Leighton blinked back to reality, but was non-responsive, so Micah stepped in.
“Each of the kingdoms’ rulers were corrupted differently. Our father was turned intothat—” he gestured toward the darkness of the fortress, but Kestrel was thankful they couldn’t actually see him from where they stood now. “—while Signe’s transformation was only…intermittent.”
“Intermittent how?”
“Queen Signe is?—”
“Her curse is different,” Leighton said, the irritation in his voice making both Micah and her flinch. “Our father became an insatiable monster. The sultana of Vallonde was turned into an unending sandstorm. The chieftain of the Skogar Mountains transformed into a giant bear. The king of Caelora, a devastating water dragon.”
At the mention of Caelora, Kestrel’s heart stopped.
That was where Leighton said her mother had reigned, or at least it had been implied when he’d referred to Kestrel as the Princess of Caelora. But if the Corrupt Queen had been married to a king, what did that make of the man she presumed to be her father? Thom had raised her, and she had loved him, but what if he’d raised her without permission. What if the reason he’d kept her locked away from the realm was so that her real family could not find her?
Doubt clouded her mind like thick ink, but she tried preventing it from flooding. There would betime to dwell on Thom’s intentions later. For now, she wanted to hear more about the family that had been kept a secret from her.
By the time Kestrel tuned back in, Leighton was wrapping up the final curses that had befallen all nine rulers of Grimtol. His face was haunted.
“All of them turned into something terrible, monsters with the innate desire to crush their own kingdoms. All of them, except Queen Signe. At first, it seemed the curse had skipped her, for she was awoken like the rest of us when our father began tearing through the castle. But as she and the palace guards ran out after him, that was when she noticed the effects.”
When it seemed like he was just going to stop there, Kestrel pressed him for more. “What sort of effects?”
He glanced to Micah before answering. “Her curse is…alarming. But it’s just a visual side effect. Nothing more. Nothing nearly as sinister as any of the other rulers, perhaps because she wasn’t officially queen yet.”
Micah added, “And as long as she remains within the castle walls, there is no effect. She looks the same as she always has.”
Leighton nodded.
They were hiding something though, Kestrel could feel it. But she didn’t think she was going to be able to get them to say what. So instead she redirected her attention away from the curse and their now fallen father, and to the aunt she never knew she had.
“So she stayed and raised you?”
Micah shrugged, folding his hands behind his head. “Not really. We had servants for that, little bird.”
“Okay,” Kestrel said, worrying at her bottom lip. “But she stayed and ruled your kingdom?”
The brothers nodded.
Something warm like pride bloomed inside her. So her auntwas loyal and dutiful, a revered leader with a strong sense of justice. But if she was so revered, why had none of them spoken about her before? Even now, they were still being vague about her, as if talking about the woman was causing them discomfort.
Or maybe they just didn’t want to talk about her to Kestrel, worried she might still be upset—and she was. But she was also curious. And cursed sky if she wasn’t a little hopeful, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. This woman had sent the princes after Thom, the only man she’d ever known as a father. But maybe Queen Signe didn’t know that. Leighton had already said he’d been surprised when he’d found Kestrel first, so it was possible the queen didn’t know about her either.
And now he was saying she would want to speak with her. Since the woman hadn’t even raised them after the king’s exile, Kestrel wasn’t foolish enough to think it was just out of some strong sense of familial longing that she would want to meet her.
“You think she’ll want me to lift her curse,” Kestrel said, finally sorting through all the details.
“Perhaps,” Leighton said, though he had never sounded more certain of anything.
Kestrel’s gaze drifted downward. She raised her hands into view, rubbing her fingers against her upturned palms. “But I can’t break the curse. I don’t know how.”
This time, those words tasted bitter on her tongue. Even though they had felt so true before, now she was beginning to wonder. That sensation she’d felt earlier, there was power there, although dormant. It both terrified and intrigued her.
“She might be able to teach you.”
Leighton’s words made her head jerk up.
“What?”
She met his direct gaze for the firsttime since he’d abandoned her at the entrance of the fortress. And she hated it—hated the way the crystal blue of his irises comforted her. How familiar they felt. How the intense depth of them called to her and drew her in like the tide.
