Zoe Thanatos(54)
“I’ve known Thea Thanatos my entire life. Not many people remember her as our Queen.”
“That’s because we were forced to forget about her and the original family,” Eva answered indignantly, not one bit ashamed to speak so boldly towards him.
“I never forgot. I’ve helped keep Thea hidden since her presumed death.”
Eva was stunned. “How have you managed to do this behind the Queen’s back?”
Owyn looked at her as though the answer was obvious. “She has a habit of keeping herself busy with matters that don’t concern me; your brother among them.”
Eva felt her cheeks blush but refused to acknowledge the statement even further. So he did know. How long had he known and why didn’t he ever say anything? She could worry about that later. “How do you know about Zoe?” She’d only just discovered Zoe herself. She’d just assumed no one knew.
“I’ve always known about her,” he answered. “When Thea realized what the Stratons were doing she could think of only one way to save her children.”
“By sending them to another world,” Eva finished, her head shaking in disbelief. She couldn’t help but picture Zoe as a small child, ignorant to the chaos that descended upon her family as she was put in a gate and send to a universe at random, seemingly lost for good.
“Zoe was the only one to make it out of Terra before the Stratons found Thea. They very nearly did kill her, and killed almost everyone else in her family before taking the Crown for themselves.”
“What about the other children?” she asked.
“They were never found. As far as anyone knows Zara and Zarek are dead. Anyone who doesn’t know any better thinks Zoe is dead, too.”
Eva stood and paced around the room, trying to piece together the new information with what she already knew. Until recently Thea Thanatos was presumed dead. It was only after Evan unwittingly found her in Gaia that the events in Terra unfolded. She stopped her pacing and turned to look at the King.
“So all of this, the stolen book and your fake capture, was predicated on Evan finding Zoe?”
Owyn nodded. “Zoe is the key to everything. I knew either you or your brother would bring her here one way or another. Truthfully, I thought it would be Evan. You managed to do it right under the Queen’s nose.”
“How did you know it would be either one of us? You make it sound as though it were a certainty.”
The King smiled. “It is a certainty. Thea saw to it that Evan would always be linked to her daughters and you would always be linked to Evan.”
Eva expelled a breath of air impatiently. “Linked how? How would she be able to do that?”
The King narrowed his eyes at her. “Evan is the only one who could have found Zoe and likewise you will always be able to find Evan. The rest isn’t important right now.” There was definitely more, she thought.
“So no matter which universe she was sent to, Evan would have always been the one to find her?”
“Yes, and he always will. Your mother and father were closer to the Queen than anyone and she wanted your generation to be linked.”
Despite the difficulty in imagining how Thea was able to accomplish something so seemingly supernatural, it made a degree of sense to Eva. She had always felt a closeness to Evan that went beyond their sibling bond, but to know that the Thanatos children were also a part of that bond instigated a feeling of propriety towards Zoe. She initially thought that bringing Zoe to Terra was doing her brother a favor, but in light of the new information she understood it as being deeper. She felt a growing sense that she should protect Zoe as though she were her own flesh and blood.
Eva paced the room again until she came back to the chair she had been sitting in. Her hands went autonomously to the chair’s back, and she held herself steady as the weight of the King’s admissions settled in her consciousness.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” she began. “Why you? Of all the people to rebel against the Straton monarchy you are the very last person I would suspect. You’re the King and married into the most powerful family in Terra.”
He shook his head. “Not married into. I am a Straton.”
Eva craned her head towards him. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t know much about your own royal history, do you?” he asked in mock incredulity.
“I stopped caring about it the day the first Straton Queen took Evan and me captive after our parents died,” she retorted. No, she didn’t give a shit about anyone’s own royal history until it involved her directly.
“My aunt was the first Straton Queen. My mother and father were loyal to the Thanatos family, the Queen especially, just like your family. They had no part in my aunt’s betrayal and died trying to protect Thea and her family. My aunt and uncle took me in as a captive the same as you, only because I was blood I was given opportunities you and Evan weren’t.”