Page 160 of Fearless

I stumble back a step, my lips parting slightly.

“After youkilledQueen Iris,” he bites, “the king handed you off to aSilencer. That is when he discovered that an Ordinary—anOrdinary—killed one of the rarest Elites known to Ilya.”

The room spins around me as I comb through my memory. Recalling every book of history Father set before me, I finally find her power hiding in the corner of my mind. She was—

“A Soul.” Calum utters the words he’d read from my mind. “That’s right. The ability to sense another’s emotions and alter them, take them upon herself. And her power paired with mine—a Fatal’s?” He laughs, and it is a crazed sound. “You were supposed to be formidable. But you are nothing.”

He spits out the words, each one coated with years of rage. “You were an embarrassment to the king, one he told me to take care of. And he spent his life covering up the Ordinary he thought was his. But you were mine, and Iris died”—he runs a hand over his hair—“all for you to be nothing! A worthless Ordinary!”

The scar burns above my heart.

O.

The king thought I was his daughter.

Two Elites have never made an Ordinary. Yet, here I stand, powerless. The product of strength with none to show for it. And maybe, for the first time, that makes me extraordinary.

Tears blur my vision, anger stinging my eyes. I flex my fingers in the soft skirt of my dress, feeling the comforting outline of my dagger beneath the layers of fabric.

“So that is why you hate me?” I choke out. “Because the woman you loved died giving birth to me?”

“Because it should have been you,” he growls. “It should have been you that died that day, not the queen who bled out for an Ordinary.” His head shakes, and the wild look in his eyes has me stepping back. “Before you showed up at the castle and sat beside Edric during that first dinner,I thought you were dead. I may not have been able to kill you like the king had wished eighteen years ago, but I hoped you met your end in the slums.”

“But I didn’t,” I breathe. “And he still kept me alive.”

After that third Trial, standing in the pouring rain outside the Bowl, I asked the king why he hadn’t killed me sooner. That was right before his sword sliced open my forearm.

“Because I needed you alive.”

“He did,” Calum says in response to my memory. “I convinced him that the Resistance needed you to find the tunnel into the Bowl, and if the Trials didn’t kill you, then he could after.” He lifts a shaking finger at me. “But you have her eyes. He recognized you the moment you sat down at that table.”

I fight to keep my voice steady. “How did you know I would find the tunnel?”

His smile is cruelly sympathetic. I bare my teeth right back.

He is not going to tell me.

Every unanswered question begins to resurface until they are practically bubbling out of me. I spit one out, hoping he will deign to answer it. “I thought the queen died giving birth to Kitt?”

“The whole kingdom thought so.” His eyes gleam, boring into mine. “The king kept Iris locked away—safe from any threats. So much so that when she became pregnant with you, the kingdom knew nothing of the queen or her child. And after the shame you brought him upon your birth, he sealed the true records away and told the kingdom she had passed when Kitt was born.”

There is a long pause in which I try to swallow the sudden realization.

“And my father…” I choke on the words. “You told the king about him. You are the reason he is dead. Because you found out about the Resistance.”

“He was helping in the castle during fever season,” he says simply. “We passed in the hall, and I read his mind. Learned of his plans for a Resistance. But that was not what killed Adam in the end.”

I blink at him. “What are you talking about?”

That moment in the basement of my childhood home, surrounded by Resistance members, comes racing back. Calum had shown a shred of confusion when I assumed my father’s death was due to his association with the Resistance.

“No, Edric kept him alive to grow his Resistance,” Calum is saying. “He was content to use him until Adam discovered something he shouldn’t have. Something for the kings alone.”

“What are you talking about?” I urge again through gritted teeth.

Calum’s responding silence has a frustrated sound crawling up my throat.

“That is why you were asking about my father’s journals,” I pant. “You wanted to know if he wrote that secret something down.”

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