Torrent of Tears (Scourge Survivor Series Book 3)(6)

Where could I go? My first memory was of Reign looking down on me in this forest when I was eight. He’d seemed so fearsome, but then he’d led me across the grounds and toward the Haven castle. “No tears, Princess,” he’d said. “Everything’s fine now. I got you.”

When my shins grew numb against the frozen ground, I rolled my weight to the side and leaned up against the trunk of a young birch tree. After lifting the neck of my shirt to cover my skin the best I could, I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.

I’d been wearing a red pendant when he found me. I pulled it out from under my shirt and looked at it. It had grown too tight by my twelfth birthday so Reign had taken it and threaded a new chain. When I began fighting he replaced the delicate white gold links with a leather cord.

My fingers felt stiff, brushing over the polished carving. For sixteen years, I had stared at the piece of red jasper and tried to determine what it was. Some days I saw a flower, others a shamrock, shaped with four identical petals and a design repeated on each of them. Sometimes I thought they looked like curling waves, sometimes I was positive they were wings. Whatever they were, they always warmed me.

I ran my finger over the etched pattern and yawned. It had been so long since I’d had a solid night’s sleep and exhaustion was dragging me down. I dropped my necklace back into my shirt and tucked my frozen fingers under my armpits.

Gods I was tired. Something niggled at the back of my weary mind about falling asleep in the cold. The thought was there . . . just beyond my grasp. I yawned and laid my head back against the tree, my heavy eyes falling closed.

I’d just rest for a minute. Just for a minute.

“Alexannia Grace . . . .” An ethereal voice spoke into my dreams and swept through my mind. “Alexannia Grace . . . open your eyes.”

My eyes cracked open and I lifted my head. Still sitting in front of my small pond I watched the silver surface glow and give off a lighted mist. Gone was the frozen, ice-encrusted sheet, replaced by the shimmer of liquid gold. I blinked and rubbed at my frozen lashes.

“Alexannia Grace.” A girl rose from beneath the ice. She appeared slowly, first a crown of long ebony hair, then graceful shoulders draped in a midnight blue gown and then a small, slender figure, stunning and graceful. I stared as she drew closer. It was as if she were climbing an unseen staircase below the surface.

I was dreaming. Had to be.

When only her ankles remained underwater I scrambled to my feet. She was my size and about my age. When she raised her face and looked at me straight on, I stepped back.

Definitely dreaming. Either that or I was looking into a mirror: amethyst eyes, ebony hair—hers long where mine was short and spiked—the resemblance was spooky.

She eyed me with the same interest. When our gazes locked, she nodded. “So, it’s true. Well met, Princess, I am Freya Love, your sister.”

“My sister?”

She nodded and held out a gloved hand. “The Queen sent me to bring you home, Princess. You have been absent from your royal life far too long. Your family awaits.”

Whoa, Nash hadn’t warned me there would be tripping on the downswing of a Haze ride. But after my fight at the Gatehouse I couldn’t blame my subconscious for choosing an escape. I stepped to the edge of the pond and peered down by her feet. It just looked like the same dark surface of water it had always been. “And where would we be going?”

She giggled. “To Attalos of course, the home of your people, your birthplace.”

The hair on my arms stood on end and I scanned the forest around me. Was this really happening or was it a dream? Hypothermia. That’s why you weren’t supposed to sleep in the cold. I looked back at where I had been napping against the tree, the snow indented from where I had been. Or was I still sleeping? Was I in some kind of interactive vision? I’d had visions where it was tough to separate what was real and what wasn’t, but this. . ..

“There is no need for trepidation, blood of my blood. I mean only to return you to our people. The time of our sixth is upon us. We must prepare for the celebration.”

“Our sixth?”

“Anniversary of our existence. It has been six year cycles since our beginning.”

“Oh? Are you a leap year baby too?”

A strange look flashed behind her eyes but she nodded. “I am your twin, an Eligible as you are. All born of the Queen, on the forgotten day, are Eligibles.”

“The Queen? So, I really am a Princess?”

“Of course. Do you know nothing of your heritage? Who was your mentor?”

I shook my head. Reign had arranged fighting mentors and the four of us had academic tutors, but as far as I knew, nobody knew anything about who I was or where I came from. “Am I some kind of a changeling?”

Frustration creased Freya’s ebony brow and she studied me. “With the arrival of two, it seems our breeder hid one daughter and presented the other to the Queen. She only just learned of your existence and has sent for you. Do you know none of this?”

“No. I was adopted by a man named Maximus Reign. He never knew where I came from. Just found me abandoned and wandering in this forest when I was eight years old.”

“Two,” she said, then smoothed out her expression. “We do not accept the markings of time from the other realms. You were placed without the Queen’s consent at the age of two.”