“We have to go faster. He is a bad man.”
Elea kicked and slapped her arm against the water as fast as she could, her grandmother breathing heavily at her side. She didn’t dare look back; the sound of the boat’s hull hitting the water was getting louder and louder. It was nearly on top of them. She swung her good arm forward and her fingers caught in a fishing net. She glanced to the side and saw that her grandmother was trapped too. Elea kicked and tried to pull free, but the net was now all the way around them both. The sailor was reeling them in like fish.
He pulled them on board like they were weightless. Elea fell on her dislocated arm and cried out. Still, she struggled to free herself from the net. The man lifted a large knife above his head; it glinted in the sunshine.
Then he brought it down toward them.
22
NORA
She was not in Dhachaigh or any of the three realms of the Eternal Kingdom. The sky was not purple, and there were no verdant evergreen fields.
Nothing but blackness.
Perhaps Màthair had not found her worthy to bring home.
Nora had broken her blood oath to Elea. She’d fallen in love with the prince, who was legally married to her cousin. She hadn’t meant to. She didn’t know who Matteo was when she first met him and he assumed that Nora was his wife. With only two violet-haired princesses in the world, it was an easy mistake to make.
A forgivable folly.
She’d kissed him to distract him because she’d accidentally shown him her unnatural strength. But once his lips had met hers, all strategies were forgotten. All secrets were unveiled. She had felt safe in his arms.
The kiss had caused the wedge between her and Elea that had separated them completely. Sometimes Nora wondered if Matteo had met Elea first, would everything have gone differently. Rightly. If he would have loved Elea instead. Consummated the marriage with Elea like the treaty demanded.
Nora truly didn’t know. The only thing she knew for certain is that she would have loved Matteo regardless. He was the only person in the world who made her feel whole. He’d followed her onto rooftops and danced with Nora in shadows. And like her namesake, Eleanora, her heart once given could not be taken back. Just like the shards of her soul.
At only eight, she’d stood in the sacred diagram, the Holy Trigon, and sliced her own hand with the dagger. She’d given a piece of her soul to Elea.
In return, she had received a piece of her cousin’s soul.
Since Elea was still alive, was her soul keeping Nora tethered to her dead body? To the earth?
She saw a small light in the distance.
Nora blinked and blinked.
The light came closer and closer. She saw Queen Maria, who was holding a candle, and Prince Alexandre stood behind her. The room was still dark, but she could see that they were in the dungeon. The pair walked into her cell and Nora saw her own body illuminated. She was slumped in the steel chains, a pool of blood on the floor.
Dead.
Nora screamed, but Queen Maria and Prince Alexandre didn’t seem to hear her. How could they? She was no longer inside her skin. Nothing but a wraith floating above it.
“Hand me the keys, quickly!” Queen Maria yelled.
Prince Alexandre fumbled with a set of keys. The queen grabbed them from his hands and first unlocked the manacles on Nora’s feet and then her neck.
“You need to catch her body,” she said in a calmer voice.
The prince walked behind her inanimate form and held out his hands gingerly.
Queen Maria unlocked her left-wrist chains and then her right. Nora’s lifeless body crumpled into Alexandre’s arms. He lowered her gently to the floor, her head in his lap. Nora’s face was a mess. Her left eye and cheek were swollen, and blood was all over her lips. The sores from the chains were covered in dried blood and yellow with infection. But it was the wound in her stomach that had caused her death. She’d lost too much blood.
“It’s too late, Mother,” Alexandre said.
He was still wearing his own bloody shirt, but she could clearly see a bandage at his collar. The wound must not have been deep.
“It’s not,” Queen Maria insisted. “She’s got the blood of a goddess in her. She can’t be dead. We need her to be alive if you have any hope of keeping your crown.”