Page 42 of Heart of Night

“Wolayna Milevishja, daughter of Ivan Milevishja and Elenja Milevishja.” The way he states my name and heritage like it’s something to wonder about—or something to fear. “Haven’t you ever wondered why a king would be so close with a merchant? My father didn’t pay this much attention to all of his business partners. Your father was a very special case.”

“He traded for the Crown,” I blubber. “Special acquisitions…”

“Special tasks for a special man,” Erina agrees, but disdain is all I find in his eyes rather than the sort of admiration one would expect connected to a man deserving of a king’s attention. “My father needed to keep an eye on the last surviving male Milevishja.”

“What do you mean?” I’m trying to piece his words together into something that fits my memories of Tavaras. “There are thousands of Milevishja’s in Tavras. The name is as common as the average street merchant.”

“And for good reason.” Erina picks up the top paper from the stack behind him, putting the ring back in the box he placed beside him on the desk. “There was a time when Tavras needed to forget how special the name truly is.”

I come up blank. There is nothing special about the name… Only, there is. “Remember who your father was, Ayna,” my mother used to say. She said it even after he’d been executed and we’d moved away from the capital and prying eyes. But I was too young then to understand the meaning of her words.

By the Guardians…

“There was a line of Milevishja kings, Wolayna. You remember that, don’t you? Long before the House Jelnedyn came into power. It was a time when all Milevishja were executed until they found that hunting the heirs down caused more hatred toward House Jelnedyn. So my ancestors used a trick to make the importance of the Milevishja line disappear. Over a hundred years ago, my great-grandfather had random families in Tavras renamed to the name of the former ruling house. Merchants, farmers, nobles, even whores. The families were paid off for their silence, of course, and over the years, people stopped asking about whether someone belongs to the royal Milevishja line because, at times, every third person in the room carried that name.”

By everything that’s holy and unholy. After killing most of the royal Milevishja line, Erina’s family took away their importance by making their name common. No one thinks of the early Milevishja kings anymore when hearing the name on the streets. Not even in the palace. All traces of their rule have been erased.

“There are no royal Milevishja left when it comes to public knowledge.” Erina rolls on, and I wish I wasn’t alone with him in this room. Hopefully, Herinor is hearing all of this. I need a witness, someone who knows what’s going on, what the House Jelnedyn is capable of. “But there is one left if you know where to look. One last royal Milevishja.”

I don’t dare think for fear I already know where this is going. It can’t be.

“Your father agreed to never expose his true heritage and claim the throne of Tavras, Wolayna. That’s the reason my father allowed him to carry on his business. It’s also the reason he kept such a close eye on him.”

My father wasn’t a merchant. He was the last male royal Milevishja. I need a moment to breathe, or I’ll black out. My body is already showing me the limits after a week of barely keeping down food and constantly being drugged. This could very well be one huge hallucination, and I’ll wake with a massive headache and regrets over the last meal I’ve eaten.

“He made a mistake, though. He didn’t stick to his promise to keep his hands off the throne.” He holds out the paper for me to read, and I take it with shaky hands.

Numbers are scribbled in a table similar to the shipment papers my father used to write in his office.

No—this is one of those papers. I recognize his handwriting, the dark green ink on yellowed parchment. It’s one of the shipments for the Tavrasian King.

“Read it.” I don’t need Erina’s order. I’m already halfway through it, the blades on the wall forgotten.

One thousand Tavrasian gold in coins. Seventeen thousand silver pieces. A cerulean vase from the neighboring human province of Cezux, derived from a chest of carved oak.

I remember the shipment. Not the list or this exact paper but the contents. That’s what I witnessed him loading into the carriage. Gold, silver, and a large cerulean vase of Cezuxian making. Cerulean vases are rare, even in Cezux.

Guardians—

“Sound familiar?”

I don’t react, too busy piecing everything together. There is nothing odd about the shipment. Just usual items and money. Lots of money.

“Who was it for?”

My mind wanders back to the day the Tavrasian soldier bullied me into admitting I’d seen my father load exactly that shipment. It’s the reason he was executed for treason.

“What was in that shipment that made my father a traitor?” I don’t care if my emotions are plain on my features. This is a whole new level of intrigue. If what he’s saying is true, my father was royalty. A rightful king of Tavras. The Jelnedyn line murdered their path to the throne.

Erina’s smile is handsome and painful because the blow will land so much harder now that I understand everything might have been a lie—my entire childhood, my life, my family.

“The shipment was for an assassin to murder my father, my mother, my uncle, and … me.” The smile slips.

I grasp for the single chair next to the door, sitting without permission before I faint.

“You’re lying.” It’s the only way he can be saying this. It can’t possibly be the truth. My father would have never?—

“I’m afraid not, Wolayna, last living royal Milevishja.” Pushing away from the desk, he picks the paper from my hands and reads out loud. “To be delivered to Harian Aleji upon completion of his assignment.”