't seem like something King Verill would allow, even with Cara's vouching. Cara was my aunt but could I trust her? She was willing to keep my secret but only to get something out of me. Was the freedom or escape she offered truly freedom?

"I've been a slave for most of my life. No one would accept me as their monarch."

"No one would have to know about the slave bit."

It sounded too good to be true. "Aren't I more likely to be slaughtered than made a noble? That's what you said when you interrogated me."

"You're royalty. That makes it different."

I glanced over my shoulder at Cara. She was slumped against her cell walls. Shadows made her eyes look like deep, sunken holes.

"I'm illegitimate royalty. If your father wouldn't accept me before, why would he now?"

"Because you're our salvation. You can break the curse. And if you're on the throne, then this war between our countries won't happen."

"Right..." I scoffed. I doubted King Talis would be so quick to lay down his sword just because someone else was on the throne in Stivalia.

In reality, he'd be more furious that an enemy of his lived in his palace and a powerful resource was no longer at his disposal. From what I knew of him, he'd see that as some kind of sleight or insult and further reason to inflame tensions.

At the same time, Cara was the only person who could answer questions about my mother and my family. Questions I had resigned myself long ago to never have answered. If she knew how badly I wanted those answers, she'd have something to hold over me.

"Okay, fine. I'll break the curse. But only if you promise to keep your silence and answer my questions," I said firmly.

Cara crawled to the bars and held her hand through them. "Agreed."

I stepped forward and crouched down to shake her hand.

The shadows in the passageway trembled and Prince Cole appeared with a scowl on his features.

"And what, pray tell, does the princess of Stivalia need to keep her silence about?"