The Essence
Page 54

“Shh!” I admonished, glancing around to make certain we were still alone. Being discovered in my nightgown would probably be frowned upon in any land, but I’d have an even harder time explaining my knowledge of a hidden passage. “That kind of talk will get us both in trouble. Besides, even though she’s in here, doesn’t mean I’m not still me.”
He rose, then, lifting my icy fingers to his lips. His golden eyes held mine. “It doesn’t matter, it means she’s not gone either. Not really.”
I frowned, pulling my hands away. “Who are you? I saw you in my . . . in her dreams. But who are you really?”
A chill ran through me, colder than any warning, and I realized that chill was Sabara. He’s no one, she argued, even though I recognized her lie. You were confused. You saw nothing.
Her denials only made me more certain. “Tell me how you’ve known her for so long.” My eyes narrowed as I watched him. I could see that he was trying to decide how much I knew, and how much to reveal to me. And then I said the name I’d heard when I’d been sleeping, the name Sabara had called him. “Thaddeus.”
He closed his eyes, inhaling sorrowfully as if I’d just said the sweetest word ever spoken. I was glad he could no longer see me, because just saying the name—his name—made my throat ache like it had been dragged from the very pit of my soul.
When he looked at me again, his gaze was clearer, his golden eyes—the same as ever as far as I could tell—were filled with resolve. “I shouldn’t have to tell you. You should know everything,” he said in a language that was even more ancient than the one I’d heard in my dream. Its mysterious cadence embraced me, filling every crevice of my being, making Sabara ease out of the shadows and strain toward the surface.
I struggled to keep her at bay.
“I-I only remember some of it.” I answered truthfully in Englaise, the only language—other than Parshon—that I could speak. “Only bits and parts.” I looked at him. “But I remember you. And what you meant to her. I saw what the two of you did, to her queen—her sister—in this very palace,” The words were bitter on my tongue. “So she could sit on the throne.” I closed my eyes against the images of the knife. Of Sabara trying to force the older girl to say the words: Take me instead.
But there’d been no blood. Sabara hadn’t needed the knife, even then. She’d simply lifted her fist, never even laying a finger on the other girl, and squeezed her windpipe closed using only her will.
Sabara hadn’t held that girl—that sister—as she’d lain dying. Not the way she had her real sister, the one by the river. She’d simply stepped over her limp form and slipped away, eager to take her place as queen.
Why? I’d silently asked Sabara just as I was awakening after the dream, just as I regained control of my thoughts once more. Why does it matter? Why couldn’t you let her live?
But she hadn’t answered me.
“Why?” I asked Niko now.
His fingertips lifted to stroke my cheek, a feather’s touch. Against my will, I leaned in closer, letting his hand cup my face. “You still don’t know?” he asked, again in that strange, swirling language. “You still don’t get it, do you? It was so we could be together. So I could be with you one more time.”
“Not me,” I said, and now I turned away from his touch. But even as I did, I could feel my body resisting. “Her.”
“One and the same, it seems.”
“No. Not true,” I corrected. “So, who are you? What,” I amended, “are you?”
His lips curved, but his smile was wistful. “Does it matter?”
I nodded. It did. Right now it was all that mattered.
“I’m like you. Like her.” He turned away from me, and the part of me that was Sabara followed him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
When he turned back, we were face to face. “I know,” he said, and behind his back I saw flashes coming from the windows. The storm, I thought. It must be the storm the ferryman had warned us about.
“It’s strange to explain this. Again. To you. To her.” This time he corrected himself as he switched to Englaise. “There was a time when not all royal heirs were female. It was rare, but there was an occasional male born capable of taking the throne.”
“You mean they were born with magic?” I asked breathlessly, my eyes wide.
He nodded at my incredulous expression. “I was one of those anomalies, as was my twin brother, Tobias.” His gaze grew distant. “I haven’t thought of him in . . .” His voice trailed off. “Well, forever, really.”
I waited silently, but something sparked in me. A memory—like déjà vu. I remembered hearing this before. I knew these words and the cadence of this voice.
He’d told Sabara this same story, once upon a time.
“My brother’s gift was useless. He could move things just by concentrating on them.”
“Like the Canshai masters?” I asked.
A reluctant smile pulled at his lips. “Exactly like them. My guess is that they, too, were some sort of ancient descendants of a male line of royals who were once magic. Now . . .” He shrugged. “Now, they’re extinct. Like my brother.”
“What about you? What could . . . can you do?”
He faced me, his gaze direct and unwavering. “Me?” he asked, his brows raised sardonically. “Haven’t you figured it out? I’m immortal.”