The Half King

21

Daerick suggested that the three of them go foraging for sand melon in the opposite direction as that of the hunting party so they could help Cerise experiment with her magic. She agreed, but she asked Daerick and Kian to begin the search without her. She would catch up with them after she had a serious and long-overdue conversation with her family.

As soon as Daerick and Kian left camp, Cerise ducked inside her tent and unpacked her heartrending mirror. She sat on the canvas floor and called out through the looking glass until her mother heard her voice and responded.

“Darling,” Mama greeted with a smile that quickly fell when she noticed the redness in Cerise’s eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I want to talk to Nina,” Cerise said. She knew her sister was still there. Nina’s visit wouldn’t end for another fortnight.

Mama hesitated. “You look upset.”

“Give me to Nina.”

Father appeared in the mirror, and Cerise caught herself searching his face for any resemblance to her own. She knew she wouldn’t find one—she never had—but her heart sank at the reminder that she wasn’t his child. “Where are you?” he asked, peering at the canvas walls behind her. “Is everything all right?”

She could tell that his concern was genuine, but that didn’t cool her anger. She couldn’t help feeling as though she were a stain on the floor and her parents had used the temple as a rug to cover it up. There was only one person in her family she trusted now.

“I want,” she gritted out. “To talk. To Nina.”

Father heaved a sigh and then stalked through the house until he found Nina. He passed off the mirror, and a black-veiled face filled the frame.

“What’s wrong?” Nina asked.

Cerise waited for Father to leave the room. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” Nina said. “Why?”

“Somewhere no one can hear us?”

“Yes. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“ Father isn’t really my father,” Cerise said. “That’s what’s wrong.”

Nina didn’t balk at the words. She didn’t laugh in shock or tell Cerise that she was crazy. Instead, she went still and quiet in a way that hinted she had already known the truth.

“You knew,” Cerise breathed. Her heart sank another inch. It seemed she couldn’t even trust her own sister. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

Nina ignored the accusation. “What happened to make you think he’s not your father?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” Nina said. “Tell me what happened.”

Cerise hesitated. She used to believe that she could share anything with her sister. Now, she wasn’t so sure. “If I tell you,” she began, “you can’t tell anyone else, not even Mama or Father or your husband. You have to keep it a secret.”

“All right.”

“Promise me. Swear it on the goddess.”

Nina held a hand to her heart. “May Shiera strike me dead if I’m lying.”

Cerise frowned. She didn’t like Nina’s choice of words, but she told her sister about her visits to the underworld, her compulsion to obey the king, how her magic had manifested, and the possibility that she was descended from Shiera. By the time she’d finished, Nina seemed to have stopped breathing.

“I couldn’t have inherited the fire blood from Mama,” Cerise said. “It had to come from my father—my real father. I want to know who he is. If I can find him, maybe I can understand more about what I am and why I have these gifts.”

“I already know what you are,” Nina said.

Cerise perked up. “You do?”

“Yes. You’re my sister, and I love you.”

“Oh, stop. This is important. Be serious.”

Nina blew out a sigh that billowed her veil. “All right. Here’s the truth.”

Cerise pulled the mirror closer, listening intently.

“I don’t know who your father is,” Nina said. “But I do know he’s dangerous. When Mama was pregnant, I overheard her and Father arguing about him. It was a long time ago, but I remember thinking they were afraid of him—so afraid that they lied to everyone to keep him from finding out about you.”

Cerise cocked her head. That was the last thing she had expected. “So they didn’t send me away to the temple to cover up Mama’s affair?”

“Affair?” Nina repeated. “Bloody crows, no. It was nothing like that. From the way Mama acted, it sounded like the man took advantage of her.”

“You mean he…” Cerise couldn’t speak the rest. She didn’t want it to be true. “A man forced her? And she had to have me afterward?”

“No!” Nina flashed a palm across the mirror. “I don’t want you to think that.”

“But you said—”

“Forget what I said,” Nina snapped. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“That maybe she was taken in by his charm or his power,” Nina said. “There are so many ways for people to manipulate each other, Cerise. I have no idea what actually happened because Mama wouldn’t talk about it. All I know is that the man was dangerous—Mama and Father didn’t want to cross him. So Father claimed you as his, and that meant we had to give you to the temple. But it wasn’t to get rid of you. We all love you to the stars and back. I hope you know that.”

Cerise felt a flush of guilt rise to her cheeks. During her short time at court, she had gotten so used to lies and manipulation that she’d assumed the worst about her parents, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Mama and Father had never missed a visiting day at the temple. They had never pressured her to try harder when the other oracles had received their gifts and she hadn’t. They had never made her feel unwanted or unloved. In spite of her origins, they had cherished her.

“Oh,” was all she could say.

“Listen to me,” Nina urged. “Whoever your father is, it’s important that he doesn’t find out about you. That means you can’t go looking for him or ask questions that might get back to him. Do you understand?”

“I can be discreet,” Cerise said. She knew better than to generate gossip by asking questions of the wrong people. “The palace has an archive room full of records and diaries and travel logs. I can start by making a list of all the powerful men who visited Solon the year before I was born.” But she frowned, realizing her father might have lived in Solon and not at the palace at all, in which case there would be no records of him there. “Did Mama say where he was from?”

“You’re not listening to me. Just let it go.”

“Did she say where he was from?”

“No. She didn’t say anything about him.”

“Can you find out something?” Cerise asked. “Maybe look around in Mama’s old letters? Or in her journal? Any detail would help.”

Nina huffed another sigh. “I’ll try. But only if you promise to let it go.”

“Look in Father’s journal, too,” Cerise added.

“I mean it,” Nina said. “Promise me.”

Cerise crossed her fingers behind her back. She had no intention of sitting idly by and wondering who had fathered her. His identity was too important to ignore. Breaking the curses might depend on it.

“I promise.”

…

“So your father is dangerous?” Daerick asked with a glance over his shoulder. He held a shovel like a walking stick, his voice breathy from the exertion of wandering around under the midday sun in search of melon brambles. “In what way?”

“I don’t know,” Cerise said, a little breathless herself. She wanted to hold Kian’s hand, but her palm was too sweaty. “All my sister said was that my parents wanted to hide me from him.”

“Interesting,” Daerick mused. “From what we know, I think we should consider the possibility that your father is a priest who also has fire blood.”

“But I’ve never heard of priests fathering children.” She looked to Kian. “Have you?”

Kian shook his head.

“I haven’t, either,” Daerick admitted. “They do seem disinterested in the whole business. I noticed it when I visited my brother at his temple. The closer he came to receiving his gift, the less often he turned his head when a pretty girl walked by. Now that he has magic, an entire parade of naked courtesans could dance through the temple and he wouldn’t care. It’s like that part of him has switched off.”

“They’re all like that,” Kian said. “And I would know. There’s not a priest in my service who I haven’t met at some point or another.”

“Well, to be fair,” Daerick said, “they’re good at keeping secrets from you. If any of your priests reproduced, I doubt they would volunteer that information to you or even to their own brethren.”

“Especially not to their own brethren,” Kian said. “But you’re right. I can’t read their minds. Maybe some of them do have desires of the flesh.”

“What about you, Cerise?” Daerick asked. “Not to be indelicate, but have you noticed a change in your…well, in your romantic awareness since your gift manifested?”

Reflexively, her eyes darted to Kian—to the taut muscles of his chest, the rhythmic motion of his stride, and the regal way he carried himself. She recalled the confidence with which he had mastered her body. Her blood rushed with the thought of feeling his touch again.

“No.” She fanned her face. “Not at all.”

“Then it would seem the rules are different for Shiera’s descendants,” Daerick said. “That means there could be others like you, Cerise. Any number of priestesses out there in the world, hiding in plain sight. As long as they were careful not to use their magic around the wrong people, no one would know.”

She lifted a shoulder. After what she had witnessed, she doubted that anything could surprise her anymore. But she didn’t understand why she was the only person they knew of who could travel at will to the Mortara underworld. And then there was the cryptic message left behind by the old emissary: As above, so below. The flame you seek to dampen will consume you . Did that mean Cerise was the flame…or the one who would be consumed? And what about the Reverend Mother’s warning about false idols? How did that fit in to everything?

She blew out a breath. What was her purpose in all of this?

“If my father was a priest with unusual traits,” she said, “that could explain why my parents were afraid of him.”

“And why they hid you from him,” Kian agreed.

“So who could it be?” she asked. “How do we find him?”

“If your mother spent time at court,” Kian said, “your father could be any one of hundreds of priests who served at the palace.”

Cerise chewed the inside of her cheek. Her parents had claimed that they’d never visited the palace, but with as many lies as they had told her, she hardly knew what to believe. “Let’s assume she was never at court. Do we have records of which priests lived in the Solon temples the year before I was born?”

“I’m sure of it,” Kian said. “We can also find out who visited Solon.”

Daerick added, “I can think of one priest, even without the records.”

Kian and Daerick shared a dark look that immediately told her who they were referring to. The most legendary priest to ever visit Solon was Father Padron. He’d been dispatched there by the old king to put down an insurgence. She couldn’t recall what year the rebellion had taken place, but the timing seemed like it could fit.

“How old was he then?” she asked.

Kian shrugged. “I don’t know. Roughly our age. It would have been soon after his Claiming Day.”

“Not too young to father children,” Daerick pointed out.

Twenty years ago . Mama had been a great beauty then. Even now, she turned the heads of many, young and old alike. She could have easily caught Father Padron’s eye. But something about the idea felt wrong. As pious as Father Padron was, she couldn’t imagine him being tempted by any woman.

“I don’t think it’s him,” she said. “I want to have a look at the records.”

Just then, something else occurred to her. She had assumed she hadn’t belonged at the temple and that was the reason she had never fit in there. But all gifts of magic, healing, and the Sight were given exclusively to second-borns. So if she was truly a priest—or a priest ess —that meant she had belonged at the temple, just not with the Seers.

“If I’m a priestess,” she said, “then I’m a second-born. That eliminates Father Padron. Because unless he already had a child before he went to Solon, which I doubt, I would be his firstborn, if not my mother’s.”

Daerick frowned in thought. “I’ve never heard of a priest fathering a child, so it’s hard to say. But you make a good point.”

Something else niggled at the back of her mind, a realization just beyond her reach. Several moments passed before she pieced together what she had been missing. The man she’d called Father wasn’t truly her father. She was a Solon in name only. That explained why the soothsayer had detected so little Solon blood within her. She must have inherited a hint of it from her mother but not enough to be of significance.

“I’m not a Solon,” she said.

Kian and Daerick peered at her.

“To break the curse,” she told them, “each noble dynasty has to offer their blood to the Petros Blade. We have a Calatris here with us, and we have a Mortara and a Petros…”

“But no Solon,” Daerick finished. “Flaming hell. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. We can’t break the curse until we travel all the way back to the castle. We need Cole Solon.”

“That slippery bastard,” Kian added.

“Our window of time just shrank by a moon,” Daerick said.