Page 76
Pain erupts. My sister is many things, but delicacy was never her strong suit. I grit my teeth, the coldness of her magic crackling up my sternum like she’s injected ice water into my veins. Her eyes glow, her smile wide as her fingers trail up my sternum. Flashes of that night when I faced Alasdair return to me. The way his shadow Dimitar ripped through my chest, splaying open my ribs.
Alasdair’s manic laughter. It grows and grows, the parlor flashing with images of him and his black and green eyes.
A cacophony rings in my ears and an anguished roar tears from my throat, blood pounding in my ears when my sister places her fingers against them. Frostbite stings, and I flinch away, but a gold mist gathers along her fingertips when she slowly pulls away.
The tiny, glittering cloud hisses with endless words all mixing together. Emilia rolls her hands and blows the cloud. It scatters in a rain of glitter that dims to nothing.
My chest pumps, my eyes wide. Emilia grins at me and claps her hands together to rid herself of the frost that gathered on her nails. “How do you feel now?”
I blink. “I’m… not sure. I feel the same?”
“What about if I tell you that Astoria is a crazy fucking bitch who deserves to suffer for all eternity in the hell Alasdair has trapped her in?”
I flinch back, horror warping my features. “Emilia! You used to be friends.”
“True, but then she broke your heart, and I had to watch you suffer for years. I’ll never forgive her for hurting you. I’ll be nice if that’s what you wish, but my loyalty for you runs deeper than my friendship with her.”
I sigh. “That’s not fair. It was a complicated situation.”
Her brows rise, and my breath catches. Her smile grows when my fingers touch my temple. Silence greets me. No twisted thoughts, no pulsing headache. Just silence.
My hand falls to my chest. “Oh, gods, Emilia. I’m such an idiot.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You just didn’t have my brilliance to see your conundrum from a fresh angle.”
My gaze meets hers, and she holds it. My heart pulses, the physical pain of her rough treatment fading away. A new hurt fills me, and I whisper, “Why did you leave me?”
Her head tilts, her eyes tightening. “You couldn’t leave Father, and I couldn’t leave Mama. It’s the hardship of being children of a failed marriage, I’m afraid. We each chose a side. I missed you, though. It’s why I’m here now. I won’t go back to Mama without you. So tell me you’ll come with me, because I cannot leave you to be hunted by Alasdair.”
I rub my chest, my thoughts swirling. My head aches, oddly light after being spellbound, but there’s something lingering. Something that weighs heavy in my heart. “You missed some of Alasdair’s enchantment.”
She glares. “How dare you. I am nothing but thorough.”
“I feel… I… I don’t know…” I rub my chest hard and wet my lips, head tilting. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She retrieves her glass before taking a sip. “The nonsensically vague one about our father? Or do you want to fixate on your little puzzle again?”
All my energy is gone, and I lie back down, kicking my legs back into her lap. “Which puzzle is that?”
“The one where you want a nice easy person to blame for everything that has gone wrong in the last seven years.” She shifts so she’s curled up on the cushion, her feet tucked up under her skirts. “Unfortunately for your persecution complex, I don’t believe there is a singular person at fault. But if you’re so determined to go down the long sequence of events to find a core to our family’s breaking, then I’ll humor you. If it were me, I would go back twenty-six years when Atticus chose to bed his sister’s very unwell best friend without a care that she wouldn’t survive childbirth. Or earlier when he didn’t name Viola his Heir because he was afraid that Viola’s maternal Preservation line would become too powerful.”
She pauses to drink again before pointing her glass at me. “Or maybe that’s too far. Let’s instead focus on our recently deceased father and his poor decisions that tore our family apart.”
“You mean when he didn’t support Tori as Heir?” I fold my arms over my eyes. The chandelier’s warm light makes them ache.
“Well, yes, there’s that. They had a deal, you know. Viola and him.”
I lift my arms for a moment to frown at her. “A binding one?”
“Oh, no. Dad would never trap himself like that. It was a good faith deal. Viola would ensure Astoria and your child would be named Astoria’s Heir if Dad helped Astoria win out over Alasdair, but instead of following through, he got scared and backed out of it, which in turn upset Mama.”
My brows furrow. “But why was Mother upset? Viola didn’t cut ties with her, only Father.”
Emilia’s eyes narrow, her lip curling as she looks off into the distance, like she’s glaring at a ghost in the corner. “Astoria wasn’t the only one who got fucked over by Father. He’s left a long trail of women he’s stomped on to keep his power.”
My lips part, and Emilia’s glare snaps to me. Her arm flashes out, her long nail pointing at the signet ring on my right hand. “Who wore the signet ring for nineteen years, Valen? How do you think it felt when I woke up one day to Father ripping it off my finger and selling me to be a wife to Alasdair? I wasn’t asked. I wasn’t given a choice. Mother sure as hell wasn’t consulted about it either. Dad told us that we had to obey for the good of the family. He said I’d be able to rule as Archweaver through my marriage to Alasdair. But guess what, Valen? I was never supposed to be the power behind a husband. I was supposed to be the head of the family line. That should have been me.”
She drains her glass and thumps back against the couch. She steals my full drink before continuing, “I never wanted to leave you, Valen. I really didn’t. It killed me to walk away, but we begged you to come with us. I’m sorry it hurt you, but nothing is ever simple in these situations, and we hurt each other because of it.”
