The Silver Siren (Iron Butterfly, #3)(53)

My knees felt weak and I had to grab hold of the wall to steady myself.

It was too much. I felt dizzy, sick, and weak. King Tieren opened his mouth to say something to me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He motioned for a guard who came rushing toward me. I panicked and reached for a thread of power to push the guard away, but nothing came. Strong hands seized me.

~~~

I was expecting the dungeon again, but instead they placed me in an extravagant suite. I lay upon the oversized bed and stared at the stone walls. Someone had lit a candle in my room, and it had been burning so long it began to flicker, dying out.

When the candle finally gave up and my room became dark, still I lay there, silent, waiting…thinking.

All King Tieren had done was destroy everything I thought I finally knew about my family and life. It was like being thrown from a horse and having the wind knocked from me. I stared in the direction of the candle and tried to get it to light, which wasn’t my specialty. Still, I felt like I should have felt something—some stirring of power. Instead, I felt empty, as if a part of me were missing. My head still felt a bit fuzzy and I wondered if there were a bit of drugs still running through my system, blocking me from using my gifts. If that was so, then I was going to have to continue to be a polite guest until use of my gifts came back. Maybe by then I could blast my way out of the castle.

Maybe I could even bring down the castle with me in retaliation. I smiled at the thought and continued to wait. I’d keep testing the limits and reaching for power every few minutes.

After a quick knock on my door, an older woman opened the door and entered. Her graying blonde hair was pulled into a crown upon her head. Her skin was fair, and fine wrinkles sprayed across her proud face. Her black dress, though made of the finest velvet, had little adornment other than the cut and the style of the dress. But all suggested someone of importance.

She stopped within a few feet of me and studied me carefully. I glared at her, refusing to look away. Her mouth pinched in a worrisome frown and then she released a loud, dejected sigh. “Well, you definitely have your father’s coloring, but you can’t hide those eyes. Even if the shade is off.”

The remark stung but I didn’t let it show on my face.

“Well stand up, dear. Let’s take a look at you.”

“No,” I said firmly.

She looked tired and impatient. “Your mother would have said the same thing. You, I hope, will be more loyal to our cause.” The things this woman said made me want to scratch her eyes out or push her out a window. She was horrid.

She came forward and stared down her long straight nose at me and I watched as her nostrils flared in impatience. “You will have to do. Heaven knows I don’t have time or the resources to play these kinds of games much longer. I’m too old for such tricks.”

I let her ramble on and on as the door opened again and two servants brought in a trunk. They began to lay out a wardrobe befitting a queen—silk dresses, petticoats, shoes, ribbons, stockings.

They measured me and stuffed me into eight different dresses before they found one that complemented my skin tones and my unpleasant eye color.

“No, go with the silver. She’s got the blood—we can’t hide it now,” the woman chuckled softly.

Soon, a smaller servant girl began to sew me into the dress and kept accidentally poking me with the needle. As soon as she was finished, I stormed across the room and right up to the cruel matriarch.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I am not a doll.”

“Of course not, my dear. You are my granddaughter, and I am trying to keep you alive. So hold your tongue and your patience, and maybe we will both live through the upcoming dinner,” she muttered something else under her breath. I thought I caught the barely audible words, “…and the war.”

“Grandmother?”

Her words momentarily stunned me. I’d never had a living grandmother before, so I was unprepared for what to say or how to address the situation.

But the announcement hadn’t fazed her. “You may call me Lady Portia, or Grandmother. Either one is suitable.”

I bit back my impatience at her lack of care and asked again, “Why am I here?”

“Because if what I’m hearing about you is true, and the seal around you is breaking, then this is the best place for you, don’t you agree?

“Seal? What seal? And I was safe where I was,” I countered back.

“Even your own clan couldn’t save you from the Elite. Now this is the safest place for you. Out of the out of the reach of the Denai.”

“But I’m not safe from you,” I glared at her.

“True,” she cracked a crooked smile. “I’ve been told that the truth hurts. And I hope you’re not afraid of a little sting, because you are to learn that everything you know is a lie. It was not just Tieren that wanted you to come here. I’ve been pressuring him to bring you back here for years.”

“Why would you do that?”

Portia went to the mirror in my room and began to straighten her hair. “You don’t think our Thelonia left the luxury of the castle to go live in the mountains on her own accord did you? She left to find your father, to try and save our kingdom.”

Her words hurt, and I could feel the poison of them seeping into my very thoughts. If I let them, they’d eventually destroy my childhood memories bit by bit. I didn’t have many that included both my mother and father. But I couldn’t let that get in the way. I needed to learn more. “Are you saying that she never loved my father?”