I swore my face was on fire.
“Oh,” Gabrielle said, “with that reaction, I’m guessing Penn enjoyed them much more than you.”
“Enough about me.” I gave her a light shove. “Now we just need to find you someone.”
The smile disappeared from her face, and I worried I’d said the wrong thing. “No, I’m done with love.” Bitterness filled her voice.
Yes, I’d definitely said the wrong thing. “Do you want to... talk about it?”
She was silent for moment, and I thought she was going to shut me out, that I’d somehow botched this mission already.
“Yes, please.” Her voice was quiet, vulnerable, not at all like the fierce Gabrielle I was so used to.
“What happened?”
Gabrielle gestured to some rocks behind us and we sat. The clouds grew darker overhead, but I wasn’t ready to go back to the castle, not when Gabrielle was just about to open up.
“Have you heard of the pirate lord of the Dark Seas?” she asked.
My brows crinkled. “Yes, he steals magical items from the shadow court and sells them on the black market.” I paused, thinking about what Penn had told me. “He sold a powerful mirror to my stepmother. It’s how she planned her entire coup that killed my father and imprisoned me.”
Gabrielle’s eyes hardened, and I leaned forward, gathering her hands in mine and squeezing them.
“What happened with the pirate lord?”
“I fell in love with him,” she said simply, and I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped my mouth, even though it shouldn’t have been all that shocking. Gabrielle had always been the wildest of the princesses on Arathia. Fierce, adventurous, carefree. Since I’d gotten here, she’d been a shadow of her former self. Maybe what happened with this pirate lord was why.
“It was so stupid, Liliath.” She shook her head. “It was a year ago. My brothers were off on yet another adventure at sea while I was stuck here, learning how to be queen of a court that I didn’t even want to rule. I’d begged my parents to let one of my brothers rule, and of course, they told me I was the heir, the oldest, and that it was my duty to my people.”
I kept a tight hold on her hands as she continued.
“I never wanted to be chained to a crown, and I grew resentful. One day, I was out walking along the shore in a secluded part of our court, on the northern side. No one ventures out there because it’s where the sea is at its wildest. Even with our water magic, many don’t want to risk getting swept away by the volatile waves. But I love it there, where everything is untethered and free.”
She looked up at the sky, still dark, but no rain fell yet. I hoped it would stay that way, give us more time to talk. We were getting somewhere, but I hadn’t gotten all the information I needed from her yet.
“I saw a ship docking near the rocky cliffs,” Gabrielle said. “A dangerous place to dock any ship, and I realized what I was seeing. The infamous pirate lord. Here in Apolis. I should’ve reported him. Told my guards immediately and had him arrested. Instead, I let him charm me. I visited him in secret every time he came. I opened myself up to him, told him about my dreams and my hopes. I believed him when he told me I could have the future I wanted. And then he betrayed me. He’s the reason my brothers are gone, my father is gone.”
I stilled, heart beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. “What do you mean?”
“They took their shadows, Liliath. Because of him. He helped them. He’s in league with them.”
“Who?” But I knew. The only people with the ability to steal shadows.
“Sorrengard,” Gabrielle said. “There’s some mysterious king that’s risen up on the island, and he took my brothers’ shadows. Now he has them, on the island. He’s taken all the boys’ shadows. The pirate lord helped them come and steal our boys away. All in one night. Vanished.”
My eyes widened. That’s why I’d mostly only seen woman and girls. Why Gabrielle’s guards were all female. I wondered why he took only the boys, but now didn’t seem like the right time to ask.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, not knowing what else I could say.
Then I realized she’d said boys. They took the boys’ shadows. “What happened to your father? To all the men?”
“My father organized many of the men to go with him to Sorrengard and get back our boys. We haven’t seen him since. That was three months ago.”
Horror washed over me. “Have you seen the pirate lord since?”
Gabrielle looked out over the sea, like his ship might appear at any moment. “I told him if I ever saw him again I’d kill him. He hasn’t been back since. It’s another one of my failures. I should’ve driven a sword through him, but I couldn’t, not when I loved him. I did, at least, manage to steal something from him. A weapon that was important to him, a powerful weapon.”
I sucked in a breath at the mention of it. That had to be the weapon Penn was after. The one that could destroy my stepmother’s mirror.
