Part 41 (2/2)

you know who he is? Is he-?” She couldn't get the words past a suddenly tight throat.But Catriona was already shaking her head. ”He is no longer living.”Her breath caught. ”Then you know who he was?””Oh, yes. Tell me this. Do you have a birthmark? Anywhere on you, the shape of a small crescent moon?”Talia shrank back in her seat, mortified beyond belief. ”You were watching!”Catriona looked confused, then actually laughed. It ended on a wrenching cough that had Talia leaping from her seat.

The queen managed to wave her away. ”It's all right,” she rasped. ”Sit, sit.”

She took a moment to recover her breath. ”I a.s.sume you mean that you think the room you shared with Mr. Archer last night was monitored. It is, as are all

rooms in this castle save my chamber and the healer's. But trust that no one was watching you last night.”

Talia let out a relieved laugh of her own. ”Thank G.o.d.” Then she sat up again.

”Then how did you know-?”

The queen lifted her hand and drew her gown off her shoulder. There, above her right breast, was a small crescent moon. She smiled at Talia. ”It's hereditary. From our father.”

Talia's mouth open and shut several times, but nothing came out as the reality of what she was insinuating came cras.h.i.+ng over her. ”Dear G.o.d.” It couldn't be.

King Gynan was her father. Her father was a king. All those fairy tales her mother had told her about a brave king who would treasure a little girl who could talk to animals... she'd never once guessed.

”We are sisters, Talia,” Catriona said. ”Half sisters, but sisters to be certain.

And that is why you will never be a healer. Had any other fathered you, you would have retained your mother's skills. But royal blood can never mix with a healer's blood. It ends the line.”

Talia sat back limply in the chair, her skin cold and clammy. Her mother had left because she'd been carrying the king's child. Her! She couldn't grasp it all, it was too much. ”Why didn't she tell me?” Though Talia realized now that in her own way, she had. ”And wouldn't she have known I wouldn't have her skills?”

”I can't say, though I would imagine she did know. At least my father would certainly have told her, had he known.” She stopped and frowned.

”What?””Maybe he never knew about you. It's possible she also realized that if she gave birth to you here, once it became apparent that you didn't have her skills... people would know of their relations.h.i.+p.”

”So she left to protect me and your-our-father.””I don't know. We'll never know.”

Talia was still trying to take all this in. ”But you knew. How long have you

known?”

”I never even knew of your existence until yesterday, though now I am amazed I never put it together.”

”What do you mean?”

”My father spent his whole life searching for your mother. He made it out to be his royal duty to his healer, but my mother soon suspected it was more. He never gave up looking, not really. He was convinced she'd traveled through time and it was largely through my mother's behind-the-scene efforts that he

was not taken seriously. Though my father denied the affair, she was quite jealous and her bitterness colored everything she did.

”I'm ashamed to say that I allowed it to color my perception of my father, as

well. Not that I knew of the love affair, I only knew my mother held some deep-seated resentment toward him and it filtered down to me. I was the recipient of her diaries upon her death and the details were all there. It was a well-guarded secret. No one ever knew. And naturally I never told anyone.”

She fell silent, her focus drifting inward. ”All those years,” she said softly.

”Wasted. I should have trusted him, or at least given him a chance.” Catriona looked back at her. ”Now that I think back on it, I'm sure my father never knew. If he had known Eleri carried his child, nothing would have stopped him from doing whatever it took to find her, even if it meant destroying his kingdom to do it.” She shook her head. ”I know my mother never knew. No one knew Eleri was leaving until it was too late. I was stunned when you told me who you were.”

Talia knew exactly how she felt.

”I will admit my first reaction was suspicion,” she went on. ”You were being

somewhat evasive and it all seemed too neat a package. I'll apologize to you now, but when I saw you and Archer had grown... well, close, I put you in that room for the sole reason of obtaining a pure sample of your DNA. I had it tested while you were in your mother's room.” She talked over Talia's gasp. ”I know it seems rather calculated, but there is a great deal at stake here and I'd do far more than that to ensure that I'm not being drawn into a trap.”

”Trap?”

”If you had indeed figured out that you had Dalwyn blood in your veins, then

it was reasonable to suspect you might be in cahoots with Chamberlain to take over the throne.”

Talia's jaw dropped. ”You've got to be kidding.”

”I had to be cautious. The only curious thing was that you did not use your

empathic skills to connect with me, probe me for your own gain. In fact, you seemed to fight against it.”

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