The governor's home was really too small for the important rebels, valkyries and elves to inhabit, but it was their only option. No one was particularly interested in lodging their conquerors so the houses of the dead would have to do.
The halls were empty at this time of night, though, so Jasper still had the corridors to himself. He wandered through the palace aimlessly, barely registering the endless wealth that he could have never dreamt of when he was just a rebel in the Midlands. A lifetime ago, when his whole world was an expanse of desert and a rebellion that seemed to be constantly accumulating graves.
He paused by the door to his mother's room, and for a moment he thought he would open it. For a moment he felty himself needing to let the truth pour out, painful and horrible as it was. The moment passed and he was left staring at a moonlit door he could never bring himself to open.
How could you tell your aunt that you had betrayed everything she loved and fought for? That you destroyed everything she had worked for for sixteen years? That you had the blood of your father and friends on your hands?
How could you ever be such a coward, such a traitor, as to hide it from her?
"Can't sleep?" called a voice from behind him. He whirled around to see familiar blue eyes staring at him in the darkness. Myra
"Just thinking," he replied.
"Likewise," she said and sighed.
"What about?"
"Someone who asks too many questions," she answered, a weak retort at best. "Just someone back...home."
"Why aren't they here?" he asked.
"She's a Keeper, not a warrior."
"A friend?"
"Not exactly..." she said absently.
"I see..." he said.
"My daughter, you imbecile!" she retorted, going red
"You have a daughter?"
"Yes. Why so surprised?"
"You never struck me as...motherly. And I still don't understand how valkyrie children walk out of the sea," Jasper complained. "So, you...adopted her?"
"Yes."
"What's her name?"
"Kestra."
"Isidore?"
"Lluvia. She's not an Isidore-the name isn't hereditary. It belongs to the Heirs and the Queens only."
"She isn't your Heir?"
"The title is given through merit, not ancestry. She's a Keeper anyway-couldn't be my heir if we all wanted her to be."
"So, who is your heir?"
"General Ruby was." A flicker of pain flashed in her eyes. She hadn't spoken about the general at all since she had fallen. "Unofficially, of course. Only Vera and Viktoria have official heirs."
"You and..."
"None of your business. The Keeper Heir's identity is secret, thank you very much."
"Even to members of the War Council?"
"You're human, Jasper. Viktoria and Vera would kill me if I told you who she was."
"So, it's a she?"
"Of course, it's a she. It's an all-female nation, Jasper! It couldn't very well be a he, could it?"
YOU ARE READING
Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)
Fantasy'Medea Crimson took a deep breath, walked into the abyss and died. It wasn't for the first time.' Completed, first in the Lost Continent Series. Three Kingdoms on the brink. A war on the horizon. The peoples of the Lost Continent are forever divided...
