A Curse of Shadows

I don’t want to know more about this place. I just want to do my time here and go home, feeling proud that I’ve helped save a man’s life, one my heart tells me deserves at least that.

Our conversation replays through my mind and when I remember his reaction to me saying, “You can always ask,” I sit straight up in bed.

“Holy shit.” My head shakes and I struggle to breathe. How could I have been so…stupid, aloof, naïve? None of those feel right, but oh, my God.

“These people are centuries old.” The words tumble out in a jumble, but that doesn’t make them any less real.

I know I’ve said and heard “five hundred years” several times now, but it’s as if my mind had been protecting me from truly understanding what those three words meant to the bigger picture. Unless there’s something else that I’m missing…

Grayson says I’m his daughter and he looks about eighty, but Cain said the photo was from five hundred years ago.

How could I not have questioned that then? I mean I was overwhelmed with the surly king, having just been transported to a world that shouldn’t exist, and everything else in between, but still.

Five freaking centuries? I can’t un-know this now that the information has been highlighted within my thoughts.

This is something I need to ask Grayson about now. Even if I intend to leave this world behind and never think of it again, I know I won’t be able to let this go. Plus, Elodee will kill me for not finding this information out once I explain what the hell has happened to me. I might not have wanted to tell her everything before, but this isn’t something I can keep to myself any longer.

Before I can get up from my bed, there’s a soft knock on my door. Maybe the answers are coming to me instead of me going to them.

I expect to see Grayson on the other side, but when I twist the handle and open the door, I jump back. There’s a regal woman standing in the hallway, smiling sincerely at me as if I should know her. “Hello, Isla.”

“Uh, hi. I was, um, just headed to, um, see Grayson.” I’m not sure what to do and I probably look like a blubbering idiot, but I don’t really care after this latest revelation.

Taking in her appearance, I try to guess her age and can’t help but wonder if she’s much older than the fifty or so years she appears to be.

Her light-blue, almost-silver eyes are soft with fine wrinkles at the sides that seem to only be there because she’s grinning at me still. Her greyish-blonde hair is pinned up on her head with braids and twists. I can’t begin to understand how they’re even staying in place. She wears a silk gown, much like the one I arrived in, but silver in color, and a diamond heart pendant sits on her chest, glinting under the light from my room.

“I’m Sosheena,” she says, then adds, “Asher’s mother.”

Of course she is.

“May I come in?” she asks politely, glancing behind me.

“Sure, I guess.” Apparently, my questions for Grayson will have to wait until after whatever this is.

She enters with the grace of a queen, practically gliding over the floor as she walks past me. Hell, she probably was the queen before, considering she’s Asher’s mother, but maybe the hierarchy here doesn’t work like it does in England. Though they have similar accents, so maybe. Another thing to ask about. I should probably start making a list.

Sosheena takes it upon herself to sit at the small table on the other side of my room and waits patiently for me to take my own seat. Yeah, this is weird.

“I wanted to come by and personally welcome you to Polaris.” She smiles again, but this time, the action doesn’t quite reach her eyes as she adds, “I was friends with your mother.”

Breathing becomes harder and I tense, but I don’t know what to say. The woman in the photo next to the bed with Grayson, she isn’t my mother. Yet I still yearn to know more about her. I shouldn’t and I tell myself not to, but given the fragile hold I have on my previous revelations…there’s no stopping the words that tumble out of my mouth.

“What was her name? What happened to her? How is it possible for you people to be so damn old, but also not look that old?” I suck in a breath, then loosely cover my face as I mutter, “I’m sorry.”

She laughs and waves a hand in the air, like everything I just asked is completely normal.

“You don’t need to apologize, Isla,” Sosheena says comfortingly. “I’m not sure how much my son would appreciate me telling you, but after the bits I’ve pieced together since your arrival, something tells me that you deserve to know more, even if it’s overwhelming for you. No one should make important decisions with only pieces of the truth.”

Why does she make so much sense? As much as I don’t want to believe any of this can be real and would love to pretend that I’m still dreaming, her offer of information feels too intriguing to deny. Maybe it’s the way she’s said the words or the fact that I don’t feel anything for her—at least not the connection I do to Grayson or the irritation toward Asher—but I agree with her.

“I didn’t think I wanted to know. I’m even pretty sure I suppressed things that were outright spoken to me, but if you can tell me more, I would be very grateful now,” I say, still doing my best to breathe properly.

“Well, first let me ask this. How much do you know about reincarnation?”

I gape at her. “What now?”

I thought doppelgängers were weird enough before, but reincarnation? No, that’s not possible. Then again, I didn’t think being transported to new places and people being multiple centuries old was, either.