‘I hope so,’ she half whispered, the words tasting stale in her mouth. The idea of being illegitimate, of not belonging to the royal bloodline, made her feel foolish to think of being queen.

‘Are you OK, Sapphire? Truly?’

The question picked away at the wound she had been trying so desperately to close.

‘It is … a lot. But Evera has been helpful. Every day I feel more adjusted.’

He sighed beside her. ‘I wish more than anything that I could give you back the time we’ve lost. But time is not one to easily bend – even for us.’ A small half-smile appeared on his lips.

‘Do you know how I ended up in Witrotean?’

The question was a test to see if Kip’s answers would align with the story Araxia had sewn into her heart from the beginning.

Kip didn’t look irritated or even caught off guard, but instead, he offered her a small smile. ‘I wondered when you would ask me this.’

Her heart flew into her throat as Kip shifted beside her.

‘Your mother faced many health problems when it came to her pregnancy. And when you were born, worse ones followed.’ He paused to look at her like he was trying to memorize her, as though she might slip away once again.

‘I need you to understand, there was no other option.’

Despite the warm breeze, a cold sweat broke out across her brow as she waited for a misstep that would destroy everything she had come to know.

‘We called upon a Shadow Witch, and we begged her to save you. Dark Magic, yes, but it was the only answer.’

The king looked small and embarrassed by the admission.

‘When the ritual happened, something went wrong. One minute you were there – a beautiful baby – and the next you weren’t, not even a puff of smoke. We begged the Shadow Witch to return you but she claimed she had no idea what happened. We pressed her for weeks, but she never offered us any explanation, and held firm all the way to her execution. We spent weeks in your nursery mourning what we had lost.’ His voice hitched like he was fighting back tears. ‘We held you in our arms for three minutes before you disappeared.’

‘Did you ever look for me? Or did that room just become a place of mourning for what could have been?’ she whispered, watching as the sun rose in the sky.

‘Every minute of every day for the last eighteen years, we looked for you, sweet girl,’ he said, his breath ragged. ‘We never stopped.’

She felt her shoulders relax. Only Kip and Araxia would know what happened within those castle walls. So, with a small exhale, she let go of the inferior gossip and found the peace she needed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR