Ten years.
Adaira would be thirty-three.
Moray shifted. His irritation was beginning to show, but he surprised her further by saying, “Do you have siblings, Lady Sidra?”
She didn’t want to answer personal questions. She didn’t want to give this man any knowledge about her or her past.
She was silent, but he smiled.
“I take that as a yes,” Moray said. “I have a twin, as you already know. But I also had a younger sister. Her name was Skye.”
Sidra was quiet. She hated how her interest was piqued.
“Skye wasn’t like most of us,” he continued. “She wasn’t drawn to swords or spars or challenges. She preferred books and art and was so tender toward animals that she refused to eat their meat. My parents adored her, even as she seemed to be such an odd creature amongst our kind. And when the rumors spread, rumors that she was destined to be a greater ruler than me, I couldn’t find it in my heart to be jealous of her. She was such a light in our darkness. A constellation that burned through the clouds.”
Sidra listened, shivering beneath the warmth of her plaid. “And what happened to Skye?”
Moray glanced down at the floor. “Every month my parents call their thanes and their heirs into the castle hall for a feast. It’s a dangerous, unpredictable night, because there’s always a thane or two who is scheming to take the rulership. Because I’m their heir, my parents had been dosing me with poison and dressing me only in enchanted garments with orders to always have a blade in my possession. They were paranoid, you see. They had lost Cora to the ‘wind,’ and they couldn’t bear to lose another child. I will always wonder why they didn’t take the same measures with Skye, but perhaps they thought the clan as a whole loved her.
“A fortnight after Skye turned twelve, a feast was held. She and I were present, as was customary, and she was sitting at my right. She had flowers in her hair, I remember. She was radiant, laughing at something one of the thanes’ daughters had said. And then it happened, so quickly.” He fell quiet, lost in his remembrance.
“What happened?” Sidra prompted.
Moray’s gaze returned to her. “Skye began to cough, so she drank her wine. And then I noticed she kept flexing her hands, and she seemed sluggish. Soon her breaths were labored and shallow, as if her heart was beating slower and slower. I reached out to touch her—she was chilled, as if ice had crept beneath her skin. I knew it then. I had felt such things before in my own body, long ago when I first started taking the Aethyn in safe doses. But there is only one way to be sure. I took the dirk from my belt, and I sliced her palm.”
“Why?” Sidra asked. “Did you think it would let the poison escape?”
“There’s no countermeasure, no antidote for Aethyn,” Moray said. “But it turns spilled blood into jewels. And I watched my sister’s blood drip from her palm. I watched it transform into cold gemstones, so brilliant it looked like fire was within them, and I knew by their size alone that she would die within the hour. I will never forget the fear in her eyes when she looked at me, nor the sound my mother made when she saw Skye’s blood, glittering as jewels on the table.”
Sidra was silent for a long moment. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your apology or pity,” Moray said in a low voice. “What I want is to know how long I’m to be imprisoned here. I want to know how long you plan to keep me away from my only remaining sister. My twin.”
Sidra stood, ignoring the twinge of pain in her foot. She held his gaze for a long, disquieting moment.
Once, such a story would have softened her, even if it came from an enemy’s mouth. It would have roused her empathy so much that she would have felt compelled to take action, to be of service. But ever since Torin had left . . . ever since she had felt the blight creeping under her skin, turning her veins to gold . . . she had been faced with no other choice but to harden herself. To turn her soul into something strong and unyielding as stone.
“Days can feel like years, can’t they?” she said. “I remember that very feeling when my daughter was stolen from me. How every day felt like a decade as I wondered where she was and worried about her. Missing those hours with her that I will never regain. And for my daughter, knowing the fear of that moment will be imprinted in her memory.”
The confidence in Moray’s expression faded. His posture drooped, and his breaths hissed through his teeth. He was silver-tongued, Sidra knew. She had heard him tell a story before and knew that he could string words together like spells. Maybe in another life he could have been a bard, putting his skills to good use instead of wielding them for his own selfish purposes.