Part 42 (1/2)

”I was protecting myself. I didn't know what I was walking into.”

”You also seemed rather earnest, if uncertain, about helping me. You could have been faking that, but I didn't think so. I observed you in the pa.s.sageways and the antechamber with Archer, watched as you prepared yourself to enter your mother's room. Your demeanor is not that of a predator. Then, when you arrived today and the connection was instantaneous, I knew all I had to know.

You truly had no idea, did you?”

Talia shook her head, amazed at the intrigues and a.s.signations that had been swirling around her, all without her knowledge or suspicion. ”Archer was right,” she muttered. ”I'm not cut out to survive at court.”

”You will learn.”

Talia's head jerked up. ”Surely you don't still think I want to take what is not

-” Catriona's expression smoothed, but her eyes were lit with an inner light. Talia recognized it. It was hope. ”I know you didn't come here planning to be part of the royal family, but here you are anyway. And seeing that you are here, you must take your rightful place in it.” If Talia had thought herself panicked over the burden of healing this young woman, she was completely overwhelmed now. ”You can't be serious.” Catriona frowned. ”Surely when you returned, a.s.suming you were the royal healer, you intended to stay here? Your position has merely undertaken an extreme transformation.” She smiled. ”No need to look so horrified. I a.s.sure you I will set everything up before I die.” Talia leaped to her feet. ”How can you say that? And how can you talk about your own death so cavalierly? I am not royalty, despite what my DNA says. I am not cut out to run anything more than my animal shelter back home in Connecticut, year two thousand and one.” She paced. ”Please don't think me ungrateful, but I came here planning to do whatever I could to help you, then go back home.”

”This is your home.” A touch of the imperious returned to her tone. ”This is where you belong.” Her tone softened as she touched her stomach. ”We are your family. Your only family.”

Family. What about her mother's family? There was only one person she knew that her mother had been close to. Baleweg. But she'd asked him about her father and believed even now he hadn't known. Or he'd have known she wasn't a healer. But someone had known, someone had suspected. Or had Eleri merely been paranoid to think someone would try to find her and kill her or her half-royal child? Then a part of what Catriona had told her of her own mother, about her bitterness, came back to her and she looked to the queen, a sick feeling in her stomach. ”Are you sure your mother never knew about me?

Or suspected?”

The queen stilled. ”Why do you ask?”

”Because someone knew. Someone tried to kill my mother here. It's why she left. And she was concerned later; that's why she moved us around so much.”

She gasped as she put the rest together. ”And whoever knew must have used the Dark One's powers to have her followed. Baleweg honored her request to be left alone and I believe him. Which leaves Emrys as the only other one who

could have followed her through time.” She thought about the car crash that had claimed her mother's life. ”And perhaps killed her.”

”And you think my mother was behind this?” Catriona's face grew even paler.

”Who else would have hated Eleri enough? Was your mother in Cynan's life

before my mother left?”

The queen nodded. ”They weren't romantically linked then, but soon after.”

She paused and rubbed at her belly.

Talia, despite the series of shocks she had been subjected to, felt immediately

contrite. ”I'm sorry, I shouldn't be questioning this now. You had nothing to do with that and no one can possibly know for sure. It's all in the past.”

The queen wasn't listening to her. ”You think your mother was murdered?””I never did before. I'm-This is all just too much to deal with. I'm imagining things.”

”Your mother didn't think so. You say she moved you often.” The queen fell silent. ”Maybe my mother did suspect. As much as I hate to say this, she would be the type to do whatever necessary to ensure that Eleri never came back, especially with a child carrying royal blood.” She seemed to slump

down in the bed and Talia hurried to her side, but stopped short of touching her when the queen s.h.i.+fted away. ”My G.o.d,” Catriona whispered brokenly. ”The Dark One... he must have known. And when the time was right, he made sure Chamberlain knew.”

Talia took her hand then, steeled against the rage of pain but allowed it to invade her anyway, giving the queen any respite she could as she dealt with the blow of her mother's apparent vengeance. ”Baleweg says the Dark One doesn't care about the throne or Chamberlain. It's all just a game to him. He enjoys toying with lives, Baleweg's specifically. It was Baleweg's connection to my mother that likely drew him into this in the first place.”

Catriona looked up to her then and Talia was shocked by the fierce light she saw in her sister's eyes. ”Well, he won't toy with my life!” She pulled free from Talia's grasp then and struggled to sit taller in her bed. She waved away Talia's hand.

”Your Highness-”

”That is your t.i.tle too now, you know. And we will thwart them all because of it. Or you will.” Talia opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again as she felt the blood rus.h.i.+ng from her head. She sat heavily in the chair next to the bed. ”I... I can't - I'm not-”

”You are. And you will. At least until nay son is of age to take over. My son.

Your nephew.”

Talia's gaze followed Catriona's to her distended stomach and terror filled her

at what the queen was suggesting. ”You will raise my son, protect him. You will raise him as the next ruler of this country, to continue the legacy of the House of Dalwyn. A legacy you are now a part of.”

Talia began to shake, but she couldn't look away from the mound of blankets

that covered the next king. ”I don't know anything about how to be ruler. And I know even less of being a mother.”

”You say you run an animal shelter. Your maternal instincts are there.”