Immortal Reign (Falling Kingdoms #6)(66)

Ashur waited there with Taran.

The “someone” Magnus had mentioned stood between them. A beautiful woman who used berry stain on her lips and cheeks, even though she had no need for such enhancements. Cleo wondered why she would bother.

“Princess Cleiona Aurora Bellos,” Magnus said in formal introduction, “this is . . . Valia.”

“Just Valia?” Cleo asked.

“Yes,” Valia said simply, her green-eyed gaze focused intently upon Cleo as if assessing her value. “So this is the girl with the name of a goddess, is it?”

Cleo didn’t answer the question. “I have been told you might be able to help us,” she said instead.

Valia raised a brow. “May I ask a question out of sheer curiosity, your grace?”

“Go ahead.”

“You have not taken your husband’s surname as your own. Why is that?” At Cleo’s surprised look, Valia tempered her question with a smile. “It strikes me as interesting.”

It wasn’t the first time that Cleo had been asked this question in her travels across Mytica. Usually a noble posed the question, peering at her over their goblet or dinner plate.

“I am the last in the Bellos family line,” Cleo said simply. “I felt it was respectful to those who have come before me that I not let it fade away to nothing.”

“How curious.” Valia glanced at Magnus. “And you allowed this?”

Magnus’s attention remained on Cleo, his hand pressed to the small of her back. “Cleo makes her own choices. She always has.”

An excellent reply, Cleo thought.

“It is a good name, Bellos,” Valia said. “I knew your father quite well.”

Cleo regarded her with shock. “You did?”

Valia nodded, then turned to walk toward the marble dais. “I met with him right here, in this very spot, on several occasions.”

Cleo grappled for a response to this unexpected information. “For what reason?”

“He’d had a dream that his palace was under attack. He didn’t believe in magic, not like your mother did, but after Queen Elena’s death he had come to consider many options that would strengthen his reign and was willing to open his mind to more possibilities that could help him.” She took the stairs to the top of the dais and rested her hand on the back of the golden throne, gazing down at it as if King Corvin was seated there as they spoke. “He convinced me to help him. I used my magic to put a ward on the gates of this palace, to help keep everyone within it safe. I think he did this mostly to protect you and your sister, your grace.”

Cleo remembered the magical ward placed on the gates. It was magic that Lucia had broken through with her own elementia, causing an explosion near the end of the bloody battle that had cost hundreds of lives.

“Impossible,” Magnus said, shaking his head. “My father found the witch that had cast that spell. When she proved to be of no help to him, he . . .” He hesitated. “He dismissed her.”

“Actually, King Gaius killed her,” Valia corrected. “Or, at least, he killed the woman he thought was responsible. And then he sent her severed head to King Corvin in a box. But your father was wrong. His victim was certainly a witch, but not the correct one.”

Cleo listened to all this, her thoughts spinning. “If this is all true, why didn’t you help my father when he needed you the most? If you are so powerful that you could cast a spell of protection like that, why didn’t you help him when the palace was attacked, when he was dying in my arms?”

Valia didn’t speak for a moment. Cleo searched for any trace of regret or doubt in her eyes, but found nothing but hardness.

“Because that was his destiny,” Valia finally said, then cast her gaze down toward Cleo’s marked left hand. “And perhaps your destiny is already set as well.”

Cleo wanted to resist. She wanted to stomp her foot and demand that this witch be cast from this palace forever, but she took a moment to calm herself.

Every time she thought of the water Kindred’s voice in her head—thankfully silent now—a deathly chill spread over her skin.

She would not let herself be frightened of something that had not happened yet.

She still had control. And she would fight until the very end.

“Very well,” Cleo said, her chin held high. “The past is over and cannot be changed. What can you do for us now, at this very moment?”

“That is an excellent question, your grace. Let me see your marks up close.”

Valia descended from the dais and reached for Cleo’s hand. Cleo allowed this, only because she didn’t want to push back too much against someone who might have the power to help her.

Valia inspected the lines spreading out from the water symbol on her left palm, then swept the hair off the left side of her neck to see where they ended.

“Does it cover your entire arm?” she asked.

Cleo nodded stiffly.

“Taran’s marks have progressed much farther.”

Taran remained silent, standing straight-backed and square-shouldered like a trained soldier.

Ashur watched Cleo and Valia, intent on every word the witch spoke.

“What is your verdict?” Ashur asked. “Can you help them?”

Valia reached under the folds of her black shirts and withdrew a shiny black dagger that looked as if it had been chiseled from the same material as the earth Kindred orb. Obsidian.