Page 134 of Bedeviled

Now unease drips down my spine.

“You said ‘amage.’” My own words are uncertain.

I see Memnon’s throat slightly constrict. “I said far more than that,” he admits.

Disbelief washes through me. Something cannot be wrong with our bond. But then, I recall how Memnon’s voice seemed to die away earlier with his warning.

Now the two of us stare at one another, and I can see the fear on his face, but I can only sense a whisper of it—and even that might be my own emotions.

With horror, realization dawns on me.

“It was the drink,” I say. I remember the pale purple wine and the tingly, electric way it made my magic feel inside me. It didn’t poison me, but it did do something.

“What was in it?” Memnon asks.

I shake my head, wanting to scream at myself. “I don’t know. It was fae wine.”

Memnon’s brows draw together. “There are stories about not consuming fae food and drink, but we have had many of Eislyn’s wines in the past.”

“This wine was purple,” I admit.

I don’t know that we ever drank wine that particular hue before.

“Eislyn did also drink it,” I add. I wasn’t at least that senseless.

I glance around, sure that if I could find the label, it might explain a bit more about what exactly I imbibed.

But though there is plenty of blood splashed across the floor of my room, there is no spilled wine, nor broken shards of the bottle or the glass I drank from.

Before Eislyn left, she cleaned up.

I try to remember the translated fae words. One of them was Syrinx, and there was another word that started with a T, and then a final word that was Amor-something. And though the translated words looked vaguely Latin and Greek in origin, they still didn’t mean anything recognizable to me.

I grip Memnon’s hand and shake my head. “Forget about the wine for a moment. Eislyn doesn’t fully understand what happened two thousand years ago. She understands that she and I both forgot our pasts, but I’m not even sure she knows that I did actually die.”

Memnon searches my eyes as the rest of the encounter with Eislyn comes tumbling out. My words are a poor imitation for the full memory, but I try to recount it as best I can.

And there’s one part, one small but devastating detail, that I remember only after I’ve finished retelling the whole incident.

I squeeze Memnon’s hand, swallowing down my queasiness.

“Eislyn told me that, when I was Roxilana, I—I killed our children with my use of dark magic.”

My soul mate scowls, studying my face. “You didn’t kill them,” he reassures me.

I want to believe him—I desperately do—but the first time I was pregnant, there had been a battle, one I fought in. And I had used dark magic as Roxilana. I’d used it all the time to fight and defeat my enemies, not knowing any better.

I’d had a miscarriage shortly after that first conflict. I’d then fought almost continuously after that, through the several, childless years I spent ruling Sarmatia with Memnon.

I’d only gotten pregnant again after I was kept from armed conflict. That was about the time I stopped leaning on dark magic.

Sickness rises in me as I nod. “I think Eislyn was telling the truth.” My jaw trembles.

Memnon places a hand on my cheek. “Don’t suffer for her words, est amage,” he says. “If it is true, then now we know.” He shakes his head. “But the past is in the past. We cannot change it, and we have spilled enough tears over it already.”

I swallow, nodding.

He leans forward and kisses away the wetness on my cheeks—tears I hadn’t realized I’d cried.