Page 18 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
“You’re going through with the wedding like you planned?” he asked.
I nodded solemnly. “I took an oath.”
A deadly oath I’d made before I knew Evie was alive. If I strayed from it, the ancient spell would burn me from the inside out. Thousands of people would die. The venom would seep into my Clan until the Blood Brotherhood withered and died.
That wedding day would decide all of our futures. Not even the gods themselves could change anything now.
“I hate to agree with Calyx,” Elysia began, reluctant.
Calyx looked up at the embossed ceiling. “Someone notify the sages, a miracle is about to happen.”
Elisya slashed a look his way, but it didn’t have her usual poison. “But…shouldn’t you warn her, at least?”
“Anything I say can get back to her cousins,” I said. “We can’t risk it. Since when did you all decide you have hearts?”
Grumbles resounded around the table.
“Fine,” Calyx said. “I’m the only one with a conscience in this room–”
Elysia cleared her throat pointedly.
“Fine. IandElysia are the only ones with a conscience in this room–”
“If you ever tell that to anyone outside these walls, you will regret it,” she said in that tone she used whenever the two of them had an inside joke the rest of us didn’t understand.
“But isn’t it a little crazy to lie to the one person you’re forced to spend the rest of your life with? Especially a lie as big as this one?” Calyx finished.
“No,” Soryn and Ryker said. Even Elysia shrugged, unsure. Yes, Calyx had a big heart, but bigger muscles and the deadly skills to pull it off in our ruthless world.
“I won’t lie,” I said. “I’ll delay sharing information.”
“I’ve always trusted your judgment, Brother,” Calyx said. “But this Lost Daughter won’t. She wasn’t raised like us.”
“That we know of,” I said. There was something peculiar about Evie, and I couldn’t place my finger on what rattled mybrain about her. She might have been dangerous beyond belief. Only a fool would trust someone from the enemy Clan, no matter how harmless they seemed. The innocent-looking ones were the most deadly.
Calyx raised his open palms. “All I’m saying is that she can turn into our worst enemy. Don’t give her reasons to be the next groom she stabs.”
I steepled my fingers on top of the table. “She’ll find out after the wedding, when she officially becomes part of the Blood Brotherhood.”
Her cousins could still intervene up until that point. The Protectorate was obviously going through a crisis, but those four cousins of hers had the power to do some serious damage with the right tools. And the right information.
“Then the Lost Daughter can’t suspect anything until then,” Soryn warned.
“She won’t,” I said. We’d already survived a bloody wedding, we didn’t need a second.
“Be careful around her.” Ryker looked at me pointedly. “She agreed to marry her fiance’s murderer. Calyx is right–”
“Always.” Calyx grinned.
“–there’s something wrong with the Lost Daughter. ”
A grin finally twisted my lips. “Sheneeds to be careful aroundme.”
Chapter
Six
EVIE
