She was silent an entire minute before finally asking, “My lady… what happened? Treason?”
Right. They hadn’t told her. Of course not.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I made a comment about marrying too soon after his wife’s death and then I took some magical test where blue dragon wings popped from my back and he imprisoned me.”
Her entire form went stock still. “You transformed?”
“I guess. Not really—just wings and not on purpose!” I promised.
She hadn’t moved. Her hands were frozen over my hair and she just looked at me with an expression of complete wonderment. “Only full-blooded royals transform.”
Full-blooded royals.
My mother had said that the woman who gave birth to me was a highborn, but she wasn’t royal, right? That would make her a queen, and at the time of my birth the only queen alive was King Valdren’s mother, who surely did not run off and have a secret child and die in childbirth.
Oh Hades, if I was King Valdren’s long-lost sister, I would vomit right now.
Narine seemed to read my thoughts by the confused look on my face. She coaxed me over to the bath and then helped me undress.
“You’ve heard of the Lost Royal, right?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Lost Royal?
I shook my head, unsure if the sudden goosebumps on my arms were from her story or my nakedness. I stepped into the warm bath, unable to truly enjoy it with my life on the line.
Narine started to wash my hair.
“A few centuries ago, there were two royal dragon families. Embergate was also broken up into two territories, with each royal family encompassing one part of it. Grim Hollow and Jade City used to be home of the Dark Night Dragon clan, which is what King Valdren is. And Gypsy Rock and Cinder Mountain were the Eclipse Dragon clan.”
Eclipse Dragon clan?
Why had I never heard this story? Probably because it was something from some fancy history book that we didn’t get in Cinder Village. But still, you would think it would be told verbally. “I’ve never heard this,” I informed her.
She nodded. “It’s forbidden to speak about. My mother told me when I was a young child.”
Forbidden to speak of a story? That didn’t sound right.
“What happened to the other royal family?” I really, really, didn’t want to know the answer to that question, but I asked it anyway.
She looked at the door, the one that Regina sat on the other side of. “The queen of the Eclipse Dragons went to war with the Dark Night Dragon clan and slaughtered nearly all of them. For what reason, I don’t know.”
I could physically feel the blood draining from my face. “Eclipse Dragon queen?”
She nodded. “The queen of Cinder Mountain. She had a special type of magic. They called her the king killer. She could steal other dragon-folks’ magic and merge it with hers, making her all-powerful.”
My heart must have stopped, because I didn’t feel it anymore. I just felt… numb… and in shock. So very much in shock that I forgot to breathe for a moment.
No. Make it not true. Make it a lie, I prayed.
Narine went on, speaking barely above a whisper. “When the Eclipse Dragon queen tried to kill the Dark Night Dragon king, who at the time was King Valdren’s great-great grandfather, she lost. But it’s said her daughter went into hiding in the cliffs above Gypsy Rock with her husband and that the royal line lived on.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “What are you saying?”
Narine chewed her bottom lip and faced me. “I’m saying, my lady, that I think you are the lost queen of the Eclipse Dragon clan.”
My heart fell into my stomach and I couldn’t speak. How? It wasn’t possible. A queen? That was a joke.
I shook my head and laughed nervously. “A good children’s story surely,” I murmured. “Besides, I only transformed my wings.”
Her eyes cast downward to the floor. “This time,” she mumbled.
What did that mean? That next time I would fully transform? I couldn’t handle this anymore. In an effort to escape the conversation, I slid down and dunked my soapy head underwater.
The memory of the blue wings hanging off my back came to my mind and I considered Narine’s story. It sort of lined up with my mother’s. That the woman who gave birth to me had fled a battle, covered in blood, and said that her entire family had been killed, right? Maybe eighteen winters ago, when I was born, the dragon king at the time had found her in hiding and killed them all. I tried to remember every word my mother had said, but I’d been under stress and the exact wording of the story failed me.