Chapter 37. Twenty Years of Searching, One Terrible First Impression

Chapter 37: 37. Twenty Years of Searching, One Terrible First Impression

She raised her tear-streaked face and looked at me with such complete... fervent devotion that I took a step backward.

"You are very kind," she said. "You are kinder than I deserve..."

I take a deep breathe and let it out. "Hahhhh... Yes, great, now... can everyone calm down?"

Magnara cleared her throat.

"Perhaps," she said dryly, "you two should get dressed ’properly’ first."

I’d love to tell you that the next five minutes were dignified. But fuck no... They weren’t.

Millie and I stood in opposite corners of the room, facing opposite walls, scrambling to put on our clothes while four women pretended not to listen.

I put my shirt on backward, noticed halfway through, and had to take it off again, which produced a tiny muffled giggle from Millie’s direction.

Her ears were trembling so hard that I could hear them rustle against the wall.

"D-don’t look," she squeaked. "We can’t do it with people around..."

"I’m not looking! I’m facing a very interesting piece of masonry," I said and thought. ’There’s no way I can fuck her again with that other bunnykin nearby.’

"Are you sure...?"

"It’s a great wall... Beautiful craftsmanship."

I heard her snort, followed by a rustle and a muffled "Okay, I’m decent."

When I turned around, she had managed to put on her gray dress and tame most of her hair, and she was standing by the bed with her hands tucked behind her back and her eyes fixed on the floor.

She looked like a girl who wanted to disappear into the cracks.

I walked over and, without saying anything, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She peeked up at me through her lashes.

Then she smiled with a very small, very shy smile, and everything in the room felt a little lighter for me. I don’t know why, but today... it’s going to be a great day because of Millie.

"I told you this would be terrible," I whispered.

"It’s not that bad."

"A woman with a knife tried to behead me."

"It’s a little bit funny, hehehe."

"I’m going to remember you said that because that’s the rarest thing you ever said to me."

...

We sat around the low table in the front room, all five of us crammed into a space designed for about three.

Magnara took up one entire side by herself, and Elsbeth had settled into the corner by the window with her sword across her knees.

Millie sat beside me, her fingers laced through mine under the table, while the bunny woman knelt across from us on the floor and refused all offers of a chair.

"Allow me to introduce myself... My name is Bonette," she said. "I am a handmaid of the House of Lunhare, and I have served the royal line since before Her Highness was born."

She said it with great dignity, and I tried very hard not to stare at her bedhead.

"For twenty years... I have searched for the princess," Bonette continued. "I walked through every slave market between the southern coast and the northern passes."

"I questioned traders, hunters, smugglers, and corrupt officials... Whenever I found a trace, it had already gone cold."

"By the time I arrived in each town... she had been sold again, and again... and always to people who did not know what she was."

Millie’s fingers tightened on mine.

"But last night..." Bonette said, "...I already knew that something’s changed."

She touched her chest, just below her collarbone. "The queen placed a thread inside my soul on the night she sent me away..."

"A moon-thread... It has hung there, silent and cold, for twenty years."

"I could feel that it was connected to the princess, but it never moved... It was like holding a rope that had no other end." Her voice trembled. "Then, last night... it began to vibrate."

"For the first time in two decades, it pulled... I followed it across the mountains without sleeping, and it led me to this city... a city perfect for the protection of all beastwomen."

’Last night,’ I thought, and my stomach did something unpleasant.

[Lunhare Seal: 1 of 3 weakened.]

I glanced at Millie.

She was staring at the table with her ears drooping, and I could see she’d made the same connection. Her cheeks were pink all the way to the tips.

’Did one of the seals cause it because of me... having sex with her...?’

"What exactly changed?" Elsbeth asked in a tone that suggested she already suspected the answer and wanted to hear it stated explicitly.

Bonette folded her hands. "I believe a seal has weakened... And there is something else."

Her voice dropped. "A thread that can pull me from across the continent can also pull others."

"If the princess’s seal is no longer fully hiding her, then her trail is no longer fully hidden..."

A cold quiet settled over the room.

"So anyone with the right magic," I said slowly, "could find her and know what she is...?"

"That’s right... Anyone with the right knowledge," Bonette agreed.

Millie hadn’t said anything for a while. She kept her eyes on the table, and when she finally spoke, her voice was so small that I almost didn’t catch it.

"Bonette," she said. "Did my mother... did she love me...?"

The handmaid’s face crumpled.

She pressed a fist against her mouth, and for a few seconds she couldn’t speak at all. Tears ran down her cheeks and splashed on the floor.

"With her whole heart, Highness," she managed. "She would have given the sun itself to keep you safe..."

"She gave you up so that... you could live."

Millie nodded very slowly. A single tear rolled down her nose and dripped onto her knuckles.

I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back, and neither of us said a word.

The story Bonette told was one of the worst I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard some terrible ones.

Twenty years ago, there had been a kingdom of Lunhare hidden in the mountains, a beautiful, silver-white palace built to catch the moonlight.

The people who lived there were a small, gentle branch of the bunnykin, gifted with moon magic and so devoted to peace that they’d never raised an army.

For centuries, nobody bothered them.

But then... a company of human hunters and sorcerers learned the secret. The moon magic of the Lunhare could heal, deceive, and open locks that nothing else could open, and a few very rich people wanted it badly.

One night under a new moon, a force of nearly a thousand armed men marched on the palace. The Lunhare called it the ’Night of the Broken Moon.’

"The queen knew she could not win," Bonette said softly. "She had a daughter, barely two years old..."

"So she did the only thing she could... She sealed the child’s power and her memories... and she scattered her across the world so that the hunters would never find the last heir."

Millie sat completely still, her hands clasped around mine.

"She laid three seals," Bonette went on. "The first is the Seal of Shadow... It hides the princess’s presence from those who search with magic."

"The second is the Seal of Memory, which locks away her name and her childhood so that no one could pull the truth out of her."

"The third is the Seal of Moon, which holds her true power, and whatever gift sleeps inside it."

"So the Seal of Shadow is the one that weakened last night," Elsbeth guessed.

"Yes... I believe so."

"Does that mean," Millie asked in a very small voice, "that I forgot everything because of the seals...? It wasn’t just because I was little?"

"Yes, Highness... Your mother took your memories to protect you."

Millie let out a shaky breath. I saw her eyes go distant for a moment, and I wondered what it was like to find out that the blank spaces in your head had been made on purpose by someone who loved you.

"What about the bracelet?" I asked. "The mana-suppression thing from Frosthaven...? Was that part of the seals?"

"No," Bonette said, with a flash of cold anger. "That was a lowly human work, a cheap device made to keep a captive docile."

"The merchants who held her did not know who she was... If they had, she would never have been sold in a common market."

"She would have been delivered to some noble’s private vault." Her eyes flicked to me, and then she added more gently, "But I do not think it was a coincidence that it broke the day she met you..."

I swallowed. "Well, uh... I mean, Elsbeth broke it with her sword."

"The seals do not respond to violence... They respond to safety and to choice." Bonette looked at Millie with infinite tenderness. "In the old teachings of the Lunhare, the first thing that wakes a sleeping heir is the feeling of being truly safe, and the freedom to choose her own path for the first time."

"I believe Her Highness felt both last night, and that is why the first seal began to crack."

Ohhhhh... I fucking knew it...

She was looking at me while she said it, and her gaze lingered a beat too long. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was weighing something in her head and that I had been placed on the scale.

"No pressure," I muttered.

"Millie felt safe," Elsbeth said slowly. "That explains a great deal..."

"The Northern Wolf Clan has always refused to sell the high plateaus in the north, no matter how much gold the human lords offered."

"My elders never explained why." She paused. "But I think I understand now."

"Understand what?" I asked.