It’s an hour until we’re to depart for the night, and I’m rubbing sleep from my eyes as I stretch my legs.
“I killed her,” says a voice from behind me.
I turn to find Lydia, violet eyes staring longingly into the field of tulips that stretches out before us. Their soft petals sway in the wind, as if to a melody unheard by our ears. I remember Lydia once saying that her mother planted tulips in the Naenden palace garden. Her father had uprooted them to make room for the statue of Tionis. Lydia had replanted a section of tulips elsewhere in the garden.
“Your mother,” I say, partially because I’ve suspected as much for a long while now. Partially because I want to give Lydia the freedom that comes with someone knowing your secret, without having to speak it into truth yourself. “I’m sorry,” I add.
Lydia’s face remains impassive, though I sense the slightest quaver in her voice. “You say it as if it were a misfortune that happened to me, one I had no control over.”
“You loved your mother. You still do. That much is obvious,” I say. “I imagine she knew that.”
“She’s the one who told me to do it, though my father would have commanded me even if she hadn’t. I think she wanted one last thing to hold for herself, one last bit of agency.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she wanted to make sure you knew she understood. Maybe she didn’t want you to blame yourself.”
Lydia looks me over, though her eyes for once appear too tired to assess much of anything. “Maybe,” she says contemplatively before turning back to the field of tulips.
“My father was a paranoid male,” she continues. “He wanted to punish my mother because he believed she’d had an affair. He cited Fin’s lack of magic as evidence of as much.”
“He knew Kiran and Fin were illegitimate?” I ask, slightly shocked. As much as Kiran hated his father, his father was obsessed with him. Obsessed with molding him into the perfect tyrant, the perfect heir to his throne.
Lydia shakes her head, her braid wavering. “No. Well, he believed Fin to be illegitimate, but he refused to acknowledge Kiran, his heir, could be any male’s but his.”
I must have shown my judgment on my face, because Lydia gives a wry laugh. “There has been at least one occasion recorded in which a fae female was impregnated by two males. Twins with different fathers. I know you’re thinking this is unlikely, which would make you a reasonable person. My father was not a reasonable person.”
“You’ve known for this long that the twins had a different father from you, yet you never said anything,” I say.
Lydia shrugs. “It would have only served to hurt them.”
“You mean it would have hurt Kiran,” I say. “Would have meant he never received the throne.”
Lydia shuffles as if uncomfortable.
“I thought you believed Kiran was a dreadful ruler.”
“I did. Do still, sometimes. But I suppose I hoped better for him. And as much as I hated what he had become, what my father had shaped him into…”
She pauses, and for the first time, Lydia actually looks uncertain. “Well, for one, I was truly my father’s daughter. His blood, his evil, runs in my veins, not Kiran’s. And Kiran… I can only imagine how much better off he’d have been if he’d had our mother’s influence to guide him, even just a little while longer.”
“You blame yourself for parts of Kiran’s past, don’t you?”
“I took his mother away from him. I couldn’t take his throne, too—his identity. What right did I have, truly, to judge Kiran, when my father had made me a monster of Kiran’s equal? The only difference was that Kiran took ownership of the monster inside while I choose to hide in the shadows.”
I shrug. “You’re a monster to the monsters, Lydia. In most stories, that makes you the hero.”
She looks down at me with apprehension. “I think sometimes, Asha, you see good where it isn’t.”
“Then I think you see evil where it isn’t.”
“Well then, maybe with two sets of eyes, we can judge more clearly.”
I allow her comment to hang in the silence long enough for the words to settle in.
Of course, as soon as the realization of what she said widens her violet eyes, I let out a laugh.
She does too, oddly enough.
“You should talk to Kiran,” I say. “I think you might be surprised how much the two of you have in common.”
Lydia rolls her eyes. “I’m not sure that’s something I would like to discover about myself,” she says, but underneath the derision, I can hear the fear in her voice.
“He won’t hate you for telling him.”
“And how can you know that?”
“Because I won’t let him.”
Lydia laughs again, but this time, it actually meets her eyes.
But as quickly as it appears, it’s gone when Marcus comes barreling out of his tent to meet us.
Lydia and I exchange concerned looks, then run toward him, closing the distance to keep him from exhausting himself.
“It’s Piper,” he cries, each breath a wheeze as we meet him in the center of the field. “I just got a message from Piper.”
“How is that possible?” asks Lydia, but Marcus pulls on the collar of his tunic, exposing his chest.
I’ve noticed Marcus’s tattoos before, the typical vines and thorns that Aveleans get upon entering maturity, a time marked by profound loss.
