“Your Majesty,” Friano says, pulling my attention back to him. Both twins are leaning forward slightly, their elbows balanced on their knees and hands clasped in front of them, brown eyes boring into me as their sleek hair brushes against their shoulders. “Seventh Kingdom went from power to ruin. Much like you.”
“But together, we can fix both of those things,” Fassa says, dark eyes glinting. “We can restore this kingdom and you to your rightful places. We can help make you the most powerful queen in Orea.”
Eagerness travels up my spine. From my peripheral, I see Pruinn grin.
Because that—that is my heart’s greatest desire. I’ve been an unwanted heir, an unwanted wife, an unwanted queen. Yet if I was powerful, nothing like that would ever happen to me again. I’d make sure of it.
“Yes,” I breathe. “That is what I want.”
Friano smiles. “Then we will achieve it,” he says simply.
“How?”
They exchange a look, and my yearning sharpens. “My brother and I have very unique magic, my queen. They work only in tandem. I can instill something new.”
“And I can restore something old,” Friano finishes.
My brows lift. “Restore…like this castle?”
“Quite.”
“But our magic always has a price,” he explains. “Not only do they have to perform at the same time, it also requires a sacrifice.”
“Yes,” Fassa goes on. “We won’t lie, this magic will be the largest we have ever performed, but we believe in this purpose—believe that this is why the gods have given us our power.”
His brother cuts in. “So, in order to restore a kingdom and bestow a gift to a queen, we need two things. The first is we must wait for the new moon, when the gods bless new beginnings and our powers are at their peak.”
“And second, that the blood of a pure Orean royal is willingly offered to restore this Orean kingdom,” Fassa finishes.
“Me.”
They both nod. “You.”
I swallow hard. “Exactly how much blood…？”
“Never fear, Majesty,” Friano says affably. “Just a few drops will do. And by doing so, by offering this to us, I believe my brother’s magic will instill magic into you, giving you exactly what you need to rule.”
My gaze bounces between them as I take this all in. The scent of the flowers is nearly intoxicating as my breathing quickens.
I’m suddenly reminded of a memory. My seventeenth birthday, when my father called me to his office and told me just how ashamed he was of me. Just how disappointed.
Most Oreans who inherited magic showed some sign of it by the time they were fifteen. I’d been waiting for two extra years, and there wasn’t a single morning I didn’t wake up and pray for something—anything—to come out. I just needed the tiniest scrap of magic, and my father wouldn’t hate me so much, my people wouldn’t gossip about me, the servants wouldn’t pity me.
I waited and waited and waited. Yet nothing ever came. I still remember that look on my father’s face, the sneering hate. Without magic, I was useless to him, to Highbell. A wasted heir who couldn’t hold the throne on her own. A disappointment in the Colier line.
All my life, that’s been my worth—my own lacking.
So this…this fantastical sliver of a chance that they’re telling me has my breath quickening, my gaze sharpening. The heart in my chest tenses at the possibility.
Having power is all I’ve ever wanted.
“My magic works in mysterious ways, my queen,” Fassa goes on. “I believe the gods will see all those who have wronged you, all of your betrayals and hardships, and they will allow my magic to bestow something glorious in you. Something…powerful.”
“Magic,” I breathe. “You think you can give me magic of my own.”
“Is that not your heart’s desire, Majesty?” Pruinn cuts in quietly where he’s leaning against a gray pillar. “My magic is never wrong. It led you here for this reason.”
My mind whirls as much as the mist that covers the atrium’s glass roof. A small laugh escapes me. “It sounds too good to be true.”
“You deserve it,” he says with a soft smile.
“Exactly,” Fassa cuts in. “The gods knew that you were the queen this land needs—that the Colier line is pure and right. The moment you arrived, we could feel that you were perfect. You are the queen that will raise Seventh Kingdom to glory. You. No one else.”