The Royal Hunter (31 page)

Talia had no idea what to say to that.

“As you have also discovered,” she went on, “you are not a healer. That is not the source of our connection.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did your mother marry after leaving this time?”

“No, she never did.”

“Did you wonder who your father was? Did you perhaps come back in hopes of discovering who he was?”

“I have wondered, of course, but no, actually, I never thought of looking for him here.” She was somewhat surprised about that, given what she and Devin had talked about the night before. But it had never even occurred to her. “Do 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 assume 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 God.” 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 crashing over her.
“Dear God.”
It couldn’t be.

King Cynan 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 relationship.”

“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.”

“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 passageways 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
assignations 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, assuming 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 assure 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 shifted away. “My God,” 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 title 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 rushing 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 my 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.”

“I hardly think that’s the same thing.”

The queen’s expression sharpened, as well. “It’s more training than I have.” She held Talia’s gaze with her own steely one. “You are the only one who carries the blood of my son and my father … and me, inside you. Don’t you see, Talia? You are the only one.”

Talia shot to her feet. “You don’t even know me! How can you trust me with something like this?”

“You’re my sister. You are a Dalwyn, Talia. Perhaps not purely, but what is not Dalwyn is Trahaern, the most trusted servant to a Dalwyn. How can I not trust you?” She held out her hand once again. “I must trust you.”

Talia stumbled back behind the chair. “I need to—I need to think. I can’t think.”

Catriona lay there pale and wasting, and yet the fierce light of determination remained as powerful as ever in her eyes. Talia saw the strength then, the strength of a woman who had somehow managed, despite her youth and failing health, to rule a country. Talia was in awe of her. And completely terrified that this same woman would place all her hopes and
dreams on Talia’s so eminently unqualified shoulders.

Suddenly the queen’s assistant was beside her again. She hadn’t even seen her approach. “Marletta, see Talia back to her room.”

“But—”

“You can do this, Talia,” the queen said, fatigue clear in her voice now, as was the pain. “We will speak of it again later. For now I must have rest.”

Talia felt as if her world were spinning and indeed it was as Marletta helped her from the room.

A
rcher sprawled on one of the lounges, his demeanor deceptively casual as he watched guards oversee the clearing of the supper service that had awaited them upon Talia’s return from seeing the queen. He was deeply worried about her and still trying to absorb the bombshell she’d dropped.

All dozen of them, from the apparent involvement of Emrys and Catriona’s late mother, Her Royal Highness Gwendolen, in Eleri’s death, to Talia’s royal blood tie to Catriona, to the stunning request of the queen that Talia take her place and raise her child. He could hardly take it all in. He had no idea how Talia could be handling all this.

She was pacing in front of the fireplace, her food mostly untouched. Once the guards and palace personnel had finished and left, he rose and caught her in mid-stride, rubbing the shoulders she held so rigidly. “What can I do to help you? Tell me and I’ll do it.” He’d never felt so helpless, or so angry. Angry at Catriona for the horrifically unfair position she’d placed Talia in. Had he had any idea that was the fight she’d intended when she rang for Talia …