“Accidentally set the house on fire with the morning coals. Literally killed her parents in their beds. I’ve always chosen to believe she didn’t know what she was doing, poor thing. Can you imagine murdering your own parents?” The words—even as they’re spitting from her mouth, I’m silently begging her to reel them back. What is she saying? What is she doing?
She turns to stare straight at me, as if surprised I’m standing there, except her glare makes it clear she knew. Her dress swishes as she steps aside for her listeners to get a complete look at her subject of humiliation. “You can imagine how unstable she still is because of it. I’m only glad I found her in time to save her from the favor-house life she would’ve gone back to.”
Lord Myles’s smirk is unconscionable, but it’s not him I’m seeing. King Sedric, a woman I presume is Princess Rasha, Colin beside me—they all blur together as my gaze comes to rest on the one person I can’t bear to hear this.
Eogan.
I watch his face blanch as my soul slides open in front of him. My chest shaking and my eyes freezing in place in confirmation of Adora’s words. I killed my parents. The only parts she’s left out are the Elemental aspect and the fact that my time at the favor house lasted less than five hours before I destroyed everything within a half-terrameter radius.
My mouth turns acidic, and my legs begin to quake so hard it’s like they’re echoing the crumbling inside of me. I can’t breathe. How she found out about those things is inconceivable. I don’t even bother to excuse myself. I rush off to find a servant’s passage to die in.
When I reach a hallway, it’s occupied, and just as I’m hurrying past to find another corridor, it dawns on me that the people standing in it are Lady Isobel and Breck. I pause, and they both tip their heads up. Isobel’s expression turns to annoyance. Has she been lecturing the poor servant?
“I expect those things washed by morning,” I hear her say loudly, then she turns on her heel and strides for the door leading outside. Not even bothering to look back at us.
“Breck?”
She ignores me and feels her way into a side hall that goes to the kitchen.
I lean against the wood-paneled wall and slide to the ground. If I shut my eyes, perhaps I can pretend this evening is just a trick of the light and I’ll be back in the valley with Eogan, with the magic and crystal shield and his whispered breath in my hair. What’s going on with Breck . . . What Eogan thinks of me . . . I have no idea. Not that it matters. Because I don’t want it to matter.
But it all matters.
One minute, three minutes, ten minutes go by. I don’t move.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to infuriate Lady Adora, but that was unkind of her.”
I spin to find the Luminescent, Princess Rasha, watching me. What’d she do—follow me?
I glare at her. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, her hair is the beautiful color of the cocoa stone and her skin like a rich sunburn, and Colin’s right—there’s a peculiar red hue to her gaze as she takes in my face, my shame, my Elemental eyes.
“What do you want?” I mutter.
She steps forward and stares harder at me, and for whatever reason I can’t look away.
“She’s not your aunt,” she says, and it’s a realization, not a question. She nods. “Explains her attitude.”
“She’s my owner,” I say, so we’re perfectly clear.
The Luminescent nods again. “Owner of your body perhaps, but not your spirit.”
A rush of tears attacks my throat. I stifle them back and ask again, “What do you want?”
“To offer friendship, I think. For a time when you’ll need it. The spirit in you isn’t broken, just unbelieving. But in order to fly . . .” She holds out an airy hand. “You hold the key to your own cage.”
Is she on some sort of herbs? I pull back as if she’s offered poison. She sounds like Eogan. “Excuse me,” I mutter, and, stumbling to my feet, I practically throw myself down the hall and out the servants’ door, gulping in the cool air against my hot face.
I find the path that leads toward the barn and start down it, head throbbing under my fingers. Somewhere ahead of me a woman giggles. Whoever it is I hope she chokes.
When the pouty laugh surfaces again, I look up.
And come to a full stop in front of Eogan, who’s entwined in the arms of the Drust ambassador, Isobel.
“You always were more stubborn than your Bron brother,” she says as he lifts his gaze to meet mine.
CHAPTER 25
EOGAN’S FACE IS STIFF AS STONE AS ISOBEL SLIDES her hand across his chest. And even though he’s not reciprocating, I’m fully aware he’s not stepping away from her either.
She covers her mouth in mock surprise and, edging around him, winks at me. “Ooh, looks like we’ve been caught. And by the slave girl training to be a soldier.”