“Sonya.” He set his hand on my leg.
“Don’t touch me!” I stood abruptly. My shins knocked the edge of the low table, and I hissed out in pain. Valko reached for me again, but I jerked back and limped around the pillows of his receiving area.
“Sonya, calm down.” He rose to his feet. “You’re acting irrational.”
“Irrational?” I whirled on him. “Is it irrational to mourn a friend? Is it irrational to feel fury and agony?” My voice burned from shouting. “You’ve always wanted my abandoned emotions. Now you have them. This is me, Valko!” I shouted. “I am every black feeling! I cause them! I cause every dark thing to happen!”
I caused Pia’s death.
Rage blinded me. Rage at Valko. At myself. Unable to contain it, I stumbled up the stairs to his lobby and raced for the door.
“Sonya!” Valko called.
I flung the door open and slammed it behind me. I sobbed and fled down the corridor. My hand groped the wall for support as my vision blurred and tilted. At last, I found Anton’s door—his outer door, not his covert, midnight-blue one. I pounded on it, making no effort to be quiet.
The prince answered. His brows peaked with surprise. I shouldered past him. “What are you doing?” he asked. “The guards can see you.”
“I don’t care.” I choked on my words.
He shut the door and observed me more carefully. “What is it? What has happened?”
My grief consumed me. I trembled with my fury.
“Sonya, talk to me.” Terror was written across Anton’s face. “What has he done to you?”
“He’s a monster! I hate him! Give me a knife, and I will kill him myself!”
“Shhh.” He extended a hand toward me.
“Don’t!” Anton’s touch would only heighten his aura within me, and I couldn’t endure anyone else’s emotions right now.
He pulled back. “All right.”
I yanked at my hair. A torrent of tears released from my eyes. “She’s dead because of me!”
“Who is dead?”
“Pia.” The word came out in a whimper. A beautiful name. Melodic and pure. Light as air, bright as morning.
“What?” The prince’s energy flashed cold. He paced in a circle around me and rubbed his hand across his face. “I learned she was imprisoned, but . . . Valko executed her so quickly?”
I nodded. “She was dragged like a dog through the people’s reception. I tried to defend her.” I wiped under my nose and cried harder. “Valko wouldn’t listen to me! He’s capricious and willful and impossible.” I slammed a fist on my chest. “I have no power over him!”
Anton swallowed and blinked hard. “That isn’t true.”
“Stop!” I held up my hands to ward his words away. “I don’t deserve your faith. I’ve done nothing to merit it.”
“Sonya, please. Just breathe.” He hovered around me, unsure how to bring me any comfort when I wouldn’t allow him to touch me.
I wept with abandon and crumpled to my knees. “I destroy everyone I love. I killed Yuliya, too. I only wanted to help the starving peasants.” My fingers shook near my mouth, as if trying to trap back my darkest confession, but Anton needed to see me for what I truly was. “They hated me. They would have stopped me. I locked them in because I hated them, too.”
The prince crouched beside me. “Whom did you lock in, Sonya?” he asked gently. “What are you talking about?”
“The Auraseers.” I sobbed and rocked back and forth. “And there were others. The sestras asleep in their beds. Basil—the old caretaker at the convent. He didn’t hate me. He was kind to all of us.”
Anton listened patiently, as if sensing I had more to tell. Revealing my dark past to Valko had been so much easier in comparison to sharing it now. How aptly that marked the difference between my feelings for both brothers. Losing the prince’s good opinion would surely break my heart.
I tried to capture Anton’s ardent expression of tenderness, because after I confided the rest of my story, he would never care for me again.
“I never helped the peasants.” I tugged the black ribbon around my wrist until my fingers went numb. “The wolves chased them away. Except for one man. He suffered from madness. I brought him inside the convent and . . .” I shook my head. “There was accident. I started a fire.” Shuddering a breath, I released the worst of my confession. “The convent burned because of me! The Auraseers were trapped inside their rooms. So many people died!” My shoulders curled into my chest with my weeping. I wanted to bury myself, to hide away from what I had done. “Yuliya was already ill. She died because she felt their suffering too keenly. I may as well have held her knife.”
The prince’s eyes were as pained as I felt. The ache in his aura rent at my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
I shrugged as tears streamed down my face. “You made me feel special—honorable.” I could scarcely speak past my sobbing. “It was a nice lie to believe.”