Page 93 of Crown of the Courtesan

“Oh. I’m all right. A little sore. Though I’d feel better if I knew what this place was.” I motion to the wall of white trees surrounding us.

He eyes them as if he’s forgotten how out of the ordinary they are. “We are currently at a worship site that predates the construction of Spirit-Fae Cathedrals. Before the priestesses exploited the Spirit Goddess.”

Combined with Valora’s earlier sentiments, their accusations should scandalize me, but the priestesses haven’t left me with much desire to defend them, and this wasn’t particularly shocking information. It’s no secret they took advantage of courtesans under the pretense of grandeur and religion, but it’s disheartening that not even a goddess could escape their machinations.

I look upward at the rustling, silver foliage. “What are these trees called?”

He wears a sad half-smile as if my question amuses him. “They are the Devana trees. They share a name with the northernmost people of my kingdom. This outcrop is the last of them this far south.”

“I’ve never seen anything like them before. I’m assuming these trees hold magic?”

“We don’t discuss such matters with foreigners.”

Something about his dismissal bothers me. “You didn’t mind using me to get information from their fire, but I’m not worthy enough to learn more about them?”

“That’s different.”

I roll my eyes. One of the luminescent bugs lands on the tip of my finger. I decide to ignore Ashland and instead inspect this little creature as it rustles its shimmering wings over its chubby body. It’s beautiful in a strange way.

Coming closer, Ashland says, “Those are silverflies. They live only where the Devana trees grow, feasting on their sap.” Many of them float around us, blinking their lights on and off through the night.

He watches me shoo it from my fingertip with a breath of air. Hesitation mixed with an unreadable emotion wavers in his gaze. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. It’s been weighing on my mind pretty heavily.”

“Oh, what about?” I force myself to ask.

“It’s regarding this place and your past. You have more of a connection to it than you realize. It would be wrong of me not to tell you while we’re here.”

Apprehension sinks into my stomach, but I swallow and slowly manage, “Just say it.”

“It’s about your mother, the Courtesan Queen.”

I nod, encouraging him, but barely so. I don’t know if I have the strength to talk about her, but I also don’t have the strength not to.

“Long ago, I was here as a young boy, traveling with my family.” He hesitates. “There’s no easy way to say this, but that’s when I found your mother dying on the banks of this hot spring.” He clears his throat, waiting for a response, but I freeze, every muscle in my body growing rigid. “…after I figured out who she was, I did what any young boy would do and fetched help from my parents. But when we returned, there was no trace of her, not even footprints in the mud. It was like seeing a ghost. One minute she was there, the next gone.”

I stare at him.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I shake my head, my mind buzzing.

“Tabitha, I don’t think she’s dead.”

Forty-Two

“I always knew there was a chance, but I didn’t think it possible.” My breath catches. A familiar sickness swirls in my stomach again, but I push it down. “Why did you keep this from me? Did my mother say anything to you?”

“I didn’t know you well enough to discuss something so intimate,” Ashland says. “But it’s different now, between us.”

My heart beats a little faster. “That’s no excuse⁠—”

“I’m not even sure my suspicions are true. She could have run off from the springs and died somewhere else for all we know. As for what she said, it was nothing but incomprehensible nonsense, but it was obvious who she was. Copies of her portrait had been circulated through every town and village in the Human Realm after her marriage. The Courtesan Queen was incredibly popular with the commonfolk. A beacon of change, some called her.”

Could it be possible Theodora has been alive this whole time, hiding? Confusion and hurt twist around my heart. How could she abandon Alexandria—abandon me—if she still lives?

Stifling my emotions, I turn away from him and softly confess, “I seldom know how to react or feel when I learn something new about her, even something as important as this. Since I never knew her, she almost doesn’t seem real.”

“Take refuge in the fact that even when a person knows their parents, they still don’t seem real sometimes.” The pity in his voice makes me want to fall beneath the water and never come back up.