354 DREAM AWAY (3)

"YOUR MAJESTY, how old is Princess Neoma now?"

"My daughter is nine years old, but she'll be ten in a few months," Nikolai answered Paige Avery's question. "Is that relevant to the current situation?"

"It is, Your Majesty," Paige Avery said while frowning at him. "The curses sealed in Princess Neoma's soul are older than her current physical body. If she wasn't a de Moonasterio, and if she didn't have overflowing Moonglow, she would have been dead by now."

He clenched his hands after hearing how dangerous his daughter's situation was. "I didn't know," he said weakly. "The late Madam Hammock, my daughter's personal Healing Sage, noticed nothing strange in her soul."

"Hammock? The family that produces affordable medicine for the poor?"

"They still do that," he said. "But the Hammocks are now known to produce the best Healing Sages in the empire."