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Runa turned before I did and gasped. “Yaga!”

The sorceress spun and dashed down the aisle, embracing a haggard old woman with long gray braids.

The aged female released Runa long enough to narrow her cloudy eyes on me. “Young man, we’ve much to discuss.”

“So, it would seem,” I muttered.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

VICTOR

After our meetingwith the queen, we retired to one of the royal sitting rooms. Yaga sat in a chair near a crackling fireplace, pipe in hand, peering at me through the smoke. Runa sat at her feet as if she was loath to put an inch of distance between them.

While Runa had spoken with Yaga, she’d yet to say a word to me or meet my eyes. I found it unsettling. For some strange reason, I desired to know what she thought about my divine heritage.

Yaga stroked Runa’s dark head with gnarled fingers, the act motherly. From what I’d discerned, this was the woman who’d raised Runa and her brothers.

It explained much.

Watching the two of them stirred a distant memory. One of a woman with flowing silver curls. I sat on the floor at her knee, fire crackling at my back while she trailed gentle fingers through my short locks. It was a moment of contentment and safety. The last I could remember.

I’d waited patiently while Runa reconnected with her mother.That patience now neared an end. “Queen Elowen mentioned you knew the story of my past.”

“I do.”

After a stretch of silence where I suspected the woman had fallen asleep, I said, “Can you tell me this story?”

The hag grinned, revealing gaping teeth, and I stifled a shiver.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Swallowing angry words, I curled my fingers into my clenched fists.Must not slaughter the hag.

She took a deep puff on her pipe and exhaled, beginning her tale. “Long ago, there was a noble king,” she stated sagely. “Adivineking with the power of the gods. King Helix ruled over a prosperous land. And though the king loved the people as they loved him, he grew lonely and decided to take a queen. Soon after, she bore him a son named Idris.”

Runa snorted her distaste for this part of the narrative.

“For a time, the king was happy. Except, the queen, she was a frigid, calculating soul. Before long, it became clear she’d mated with the king, not out of love but greed.

“Again, the king grew lonely. Until a beautiful female vampire crossed his path. More and more, the king visited the woman, and soon, he became obsessed with her. That obsession produced a son.”

“I’m to assume I am that son?” I scoffed. If she wanted me to gasp and wail in surprise, she was to be disappointed. After all I’d been through, there was little that could shock me.

Yaga’s cloudy eyes locked on me, tracking my reaction. At my continued silence, she huffed a sigh.

“The vampiress was an intelligent woman. She knew if anyone were to discover the affair, she and her child would become targets of the king’s enemies. So, she met with a powerful hag from a neighboring village and begged for a spell.One fashioned to hide her child’s identity. Sensing this child had an important future, the hag did as the vampiress asked.”

Runa leaned back from her adopted mother, frowning. “It was you who put the shield on his powers.”

Yaga grimaced. “For all the good that it did. Not long after that, the queen learned of the king’s infatuation, and she flew into a rage. Fearful the king’s bastard would jeopardize her own son’s claim to the throne, she sent assassins to kill the vampiress and her child.

“Fearing for her son, the king’s mistress fled in the middle of the night. She sought the aid of a young sorceress rumored to have a unique gift and begged the woman to help. The sorceress offered to open a portal to another land. However, she warned the price of such a spell would cost the young mother everything.”

At this, Runa stiffened. “One of my ancestors did this?”

“Yes, child.” Yaga stroked her hair. “Your great-grandmother.”

Meaning, between Yaga and Runa’s grandmother, our lives had been intertwined since the beginning. A connection that wasn’t lost on me.