Again, the twins glanced at each other, then back at Celyn. Together they said, “Since birth.”
Celyn closed his eyes and fell back against the bed, his arms outstretched.
“Oh . . . fuck.”
Elina found her way through a tight crevice that led to a little gods-made balcony on the side of the mountain. As soon as she stepped outside and took in some fresh air, she began to feel a little better.
Then, suddenly, she didn’t.
She hurt all over, but the entire left side of her head from where her eye used to be to the back of her skull ached in such a way that she felt nauseous.
But that wasn’t what truly bothered her. It was that she’d failed Queen Annwyl and Queen Rhiannon. She’d truly hoped to get something right. For once.
Elina felt depression and disappointment weigh down upon her. She’d tried so hard and now here she was . . . standing here . . . feeling worthless and . . . and . . .
Where is that noise coming from?
Elina heard sniffling. It wasn’t her. She walked along the little ridge until she found a brown-skinned female sitting on a boulder in a simple wool sheath dress, a long fur cloak around her shaking shoulders, and tears flowing freely down her beautiful face.
“What is wrong with you?” Elina asked. “Are you hurt?”
The female jumped, surprised to hear another voice.
“Oh. Elina.” She sniffed. “It is Elina, yes?”
Elina nodded. “I am Elina.”
“I’m glad to see you up and about.” She sniffed again. “I am Rhianwen, Daughter of Talaith and Briec the Mighty, Sister of General Iseabail, Princess of the House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar, Ninth in Line for—”
“Stop, stop,” Elina cut in before this could go on another century or two. Those of the Steppes might live longer than most, but she wouldn’t live that long. “I need hear no more of your imperialist lineage.”
Without any rancor, the girl nodded. “Understood. Did Auntie Brigida take good care of you?”
“I still live. I would count that as taking good care.” Elina tried to scratch her face, but found nothing but bandage. She lowered her hand. “Why do you cry so?”
“I just feel . . . horrible.”
“You hurt?”
“No. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just . . . what I did to your people . . .”
“What did you do to my people?”
Rhianwen looked up at Elina with strange but beautiful-colored eyes that contrasted strikingly with her silver hair and brown skin. Even the tears that still poured could not detract from the intensity of those eyes.
“Oh, yes,” Rhianwen said. “You were unconscious when I arrived.” She swallowed and admitted, “I was forced to . . . to . . . kill your kinsmen. The ones who had tracked you and your sister here.”
“You? You killed them?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Elina asked, “what choice did you have?”
Rhianwen blinked in surprise. “Pardon?”
“What choice? If they tracked us here, it was only to kill me and Kachka and turn Celyn into an entertaining pet they could toss our enemies to when they were bored. It was either them or us.”
“I know. I know. It’s just . . . I wish we could have talked it out instead. I wish I’d had time to reason with—”
“Reason? With my people? Do you think I would be standing here, Princess of the Fancy House of Dragons, missing my eye and feeling lost and pathetic, if you had not stopped them?”
Rhianwen frowned. “I can’t tell if that’s praise or an admonishment.”
“It is neither, foolish girl. It is just truth. Because of you, I still have my life. I still have my sister.”
The princess sniffed again, fresh tears pouring from her two eyes. But she smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” she said around this new influx of wetness. “It means so much to me that you would say that.”
Elina looked off, out over the lands she could no longer call her home. And she realized quite suddenly that her sister was right.
She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself before she started sounding like this pathetic slip of a girl!
“Don’t worry. She’s not trying to destroy us or anything. . . although she may be trying to destroy everyone else.”
Celyn gazed up at the ceiling and nodded. “That’s so helpful, Talan. Thank you.”
He abruptly sat up, his mind going through all the information he’d heard over the years about the twins and Rhian, about them going off to join monks and covens and whatever else for knowledge.
“What did you do to leave?” Celyn asked them.
“What do you mean?” Talan asked.
“You know exactly what I mean. Did the Kyvich and those monks just send you both off with a hearty farewell and tankards of ale raised in your honor? Or are they currently planning their counterattack?”
“I wouldn’t call it a counterattack. . . .”
“Gods-dammit!”
“I don’t think you understand,” Talwyn said, that royal haughtiness she tried to hide coming right to the fore. “My brother and I don’t report to you, cousin. What we did or what we plan to do has nothing to do with you.”
Celyn slowly stood and walked over to his cousin, staring down into her face. She tried to hide it under all that hair—the same way her mother did—but she was quite beautiful.