“You actually look like him,” Casteel’s mother whispered, and my head swung in her direction. “Even if I hadn’t seen the power radiating from you, I would’ve known exactly who you came from. You have many of his features and his hair—though his was a shade of red that carried more brown in it, and his skin was a little darker than yours.”

I could feel the blood slowing in my veins. “I was always told that I looked like my mother—”

“By who?” she asked.

“By…” Queen Ileana had told me that. Ever since I could remember, she’d said that I was a replica of my mother when she was my age. I never once questioned that growing up, and even though I was beginning to suspect that at least one of my parents wasn’t related to me by blood, I’d never truly thought it was my mother.

Casteel stared at me for a moment and then turned to his mother and father. “What are you saying?”

“What we’re saying is that it’s impossible for the ones you believed to be your parents to be who you remember them to be.” King Valyn’s tone was softer than what I even imagined him being able to accomplish. “Or they were not your parents at all. Because we know who one of them was.”

The sympathy that radiated from the Queen nearly choked me. “Malec had to have been your father, Penellaphe.”

Chapter 27

I stared at Casteel’s parents, caught in a cyclone of confusion and disbelief. I wanted to stand, but Casteel still held onto my hand tightly. And where could I go?

“For you to have your abilities, you have to be the child of a deity and not just share their blood,” King Valyn explained in that same gentle way. “And it also means that neither of your parents could’ve been mortal.”

I inhaled sharply. “What?”

“There’s simply no way that you were ever mortal,” Queen Eloana said, her gaze searching mine. “That doesn’t mean that the mother you knew isn’t your mother. It just means that she was never mortal.”

I shook my head as my brain rapidly tried to process this new information. “But wouldn’t Alastir have known that? He met her.”

Queen Eloana lowered her gaze, and I knew then that she had said what she had to lessen the impact.

My stomach hollowed. “Don’t do that—don’t lie to soften the blow. I appreciate it. I do.” And I did. It meant that she cared in some fashion about my feelings. “But I need to know the truth. I need to face it.”

A measure of respect rippled through the Queen as she nodded. “He would’ve known if the woman he met was not mortal.”

“It also means that Leopold couldn’t have been Malec.” Kieran had moved to perch on the arm of the settee. “Alastir would’ve known and would’ve said as much.”

I focused on taking deep, even breaths as I reminded myself that I had already suspected that at least one of my parents hadn’t been related to me by blood. I’d even started to accept that, and I…I could accept this. But Malec as my father? Something didn’t add up about that. But my thoughts were too much of a whirlwind to figure out what that was at the moment.