Twin Crowns (Twin Crowns, #1)

by Catherine Doyle

Rose took a sip of tea to settle her nerves. ‘How did you become so powerful?’ ‘Sixty years of practice and vengeance.’ Banba smiled, her teeth yellow in the firelight. ‘You truly know nothing of witches, do you, Rose? I thought – I had hoped – that somehow our stories would have reached you in the palace.’ Rose put down her tea and stared hard at Banba. ‘You underestimate Willem Rathborne. He has scrubbed the palace, scrubbed all of Eshlinn, of any truth to do with witches.’ Banba sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. The last time I underestimated the Kingsbreath, he killed my daughter.’ Rose stilled at the mention of her mother, at the flash of pain in the old woman’s eyes. ‘Thea said my mother knew she was going to die. That a seer told her so.’ ‘The seer was my sister, Glenna,’ said Banba, with a confirming nod. ‘Before the war, she lived in the Amarach Towers in the south. It was in those skies that she foresaw Lillith’s fate. But the vision did not sharpen in time. She didn’t see the man who wielded the dagger until it was too late.’ Banba closed her eyes, the lines in her face deepening as the memory aged her. ‘Glenna couldn’t save Lillith, nor indeed herself. Like so many of our kind, my sister was killed in the bloodbath that came after.’ ‘Oh,’ said Rose, quietly. She could think of nothing else to say to pierce the loss that seemed to fill up the space between them, dark and heavy as a thundercloud. Banba snapped her eyes open. ‘You think I am powerful, Rose. If only y...