Page 79 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

Maude couldn’t turn to look at him. She couldn’t let him see the truth in her face. She felt his hand leave her arm.

“Thank you for telling me about her; it helps to hear what she was like before she married my father,” Maude said, the words stiff as she tried toignore the rising self-hatred. “As I grew older, I feared that he had destroyed the mother from my childhood, but it’s good to know she remained who she was until—”

Maude broke off, unable to say the last words.

Maude looked at the belongings she had begun to pack for a quick escape. She had been going back and forth since she received the invite from Alva, unable to decide if the invitation was a warning or not.

“Don’t leave yet, Maude,” Gunnar said to her back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, shaking off how easily he was able to read her now.

She moved into the room and tried to close the door. A boot stopped the door from closing all the way, and she heard Gunnar’s voice again.

“We want to find thedalkr Helajust like you do. Stay until the Betrothal Ball is over. I know Alva sent you a formal invitation,” he said through the door. “We all plan to leave the morning after the ball. Just wait long enough for your friends to go with you.”

“I am not someone who has friends,” Maude bit out.

Gunnar was quiet for a moment longer before he withdrew his foot. Before Maude could close the door, she heard him say, “You can be, Maude. You just need to let us in.”

Maude shut the door on Gunnar’s words.

That night, Maude stood in front of the open windows in her room and tried to decide what to do. She had dressed in her usual attire: all black and her mother’s shawl as a hood. She turned over all her options but continued to come to the same conclusion.

She did not want to leave Veter.

So she had to leave tonight.

“This is ridiculous,” she grumbled, shouldering her pack and walking toward the window.

Maude stepped over the threshold of the window and looked down at the three stories she planned to scale down. After a moment of hesitation, she began to descend the side of the Palace of Ocean and Clay. She would make her way to the river and cross underneath the bridge as Liv had done. When Maude reached the halfway point, she remembered the last time she had scaled a palace wall to escape. She pushed the flashes of memories from her mind and tried to concentrate.

Unable to fully pull herself from her memories, the scar on her face started to throb in time to her heart beating. Before she touched down on the ground, her battle against her memory ended, and she was thrust back into the past.

Maude slammed the door to her room shut, choking back the tears that threatened to fall. The last time her father caught her crying, she had been whipped by her uncle in the training yard. Vowing never to shed another tear on that day, Maude willed her emotions in check. Her evening gown trailed behind her; the amethyst-colored silk complemented her crimson hair in a way that pleased Maude earlier that evening before her father had commented on how she should have dressed for their state dinner with the other nobles in the family colors.

She had been unable to stop herself from snapping that she looked horrible in the orange and red colors of her house, and she had chosen to look like the Heir Apparent instead of his minion.

As soon as the words had left her, she knew she would pay for it.

Throughout supper, her father hadshot her seething looks that promised pain. Maude had ignored her fear and held her chin high throughout the night.

Before their party had entered the retiring room after supper, her father had gripped her arm so hard she knew that it would bruise and whispered to her, “Only lowborn girls say such unladylike things about her family. Speak that way about me again, and you will regret ever making yourself sound and look so ugly.”

He left her in the dark hall and plastered on his charming smile for the guests she could not remember the names of. She had pulled herself together and gotten through the evening, dashing away to her room before he could corner her again. He never followed her here; that was Mama’s one rule for him, and he begrudgingly followed it.

Bryn had retired early, as she had a training session the following day. She had begun to enjoy her training, telling Maude about it any chance she could. All her words did was remind her how empty she felt as time went on. She could not tell her sister that she was not excited about the future. She could not tell their mother how she resented her silence when her father beat her for speaking out of turn.

Maude paced by the window that faced the east, looking over the empty deserts surrounding Logi. Her skin started to heat, as it always did when she was emotional, so she opened the windows and pointed her palms to the open space. Letting out a scream of frustration, she channeled all her fire out into the night, her palms tingling with the amount ofgaldershe was expelling. She did not stop until she felt bottomed out.

When she could not feel a single spark of fire left in her blood, Maude bent over and put her hands on her knees, breathing hard. When she found the strength to stand again, she looked out again toward where the sun would rise on another hateful day in her existence.

Whenever Maude felt overwhelmed, she would look out this window and dream about what her life could be like outside this kingdom. She felt drawn to the East, deep in her soul. Maude didn’t understand what could be out there for her in a world she did not know, but she felt a pull to stand in front of that window every night. Maude eventually closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.

After she felt herself empty of emotions, she turned to face her messy room. Her current state of well-being was written on the walls of her room. Books and clothes littered the floor, and old mugs for coffee and tea were on the nightstand. Not a clean surface in sight. Maude surveyed her small existence and wondered what was worth staying here for.

Her mother had given up on her when she had started having these outbursts; her sister enjoyed her training so much that she could not see the fire dying in Maude, her father… Well, he saw what he wanted to see until Maude opened her mouth and spat back at him.

Maude looked at herself in the full-length mirror by the door next. Her tall frame looked healthy in the gown she wore, but her face was haggard. Her typically tanned skin was pale and sallow as she made no effort to step outside anymore; her usually vibrant hair was dull and lifeless. But her eyes…Maude looked into her own eyes and saw a stranger. The purple bruises underneath matched her amethyst gown. Her favorite feature about herself, her moss green eyes, were hollow.

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