I grinned. Nimm was providing the perfect distraction. Within moments, I used the key to unlock my cell. I turned to make my escape, but then paused.
Turning full circle, I stared down the dark prison hall at the other occupied cell.
I should leave, but instinct told me not to. I had to save the other person.
I ran, my slippers making hardly any noise as I checked every cell. Most of them were surprisingly empty. Where were all the prisoners? Usually, jails were full.
When I came to the only other occupied cell, I saw a prisoner curled up in a ball under layers of rags.
I inserted the key, and the door swung open. The pile of dirty rags shuffled and then moved, and a great mound of unruly hair sat up. Dark, hollow eyes surrounding a pale, deathlike skull stared back at me.
It was a woman, and she blinked at me in surprise. Her eyesight was more accustomed to the dark than my eyes were.
“You’re free. We haven’t much time to escape,” I said.
The women tried to stand up, but collapsed back to her knees.
“I can’t leave. The door is warded.”
I looked at the frame and saw the sigils etched into the metal. These I could read. It was warded against magic, and it was trapping her inside.
I pressed my hand onto the symbols, and like I had done on the others, I absorbed the magic, nullifying the wards. The wards glowed and slowly fizzled out, dissipating like golden sand and falling to the ground.
“The wards are gone.” I came to her and kneeled down, giving her my hand.
The woman trembled; her arms were bone thin, and her eyes filled with tears when she saw me up close.
I wondered if maybe she didn’t want freedom.
“Grace? Is that you?” her voice cracked from disuse.
“No,” I answered coldly.
I pulled the woman to her feet and was surprised to see her tower over me. Tall and ethereal, despite her hollowed shell of a self. I could tell she was once a woman of means and power by her demeanor.
“Follow me,” I commanded. Now it was up to her if she wanted to escape. I couldn’t afford to carry her.
“Honor?” The voice whispered, this time with hope. “Is that you?”
I froze, my hand gripping the bars, and I turned around again.
“How do you know my name?” I asked. Fear raced through my body, and goosebumps rose on my arms.
“Because I’m Thena, your mother,” the woman said. Her eyes filled with tears and her thin hands covered her quivering mouth. “And I would know my own child.”
Even with all of my years of training, nothing could prepare me for confronting my past, and I did the only thing I could think of doing.
Deny it.
I shook my head. “You must have confused me with someone else.”
Her brow furrowed. “No. I can prove it to you. I come from a long line of magic-touched women, and we have a special gift. It passes down in sets of twos. Always twins. My sister and I shared the gifts, as do you and your twin.”
“Grace?” As I said her name, my chest constricted. It was hard to breathe. The air was getting thin, and my vision blurred. “I-I’m not—” I started.
“You are. My gift—the gift of my ancestors—is very powerful, and it has two sides.” Thena held out her hand, and now that the ward was gone, she could use magic. Thena conjured an image of a golden two-headed coin, and it spun in the air. One side was gold, the other dark. “One daughter would possess great power, the other daughter, the antithesis of that power. A dark and a light. Grace is the natural-born mage, which means you, Honor, are an—”
“Antimage,” I answered.
“But like this spinning coin, one magic will cancel the other out to survive.” As she narrated, the coin stopped spinning, and it fell down, rattling until it stilled, leaving the dark-faced side up, the golden light from the other side of the coin went dim.
Thena reached for my hands, her face streaming with tears that left white tracks down her dirty face. “Yes. Grace’s power is the strongest in ten generations, which means your gift when it manifested would be just as potent. And it was too dangerous to keep you two together. You had to be separated at birth, just as my sister and I were separated. As soon as you were born, you were powerful. Your power was so strong, you almost killed the king. To protect you, we sent a nursemaid to take you to the nearest ley line in hopes of keeping your curse at bay. The king didn’t want you to come back, and he ordered for you to be killed.”
I tensed as I realized I was finally going to learn the truth.
“They didn’t make it to the ley line in time. The nursemaid died, and the guard was terrified of you. So he made it look like the elves had killed the nursemaid. He told the king you had died with her.”
“How did she die?” A lump formed in my throat, and I dreaded the answer.
“You already know.” She looked at my hands, and she felt the callouses along them.
I hung my head, unable to fathom what she was telling me.
“I killed her?” My breath burned in my lungs.
“You were a baby. Innocent. This was not the life I would have chosen for you.”
I pulled my hand out of hers. “It’s the only life I know.”
“It is one of loneliness, but it was necessary for survival.”
I nodded my head, my heart breaking even though I understood her reasoning. I was too dangerous. It was the safest choice. One I’m not sure I would have been able to make as a new mother. Was it not the same choice Lady Eville had made? Separating me from my adopted sisters to protect them?
Learning more about who I was didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“So, King Leonel. He is . . . I mean. He’s my father?” I struggled to say the words. If it was true, it meant that I really was a princess, and not just any princess. A princess of Sion.
“No,” Thena breathed out. Her face turned red. “And that is my shame I must forever bear, and why I was imprisoned here.”
My head snapped up. The mental daydream I had created dissipated, and I was once again left feeling numb.
“It is as it should be. My life could have been forfeit,” Thena said. “I’m grateful that I can at least see my other child one more time.”
It was as if she was saying goodbye. I had just met her, and already she was being distant, separating herself from my darkness, from my curse.
I bit down the bitter disappointment and put my focus on escaping.
Lorelai Eville was my mother. Not this woman before me.
When I returned to the entrance, the guard was gone.
“Nimm?” I called out.
A shadow slipped out of the dark corner and lit a torch holding it knee-high. The flames reflected upon Nimm’s smiling face.
“I’m glad you’re okay. Where’s the guard?” I asked.
Nimm pointed with the torch to a dark corner where the guard was passed out. There was a huge knot on his forehead. I looked at the low hanging beam and realized he must have run right into it. Once he was knocked unconscious, Nimm tore his scarf up and bound his hands and shoved a wad in his mouth.
“Very well done. Saphira would be proud,”
“Saphira,” Thena murmured. “I remember a Saphira.”
Nimm’s bushy eyebrows rose as he leaned to look at the strange woman following me.