Legend has it, if you stand in front of a mirror, shuffling an enchanted deck of cards, you can open a doorway between dimensions.
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Prince Teodric of Springport remembers the promise he made his father: to *not* try to reenact the legend of dimen...
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To say my jaw unhinged and unscrewed and splattered at my feet wouldn't be an exaggeration. It sure felt that way, and my mouth suffered the consequences, becoming so sore it was difficult for me to speak.
There she was; the one allied with Otho and helping him instigate all this madness. She was the inside betrayer, the foe fighting against her own family, her blood. And she was Otho's beloved—
I gagged at the notion. A key instigator in all the terror at Acewood court, and she was with him, set to marry him. Who else but an evil person would associate with another vile, evil person?
I wasn't sure why it surprised me—she was odd, certainly not all there in the head, I'd thought—but I'd never pegged her as evil.
The sea-weed necklace she'd gifted me started to burn the skin of my neck, and I ripped it off. "Traitor!" I'd completely forgotten I still had it, and should have tossed it when Ysac first warned me how strange she was.
At this point, I wouldn't have put it past her to have poisoned the thing.
"Am I?" Queen Luned glided in as if carried by luscious turquoise waves. A faint glow glittered about her body, and she didn't appear as out of her mind as she had when I met her. If anything, she held herself regally, prepared for the throne. A true princess come to claim her right to become queen. "Why would I be a traitor for wanting to ensure the crown goes to someone responsible? Truly, do you think one of my dear sisters has the smarts to carry the weight?"
Ysac snorted, but didn't share his thoughts on what prompted him to do so. I could guess them—he'd thought Luned as the least qualified of the sisters for this role. And he'd told me as much.
"But what of the rebellion?" My voice squeaked. "Weren't the people out to get the mages because of you? And now you want to rule over them with a mage as your spouse? I'm confused. You would feed into exactly what your father feared?" I wished I hadn't been stuttering, and Mother squeezed my palm as if to infuse me with courage. "He distrusted the mages, and you...you want to marry one of them and enable his plots, however sordid they are?"
Though her lips lifted into a tiny smile, she shrugged. "It runs deeper than that, sweet Teodric. There is much more to this alliance than meets the eye."
"And your sisters?" I blinked at her, trying to imagine what it'd be like to turn on those I'd grown up with, those who shared my home, who were a large part of my life. I never had siblings, but I'd always wanted some. Mother had explained to me early on, though, that she was unable to bear any more children. "This alliance is more important than them?"
She guffawed; a sound so high-pitched and petrifying that for a second, I thought she'd lost her mind again. That that laughter would shoot at me and plunge into my chest and wrap around my heart, stopping it. "Them? They're your concern here?" She waved at me dismissively. "Trust me when I tell you they don't give a damn about me. I'm the odd one out; the half sister. I'd be declared illegitimate if it were up to them, but Father put his foot down on that."
