Page 229 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

I was bracing myself when Marlana popped around the threshold and gushed, “Oh, sissy!!” She threw her arms around me, and my body locked rigid as storm-cloud eyes filled my mind. “You look so much better!”

I forced a tight smile. Or what I thought was a smile. I wasn’t really sure of much at the moment.

Noticing my stiff shoulders and expression, she grimaced. “Sorry. Not a touchy-feely person. Got it.”

A booming laugh, warm arms thrown wide beneath a grizzly bear grin.

A curvy little blonde woman with vibrant blue eyes, curled up on the sofa, her fingers in my hair.

Unkempt russet waves and mischievous amber eyes, his arm thrown around my shoulder with a lopsided smirk.

That wasn’t right… was it?

“We’ll have to remember that,” she said airily, brushing her fingers over my shoulders as though dusting away the unwanted embrace. “Come on. Ro is going to be so excited to see you up and moving. Prepare yourself, though. He’ll likely have the cooks make every single item in their arsenal. You better be ready to eat.”

Nodding, throat thick, I followed her out of the wrecked chambers. “Sorry,” I muttered as we passed the overturned mattress. Marlana waved a hand dismissively, like she was shooing a fly.

“Disorientation is part of waking up, darling. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t react on instinct. Honestly, I’m just pleased you didn’t stab anybody.”

“Who…” I cleared my throat, wetting my lips as my eyes fell to the too-thin legs beneath the red fabric of this dress. To the bony hips and the gap between… my quads? “Um, Marley?”

“Yes, poppet?”

“Who am I?”

She whirled on me, eyes wide. “Oh my god! Forgive me. It’s been a while since I had a calling. You’re Elizabeth—the last time you walked this world freely, you were a warrior, darling. A vicious one, at that. They called you the Angel of Death. I’m Marlana—but you know that already—Marlana Balaskas. In this life, I’m your sire, sweetie.”

Sire.

Winter blue eyes sparkling with humor, that ear-to-ear smile, a laugh I felt in my bones.

“For your own sake, stick to Elly in these walls until we can get your memories back. We don’t want you attracting unwanted attention.”

As Marlana turned, I narrowed my eyes on her platinum hair but followed her into what could only be called a castle.

I might’ve been incognizant, but two questions kept ringing through my mind: who am I, and why was she lying about it?

Aren

“I still say it proves nothing,” Brody insisted, shaking his head. “Millions of people have green eyes, Lana. Particularly in the U.K.”

We’d spent two grueling days debating the Bellpost theory, sorting through as much of the castle as we could while trying to respect a long-dead queen who notoriously haunted the place. Lana only grew more irritated every time we tried to rationalize the portrait of young Adrastos with the girl Magnolia assumed was his twin.

Allegedly, while posing as Bellamy and his ‘cousins,’ the three of them had spun a tale about a princess called Elizabeth. A detail the assassin certainly hadn’t missed.

“And I still say you’re delusional,” Lana growled, sorting through journals. “Ally just so happened to pick the bitch’s name as her favorite alias—an alias she only ever chose when she was the one kicking down doors and leading the charge? I don’t fucking buy it.”

It was odd, the things Rhiannon’s curse preserved or enhanced. The portraits, for instance, looked as though they’d been cast days ago rather than centuries. Books, journals, art, furniture in the rooms we could enter—much the same. I couldn’t attest to the others. Some doors were sealed behind thorns woven over vines thicker than my wrists, the whole mass shifting whenever we got too close.

“It could be a coincidence,” Mags offered. She still looked like she’d seen a ghost, though. For her, staring at magically enhanced portraits of the man who betrayed her was probably equivalent to being haunted every time we turned a corner.

I’d kill him just for violating her like that.

“She spared him, witch. Get it through your head—there are no coincidences. That motherfucker lives because Alvara let him. Twice.”

“Come on, Lana,” I coaxed, flipping a page in the journal sitting on my lap. Damn, my ass was tired of the hardwood. Frankly, I was a little too terrified of Rhiannon to sit on her furniture, even after her gifts of food and warm water.

“You come on,” she griped.