Chapter Twenty: Dirk Returns

Ilyria froze.

It could not be. Surely this was not her mother? The exquisite Daria Agrio? Ruin of souls. Torment of men and women.

The old woman reached out a hand for the wall to steady herself. She looked up and Daria saw her eyes were pale and glassy. She seemed drugged, ill, dying even. She did not see Ilyria, or anything at all. Yet the lines of Daria’s beautiful face were still there, stark beneath the withered flesh but still recognizable. What had Dirk done to her mother?

Say something, she told herself. This is your mother. But the nausea had returned, and she found herself unable to hold onto her thoughts. Something about a mother. Whose mother? My mother, this is my mother. Ilyria clutched the map to her chest as if it might still hold some of the protective magic from her father’s chambers. And maybe it did, because her head cleared a little.

Her mother opened her mouth and Ilyria saw that all her pretty white teeth were gone, leaving only