Page 31 of Between These Broken Hearts (Cursed Stars #2)
The queen’s briefing room is packed, and the moment I step through the door, I already wish I could leave.
I’d barely finished breakfast before I was summoned, and it looks like others chose to eat their meal here. The table in the
center of the room is piled with pastries, fruits, and platters of cheese. On one side are Hale’s people. Remme’s sitting
back in his chair, legs spread wide and lip twitching as Skylar tells him a story from the seat beside him. On the other side
of Remme, Natan sits with one ankle propped on his knee, scribbling notes in a leather-bound journal. I know it makes me a
coward, but I can’t bring myself to meet their eyes after what I confessed last night.
Opposite my friends is Abriella’s team. I recognize the queen, Misha’s sister, Pretha, and King Consort Finnian, but they’re
flanked by a sharp-eyed, pale-skinned faerie and a terrifying horned male with red hair and unsettling black eyes with red
pupils.
“It’s a party,” Misha says behind me.
I startle at the sound of his voice, as if I’ve been caught spying.
Misha scans my face. Any useful dreams last night? he asks in my mind.
How do you know I’m me and not her?
His lips twitch. Jasalyn doesn’t look at me the way you do.
Heat crawls up my neck. I refuse to ask what he means by that, since it’s embarrassingly obvious.
Ready? he asks.
What if I say no?
With this group? I couldn’t blame you.
It’s not them. It’s me.
Don’t be a coward. It doesn’t suit you. He extends a hand into the room. After you.
I move to do just that when I hear a squeak behind me and turn to see Jasalyn and Hale waiting behind us. The princess is
staring at me with wide eyes. She’s in a light blue dress that makes her ivory skin glow, and I have to concentrate so I don’t
stare rudely at the new scar around her eye.
I cut my gaze to Misha for half a beat. Really? You know who I am because of the way I look at you? Not because of the scar on the real princess’s face?
He shrugs, smirking at my annoyance. Little of column A, little of column B.
Why is she here? Shouldn’t she be recovering somewhere?
She wants to be involved, and the queen is doing her best not to smother her.
“Jasalyn, I presume you remember Felicity,” Misha says.
Jasalyn gives me a polite smile. “Good to see you again,” she says, though judging by the way she keeps looking me over, she’s forgotten how odd it is to see someone else in her form.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming today,” Abriella says from the head of the table. She sits with her head high, in full queen
mode. “If you could all take a seat, we’ll get started.”
The rest of us file into the room. Jasalyn and Hale sit in the spots beside Natan, and when Misha slips into the seat next
to the horned male, I’m left with no choice but to take the empty chair beside him.
Relax , Misha says into my mind . I don’t bite.
You must forget the vines you used to restrain me at Castle Craige. Those bit a great deal.
Oh, but now that I know you’re not a danger to my kingdom, my vines would be much softer.
I scowl at him. What in the world have I done to make you want to tie me up again?
His lips twitch and somehow the intensity of his gaze scraping over me makes me feel like he’s seeing me and not Jasalyn.
The warmth in my cheeks notches up to inferno. Forget I asked.
Unlikely.
The Midnight Palace’s clock tower chimes for the hour, and Abriella clears her throat, pulling my attention off the infuriating
king beside me and onto her. She looks to each person at the table before she begins—a look that makes me feel simultaneously
intimidated by her presence and proud to deserve her attention. A queen indeed.
“Every one of you played a role in helping us find my sister and rid her of that ring, and before we discuss what comes next I just want to take a moment to say how grateful I am.” She directs her gaze to Jasalyn, who bows her head uncomfortably.
“She is my heart, and I couldn’t do this without her. ”
“Welcome back, kid,” the red-eyed, horned male calls out.
“Good to see you,” Pretha says softly, nodding toward the princess.
“You are all here because you care about my sister as much as I do. In the case of many of you, you also care about this kingdom
as much as I do. Unfortunately, ridding Jas of the ring can’t undo what’s been done. Her life is still tied to Mordeus’s,
and we have every reason to believe that in five days, on her eighteenth birthday, he will take”—her words hitch with emotion,
but she schools her face and lifts her chin—“take over her body. And at that point he plans to take over the court. We also
now know that Mordeus and Erith are working together.”
“Erith or all of the Seven?” Remme asks.
“We don’t know,” the queen says. “We only know Erith for sure. But while we don’t know all the parties involved or the extent
of what they have planned, we have reason to believe that the future of both Elora and the shadow court hang in the balance.”
Beside the queen, Finn props his forearms on the table and leans forward, gaze scanning the Elorans opposite him. “We are
aware that you all have a mission of your own—to bring down the Seven and restore the Eloran monarchy—and after Mordeus has
been handled once and for all, we want to help you do that.”
“And in return, you want us to keep Mordeus from taking over your court?” Skylar asks.
I can’t help but admire the way Abriella meets Skylar’s antagonistic gaze.
“First, we need to establish two things. One, I support your mission. I want to see the Seven removed from power and Elora returned to a more equitable society where children can enjoy free childhoods instead of finding themselves in lifelong servitude under those unjust contracts.”
“Hear, hear,” Remme says, and that earns him a rare smile from the queen.
“Two, you’ve given me more than I could ever ask by helping me get my sister back, so my kingdom’s support of your cause isn’t
contingent on anything else from you.” She takes a breath and looks to Skylar. “But, yes, if you’re thinking I plan to prioritize
dealing with Mordeus and protecting this court and that I would like your help in doing that, you are correct.”
“That’s understandable,” Hale says, his gratitude shining in his eyes. “We hope that Elora and the shadow court can have a
long, healthy alliance.”
“Even if the queen weren’t offering her support,” Natan says, giving a respectful nod in her direction, “we should move forward
operating under the assumption that our respective kingdoms aren’t only both at stake but that their futures are tangled together—whether
through whatever deal Mordeus made with Erith to get him to assist in his resurrection or through some arrangement the two
made long before that. In short, by helping each other, we are helping ourselves.”
“I wasn’t against it,” Skylar says defensively. “I just like to know what kind of deal I’m making before I get all sucked in.”
Abriella nods. “That’s fair, but there’s no deal just yet. I didn’t bring you here to command you on your next moves. I brought you here so we can determine our next moves together.”
“The first thing we need to keep in mind is that Mordeus can’t take over the shadow court as a corpse,” Hale says. “He needs
Jasalyn to complete what he’s started.”
I watch Jasalyn, waiting for her to shrink in on herself at the mention of Mordeus like she would’ve a year ago, but she keeps
her back straight, even if her eyes are averted.
She’s changed , I tell Misha through our connection. Before I met her, she would’ve avoided this meeting altogether, but look at her now.
I was thinking the same thing.
“Judging by what happened when Jas went to kill Mordeus,” Abriella says with a quick glance to the princess, “Erith needs
Mordeus’s plans to play out as much as anyone. If we’re going to stop Mordeus from using her any more than he already has,
we need to understand what he’s put into place.”
Natan nods and flips the journal in front of him open to a different section. “So far as we can tell, the magic Mordeus used
and is using has three main components: the blood magic he used on Jasalyn when she was his prisoner, the lives Mordeus’s
followers pledged to him, and the ring she received from the witch. Thanks to Jasalyn, we now know that Erith created the
ring, but that may just raise more questions.”
“Like who was this witch?” Remme asks. “What kind of witch—fae or human—would Erith trust with such a tool? And what kind
of magic could he have used to create it to begin with?”
“All good questions,” Natan says, “and I’m using all my resources to dig into it. I have to believe that if we understand the ring’s magic, we would know so much more about what we’re up against.”
“We think that was why Mordeus made the blood magic rituals as horrific as he did,” Hale says, turning his attention on Jas.
“Blood magic rituals don’t have to be torture, but he needed you to be angry and afraid. He needed you to wish for vengeance
so you’d want his people dead and do the work of funneling the life force of his pledges to him through the ring.”
“How do you explain the blackouts?” Skylar asks. “If she didn’t have to be conscious to slay rooms full of his followers,
why have her willingness to kill his followers part of the plan at all?”
Abriella grimaces. “I don’t have an answer to that, but the question is fair and noted. Maybe the answer is that she was being
too selective with her kills or that she wasn’t killing them fast enough or in great enough numbers.”
“Or maybe,” Natan says with a respectful nod to the shadow queen, “the plan all along was for Mordeus to use the ring to control
her once he had enough strength from the initial kills.”
“Regardless,” Abriella says, “we have every reason to believe that they wanted Jasalyn to be suffering from the effects of wearing it during the day.”
“They wanted her sleeping and out of the way until her eighteenth birthday,” Hale says. “Were they simply trying to protect