Page 23 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

B rothers. This was a family affair? The words were not computing. My brain was hearing everything she said, but none of it made any sense. From the damn necklace which had apparently altered her appearance to the words she said. Brother and half-brothers?

Keir, still holding Ruelle in his arms, took a step forward.

Amos moved to stand between him and Kessara. Guardian was only half of it. He was protecting his princess.

Zara, or Princess Kessara rather, put her hands up. “Please. Let me explain everything.” She inhaled deep. “Theon Valanova was my birth father.”

My knees threatened to go out from under me. It wasn’t possible. But as I looked to Princess Kessara and to Keir and Krew, dammit if they didn’t look related. Kessara’s skin tone was darker than theirs, but it was the same blue eyes. The same dark hair.

I remembered wondering if I had met Kessara before training. Clearly not. But was it because she reminded me of the twins?

To Krew she said, “My mother knew. As did your father. Your father wouldn’t claim me, so naturally my mother had to name me a K name to match the two of yours, to toss it in Theon’s face any way she possibly could.”

You could hear a pin drop in the room. This wasn’t some joke. Little things about Zara were now making more sense. Her hesitations to lead. How she was always hiding. How she had watched Krew closely the time he had been near the team.

“I healed you,” Keir stated again.

She nodded and took a deep breath. “That was when everything began to unravel actually, but I think I need to start at the beginning.”

“Wait.” My eyes were on Princess Kessara and Princess Kessara only. “Then you are Enchanted.”

“Both of my parents were strongly Enchanted,” she stated without emotion. “I am dually Enchanted just like Prince Keiran.”

So she had not one Enchantment, but two? “What?” Of all the things to get to me about all of this, I was more than a little pissed she’d lied to the team. Lied to me .

She turned her blue eyes on me. Eyes that I couldn’t stop watching because I couldn’t believe that they were brilliant blue now and not the brown I had grown used to. Yet it was the same face, the same mannerisms. “You have every right to be pissed at me. Can I start at the beginning?”

I took a breath and let it out. “Yeah.”

“Theon Valanova and my mother, Queen Alexandria Zavatari, were bonded. Not soul bound, but heart bound, in the middle of their affair.” She swallowed. “My mother suspects it was an affair done out of ulterior motives. Theon wanted to be able to wield shadows.”

“But he didn’t get that in the bonding,” Keir argued.

The man was doing well for being told his mother was cheated on and he had a half-sister; then again, they already knew the dead king had killed Katarina in stealing her Enchantment away from her.

So cheating, I supposed, was merely the cherry on top of his behavior to their mother.

I noted Princess Kessara’s hands were shaking as she said, “No. He did. Theon was dual Enchanted just as I am. My mother is not. He apparently didn’t will enough of his power to her. If he did any at all.”

Keir, Krew, Jorah, and I looked to one another in shock. He’d had Katarina siphon her magic into the sword. There was no way he had shadow magic as well, right?

I suddenly wanted to bring that asshat back to life if only to kill him all over again. He’d taken shadow magic from Kessara’s mother and killed Keir and Krew’s mother in an effort to take all of her power too. I was sensing a theme.

Theon Valanova had been nothing more than a power-hungry idiot.

Princess Kessara continued, “He likely didn’t understand how to use his second Enchantment correctly, but from what my mother understood before their relationship turned volatile, he was working on using his weaker Enchantment to move his stronger one faster.

Thinly veiling it in shadow. As I understand it, the color of his palm magic was black anyway, so it might have been hard to notice and differentiate between the two. ”

I was going to fall the hell over. I wanted to logically deny all of this as fake or some sort of ruse.

It was too outlandish. But every bit of it made sense with what we had seen in this room that day four years ago.

The dead king’s Enchantment was always fast. So damn fast. I stilled when I considered that Rafe had pushed the king into the sunlight from the windows when he’d attacked.

We hadn’t known. But Rafe had. He’d not only distracted Theon and snapped his focus on his stronger Enchantment, but somehow that wolf had known about the other power lying in Theon’s blood .

“Rafe,” I said out loud. “He knew.”

“Was just thinking the same,” Krew agreed. “He knew what we didn’t.”

As if we didn’t owe the wolf enough. Damn, I loved those wolves. I vaguely remembered Rafe sniffing Zara’s hand in those first days. He’d known she was Enchanted then, but he’d somehow known she wasn’t a threat. Interesting.

Kessara stopped for our interruption, but Jorah kindly urged her, “Sorry, Princess. We only mean your theory tracks with the day we killed Theon in this very room. Please continue.”

“So, my birth parents had a falling out shortly after the bonding. My mother wanted to unite their kingdoms. Theon wouldn’t have that.

From the little my mother has told me, they got into a huge fight when she told him she was pregnant with his child, just three years after the two of you were born.

Said he wouldn’t disgrace his legacy with a half-blood.

After that, my mother was unwelcome here.

She was never allowed to return. I was never allowed to come either.

Though the disease ended all travel between countries, travel between Agria and Wylan was done long before that.

I don’t think Theon ever even knew I took on both of their Enchantments.

We were banished to Agria. The affair treated as if it never happened at all. ”

I did quick math to note that at three years younger than the rest of us, that put her at roughly 28 years old.

It was Keir’s cold voice who offered, “All those times he threatened Krew and I that he could make other heirs. He said it damn well knowing he already had one.”

“He never acknowledged me at all,” the princess said back. “I never even met him. So that is a bit of a surprise.”

I scoffed. “Trust me, honey, you didn’t miss out on much.”

“Was your stepfather a kind man?” Jorah asked. “Please tell me you at least have one decent father? ”

Princess Kessara took a moment to answer that.

I wondered if anyone had ever asked her that before.

“He was not unkind? I’m not sure what you know of Agrian culture.

My mother as queen gets to choose from her children who will rule next.

I am the oldest. Because I have two Enchantments, I am considered powerful.

But when she wed my stepfather, they agreed I would never rule Agria.

In case anyone ever found out the truth of my lineage. Lest it cause an uprising.”

I let that sink in. Funny that in Agria, Theon’s offspring were deemed unfit to rule, when Keir and Krew were nothing like their father and each kings in their own right.

The princess hastily added, “I want it clear that I’m not upset about that part in all of this.

I don’t want to rule. Not there. Not here.

That part I’m fine with. I promise you, Amos can attest to this, that I am not here with motivations to wear a crown.

” She inhaled deeply. “But the fact that I am oldest and more powerful than my brother Damek was the main reason for his contention toward me. I do not wish to rule, I merely wish to exist in a world where my power is not the reason I am used and manipulated. I wish to be more than a board piece. And I wish to have a say in my life. Something I never had until I joined the team of women here.”

We all gave her the space to continue explaining.

“My brother Damek has been named the heir to the throne of Agria. I begged my mother and stepfather to consider my youngest brother Artem for the role. They are blind to Damek’s real motives. They believe he will be a strong leader and turn a blind eye to his cruelty.”

Dammit. Just when we thought the realm was free of evil tyrants, it seemed Agria was about to toss one on a throne. Hadn’t the Corshans warned us of this? That there was the possibility of unrest brewing in Agria?

“So, Prince Keiran healed me.” Her eyes went to him.

“I was first on the list to be healed because of my dual Enchantments, dual Enchantments I had barely gotten to use before nine years of being unable to do so. I’d like to say those nine years were a nice break of being looked down upon for the palm magic I also wielded, but unfortunately no one forgot.

“At the time Prince Keiran healed me, I had already heard rumors about the kind of men my half-brothers in Wylan were. And there was a huge part of me that day which wanted to ask you to take me here, get me away from Damek.”

Keir said gently, “I thought you looked vaguely familiar that day. Turns out, it was because you look like me.” He gestured between Krew and him, “Like us.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jorah asked quietly. “We would have kept you safe.”

Princess Kessara took a minute to reply, her throat bobbing under her emotions.

“Because I love my little brother Artem. He is the king that Agria deserves. After the day Keir healed me, I became Damek’s personal assistant of sorts and began a rigorous training program in Agria.

By the end of it, Damek was having me use my power to subdue his enemies, which he often times killed.

I didn’t know he would do that the first time, but by the third, I should have known better.

There was a clear pattern. I should’ve run.

” She held her head high as she said, “There is blood on my hands I am not proud of.”