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Father had never spoken to me about my past. But one day, not so long ago, he brought me to the royal library and showed me the ancient scrolls he had found. From them, he’d learned that the mirror in the throne room was the only portal between our worlds.

Many centuries ago, a warlock discovered a passage to my old world. He used a forbidden magic to lock the passage in an ancient relic—a mirror created by powerful witches. A group of men paid the warlock a fortune to escape Rorrim. Some were criminals, fleeing the prosecution. But one was a prince of royal blood who left the palace to escape an unwanted marriage. They all succeeded in their crossing through the portal into my old world from which they never returned.

Father believed I was a descendant of the prince. His royal blood connected me to Queen Anna, allowing her to see me through the mirror in the throne room when I used any mirror in my world. The distress from the danger threatening me that night had pushed me through the magical portal, helping meescape. Father also thought it could work in reverse, too, that I could return to that world if I ever wanted to.

Needless to say, I never wished to test his theory. In fact, I avoided the throne room and the mirror as much as I could.

Father never spoke to me about my past before, but he was the one who had found an explanation for what had happened to me by reading books and scrolls the society believed he wasn’t supposed to read.

“Yes, Father,” I said. “There is a world where boys are allowed to learn whatever they want.”

I didn’t say that sometimes it applied only to those boys whose parents could afford to pay for their education. I didn’t mention that for many girls in that world, an education was still as unattainable as crossing over into the Rorrim Queendom. I didn’t say that in that world, many children of every gender were still beaten, abused, and traded like chattel, that they often had no one to turn to and suffered in silence. I didn’t say that there were many sores in that society, rotting and ugly.

I didn’t say any of it because my father smiled while leafing through his new book, and I didn’t want that smile to disappear. So, I said nothing more at all.

Chapter 13

Ari

Another week had passed before I got a chance to go on a ride with Gem again. She was chatting animatedly about the gladiators’ games, and I didn’t mind the noise.

“Rumor has it that the games master is acquiring giant fire-breathing worms. She’s trying to keep it a secret, but I have my sources, and they report that she’s already had an underground terrarium built for the nasty creatures. Can you imagine the show she’ll put on with them in the arena? I can’t wait to see Falo in it. He’d be perfect to fight monsters like that.”

Her chatting blended with the chirping of birds around us and the rustling of wind in the trees by the forest path we took.

“Oh, it’s hot.” Gem fanned herself with her hand.

It took me a minute to realize she was talking about the weather now and not the fire of the worms or Falo’s exceptional sex appeal.

“You know what? We should go swimming,” she moaned. “We can ride to the waterfall here in the forest or to the lily pond in the palace gardens. You choose.”

“I’m not sure I want to go swimming.” I eased my dress off my shoulders to let the breeze cool my skin. The heat was bearable here in the shade from the trees.

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I have things to do.”

“You always have things to do. But you need to make time to enjoy life. Before you know it, you’ll be a married woman and a queen, running yourself into the ground with work.”

I didn’t really have that much work to do today. I just preferred to have a nice lunch with my parents, then have some quiet time on the patio with Ria, instead of listening to Gem’s idle chatting and nagging for another hour or more while we swam.

Keeping Revlis at a steady pace, I let her walk along the forest path that very few people knew about beside Gem and me. The two of us had traveled here often enough for our horses to become so familiar with the route that they no longer needed our guidance to find the way.

I tipped my head back, letting the sun play with shadows on my face. A bird was singing high in the branches, and I wondered if its song would sound just as lovely everywhere else in Rorrim, specifically in the unknown-to-me place where a former slave lived as a free man now.

I thought about Salas daily. Nightly too, quite often. Sometimes, the thoughts of him hurt, but many were pleasant. I tried to focus on the pleasant ones.

He obviously wasn’t afraid of hard work, and I had no doubt he’d found a decent occupation for those skilled hands of his. I imagined he rented a place to live, like a cute little cottage on a farm or in a forest somewhere, where he would come to after a day of honest work to eat dinner in a cozy living room by the fire.

The only thing I could never bring myself to envision was a woman sharing that dinner with him. I wanted Salas to be happy, and that could include him finding the love of his life, settling down, and starting a family. But I just couldn’t stomach the thought of his hands that had touched me so tenderly on another woman’s body.

In my mind, I often envisioned him wearing the shirt I bought for him at the market, even though I’d never given it to him, of course. It lay folded and wrapped on the bottom of one ofthe trunks in my dressing room where no maid would ever find it.

I’d bought it on impulse, thinking how perfectly the green and gold embroidery would go with his eyes of many shades of brown. Even as I was paying for the shirt, I knew I’d never give it to him. But I kept it as a memento of him, a souvenir, even though he never wore it.

We’d never see each other again. It was best for both of us. But thinking about the way we parted still filled me with unease and even embarrassment. I hated myself for forcing on him the diamonds he couldn’t even sell without putting his freedom and possibly his life in danger. I wished I would’ve said a proper goodbye instead. I also wished I could take back every single word I’d said to him about my past that night.

However, something good did come out of it. After I'd opened up to Salas, I’d been learning to think about my past without fear. Somehow, spread between two people instead of one, the weight of those memories proved easier to bear now.