Page 26 of Her Dark Promise

Now the question was… What do I do with him? And how to tell Emilia? Should I tell her?

“Your grace?” Callum had pulled me from my thoughts as I was slumped against my chair with a grape pressed lightly against my lips. Callum and I were sitting at the table in the dining hall, having breakfast.

I slipped the grape inside my mouth and asked, “What is it, little bird?”

“Is everything alright?”

I leaned forward, grabbed my glass, and took a long drink from it before getting up and leaving the dining hall.

Before I exited the hall I called out, “Emilia!”

I had too much on my mind to deal with Callum right now.

I walked toward the kitchen doors and as I passed by the tower doors, it opened.

Emilia appeared. “I know that you told me to not feed him, but if you are going to continue to torture him, he needs the basic nutrients to keep him alive.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her, wondering how I would bring up the information I had learned last night. I thought that I was going to know what I was going to say to her when I saw her and called for her to get it over with, but I was, again, at a loss of words.

I hesitantly reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder.

Her eyes widened. “I am sorry that I went against your orders. I will never disobey you again.”

I shook my head. “It’s not that. I walked through the hunter’s mind last night and I found some harrowing information that I felt the need to share with you.” Best to push through. “I found out that his father is the man who is in charge of the Reaping.”

Her face paled and her body fell to the floor in a heap too fast for me to catch her. I didn’t know what to do as she asked in a gravelly voice, “What?”

“His father is—”

“Gerard Corleone,” she whispered, eyes staring off into the distance.

I bent down so that I could look into her eyes. “The hunter did not approve of his father’s actions. He is innocent.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to say that to her.

She wasn’t crying or anything. Her face was blank, like she wasn’t really there.

“Emilia?” I shook her a little. “Emilia!”

Her eyes met mine slowly as she swallowed hard. Her hands shook as she signed,I don’t remember.Tears appeared at her water line, lips trembling.I don’t remember anything from that night.

Her admission took my breath away. I couldn’t help her. Not with this. I wish I was better at this, and I had to look away.

I felt her tap my hand clenched on my leg and looked back as she signed,Can you… Can you look into his memories and find the man who hurt me?

I took a moment to come up with the right words to tell her, but the only thing that came out was, “Of course.”

I knew there was a slim chance of successfully finding anything because that would mean that the prisoner would had to have been physically around when that particular event happened, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that. Theanswers for what happened to her would be in her mind, but they had been sealed away to protect her sanity.

I gave it one more moment before standing and asking, “Did he eat anything?”

Without looking at me, she shook her head.

What was that fool thinking by not eating? How long had it even been? Time had always seemed insignificant as I had an endless supply of it. How long could humans go without food and drink?

Killing innocent lives now?Circe mocked.

Shut up, no one was talking to you.

Her laughter rang in my ears and slowly faded away into the background as I rushed up to the tower.

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