Chapter 30

Kaelan

Everything felt hazy and odd. I had taken to pacing the halls, full of energy that I couldn”t find any way to release, but I wanted to hurt someone. To kill someone.

My fingers found something in my pocket. I turned the round band of cool, smooth metal over and over, feeling a glint of warmth in my chest, a heat that penetrated the fog of my mind and burned it away.

It was replaced with vague hints of memories.

Hanna, her lips parted in frustration that had brought me an immense wave of amusement, as I took the ring from her.

Hanna, as I slipped the ring onto her slender hand, her eyes twinkling at me with that bright, heartfelt smile I loved so much.

Hanna, lying with her head cradled on my shoulder, turning the ring around and around on my finger. Just like I was doing now.

I couldn”t catch any more wisps of that memory. But it felt... it felt the closest I had come to reality in days.

I turned the corner and heard Edric”s voice.

”It seems as if you”ve reduced my son to a shell of himself.”

I paused, retreated. I wanted to hear all the rest of what they had to say.

”A useful shell,” a woman”s voice responded archly. Hanna? No, not Hanna. It sounded like Hanna”s voice, but not right. It almost sounded as if Hanna”s voice were pounding in my head, and this woman”s voice came from around the corner, vibrating underneath Hanna”s voice.

”Yes, I suppose that does salve any guilt I might feel,” Edric said.

”You feel guilt?”

”I said I might.”

She let out a trill of a laugh, and my jaw clenched. That was not Hanna”s laugh.

Edric went on, ”You need a royal wedding to take the throne, just like my son, but after that?”

”Are you asking if I”m going to kill him?” she clucked her tongue. ”Fatherly concern. I”m touched. Surprised a bit too, really, given everything you”ve done to him.”

”To forge him into a king.”

”Ah, I see.” She still just sounded amused. “And delivering him into my hands? Sending him to kidnap me was a nice touch.”

“Kaelan is single-minded on a mission.” Edric’s voice was dry.

“For the wrong woman.” Her voice was frustrated, then relaxed as she discussed her victory. ”Anyway, I”m not going to kill him. We”re going to be very happy together. A lifetime of wedded bliss.”

”With a thrall? He can”t even think.”

My hands flexed into fists.

”I don”t need my sword to be sentient, Edric.” There was laughter in her voice. ”And I don”t need my husband to have opinions. He”ll be lovely as both.”

”I assume you”re going to use him to kill your mother?”

”That”s my business, Edric.” Her tone was always light, but there was steel threaded through it. ”The peace between our kingdoms? Your eternal reign on your throne? That”s our business together.”

”Fine. But we need the Snake Queen for the spell.”

”She”ll come to me. She must be going mad now, knowing that I”m out of her control.” She sounded satisfied.

A servant behind me said, ”Your majesty? Do you need help?”

Edric and Seraphine froze.

Then she said, ”He won”t remember. Give him a moment.”

”A moment? You have no idea how much damage he can do in a moment of clarity.” Edric”s voice was cold but strained. ”We need to contain?—”

I tried to hang onto the knowledge as I pushed past the terrified servant and raced through the halls. It was a much smaller castle than the one I had grown up in and committed to memory, but I still couldn”t get it to form into my mind.

I slammed my shoulder into a doorway.

”Kaelan!”The voice in my ear was a stranger.

I whirled, slamming the door shut, and my magic blazed across the doorway blocking any intruder. I stared down at it, wondering what had just happened.

”Who are you?” I asked roughly.

”Thorne. Your friend.”Alongside the answer, a vision: a dark-haired man. With it came a jolt of affection, loyalty, trust.

I knew him.

The next second, I shook it off. ”You”re manipulating me too. Making me feel?—”

”No one can make you feel, Kaelan. Or at least, so you claim.”The voice was affectionate. ”You need all your memories.”

”I don”t even remember the last hour,” I admitted, my breath a rasp in my chest. I immediately regretted it. I shouldn”t have told him anything.

”But I do,”he said. ”I can remember everything for you.”

”How?”

”You let me back in,” he said simply. ”You stopped trusting me when you started to love her... as if you can”t have us both.”

”I can”t.” I swiped my hand through my hair, not even understanding what I was saying. ”I”ve lost her. She”s right there, but she”s not...”

”Pretend she”s Hanna as best you can,” he said. ”Let them think they”ve won. That your brain is theirs.”

Was this another trick?

I had to get away from him for now. Had to find a place to think, to make my thoughts make sense because right now they felt like a jumble, and they were constantly fading away, as if I”d just forgotten something I needed to know.

Out in the cool forest, in the crisp air where soft snow fell, I felt like I could breathe. I could think.

I worried the ring between my finger, then pulled it out and put it on.

The woman emerged from between the trees. She was tall and dark haired and familiar, but I couldn’t place her face.

”Who are you?” I demanded.

She came toward me so certainly, so deliberately, as if she might attack me. I stepped back into a defensive stance, ready to fight. I didn”t want to kill anyone right now when my brain was lost and confused. I worried I”d hurt someone in my confusion.

Maybe even Hanna. They were trying to get me to kill Hanna. I couldn”t give in to any dangerous impulses.

”I”m your mother,” she told me, tenderly cupping my face between her hands.

Her touch was cool. Her palms hovered to either side of my skin, but didn”t touch me.

”You”re dead.” So she couldn”t be my mother.

”That too.” She inclined her head.

“What happened to you?”

“Edric killed me.”

“I know.” I wouldn’t tell her that I had hated her all my childhood because I thought she had abandoned me. Edric had used her absence to draw closer to me, pretending we needed each other, until his cruelty overwhelmed the joy of subtle manipulations.

She was talking to me then but for a while, I was lost in a daze of memories that slowly unspooled.

I’d buried all the memories of my mother. It had been too painful to remember being loved by the woman I’d thought had abandoned me. But with her in front of me, I remembered the face and the voice that I’d forgotten. I remembered her scooping me up and rocking me on her hip when I’d been just a small boy.

”The second worst part was that he was in my mind,” she told me, pushing two fingers against her temple. I focused on her too late; she’d been lost in her own memories too, but hers weren’t so sweet. Her eyes flooded with angry tears. ”He couldn”t even leave me in peace. He was there through our mental link, crouched over my body as I died in the snow, but he was in my mind. He was watching me lose my last grip on this world.”

Rage clutched my chest. It felt like clarity in my mind, but I couldn”t trust how long it would last. ”I”ll kill him.”

”Be smarter than him,” she begged me, which seemed like a big ask right now.

”I”m under an enchantment. I can”t...”

”I”ll help you,” she promised me.

”You said it was the second worst part. What was the worst...”

”Losing you,” she whispered fiercely.

I stared at the woman in front of me, my heart aching with both longing and suspicion. Could this truly be my mother”s spirit, reaching out to guide me? Or was it another cruel trick, preying on my fractured mind?

“I should have been there for your childhood,” she whispered.

“It was not a particularly happy one,” I said dryly. “Perhaps it’s for the best you missed it.”

“I’m here for you now, Kaelan. I’ll help you hold on.”

That was a nice idea.

If only I were sure she wasn’t yet another enchantment-induced hallucination.