Page 179 of Infernal Bonds

“Cornaith wants to test me here?” I couldn’t mask the confusion and skepticism in my voice.

“No, but I was supposed to bring you here.”

I looked at her across the table as she took a seat. “I don’t understand.”

“You will soon enough,” a woman’s voice called from around the corner. “Have a seat.”

I turned as she entered the room, bringing the scent of floral perfume with her.

She stood noticeably shorter than I did, which caught me off guard. Most women I met were shorter than me, but not almost a foot shorter.

Intense crimson eyes studied me. I’d only seen eyes like hers on three others.

I spun around to look at Rinlora, then back at the woman, taking in her pin-straight blonde hair spilling over her shoulders to her ribs. The same shade as the triplets’.

“You did well bringing her here,” the woman said, ignoring my obvious confusion.

Rinlora said nothing.

“Does someone wanna clue me in to what the hell is going on?”

“Of course,” the woman said, pulling out a chair and smoothing her long skirt beneath her as she took a seat. “But you should have a seat.”

I slowly lowered myself into the chair and looked between the two of them again.

The woman’s mouth hitched in a half-smile. “Do we look that much alike?”

“It’s kinda uncanny.”

Other than the fact that the woman appeared about twenty years older than Rinlora, she could’ve been a fourth triplet. What did they call that? Quintuplets? No, that’d be five. Quadruplets?

“Shyrlivi age slower than humans. We look younger for far longer. For anyone not used to it, the parents could easily be mistaken for their children’s brothers or sisters.”

I remembered Amra explaining the Shyrlivi aging process after Zeke had told me they lived four to five hundred years—double if part of the royal family.

She’d told me they wouldn’t appear old in the way humans understood it until the last hundred years of their lives. Up to the age of fifty, they aged like humans, but beyond that, their appearance changed by only about ten years for every century they lived. The royal family grew older like other Shyrlivi until they reached fifty, after which they stopped aging.

Their—our—biology fascinated me.

“While that hasn’t happened with Rinlora and myself, I’ve had it happen with Ranthus. His brooding look always ages him.” She smiled to herself.

“Are you saying you’re the triplets’ mom?”

She inclined her head.

“Okay,” I drawled. “So what do you want with me here? I thought I was gonna do some tests with Cornaith.”

“That is the plan.”

“So where do we do it? Where is he?”

“He’s not here.” The woman looked at Rinlora and then back at me. “He wanted me to assess you before any testing happens. And that testing will not happen where others could be injured.”

“Assess me? Assess me how?”

“Observation over time. I suspect I know what you are, but I want to confirm a few things before I share that information with the council.”

“What do you think I am?”