Page 43 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I licked the inside of my cheek. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
Even if he thought I was forgettable, Zandyr haunted too many of my nightmares to count. Whenever I closed my eyes, there he was, a looming shadow ready to overpower me. I always woke up in a sweat, cursing myself and him.
As my eyes traveled lower on the parchment, I sucked in a breath. My parents’ signatures. I touched the old ink gently,fingers tracing the swirls in my mom’s name and the harsh lines in my dad’s.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes. They’d been so young when they’d signed this, barely a few years older than me.
What had gone through their minds when they’d written their names down, sealing my fate? The signatures weren’t shaky, as if someone had been forcing them to sign. No hint of hesitation. They’d changed their minds five years later. Why?
My heart thumped with pain. It didn’t matter now, did it? All those sacrifices, wasted. I had still ended up in the Capital.
Their lives should have meant more than that.
Mylife should have.
But I still had breath in my lungs. My parents’ deaths couldn’t be in vain. If I did one thing right in this life, it would be retribution. I wasn’t a vengeful creature, but my parents, may the gods give them the peace they couldn’t find in this life, had taught me no bad deed went unpunished. It was a mangled sort of fairness that I finally understood.
Fairness meant equilibrium, and those three assassins and whoever had killed uncle Alaric and attacked my wedding had disrupted that balance.
As the Blood Brotherhood queen, I would have more of a chance to get my revenge.
I looked at Zandyr, the man who’d haunted my past. The one who was about to become my future.
Could I accomplish what I needed to by his side, irritated with each other or not? He didn’t seem like the type to stand in my way. He didn’t have an issue with me learning spells. I didn’t know how far I could stretch my power, but I could try. Most Protectorate children began studying proper spellcasting around seven. I was twenty-one.
But when I met my parents’ killers again, I’d do more than swing my switchblade around.
This I swore.
Zandyr had already signed the contract, with crisp, serrated lines fit for a prince they called The Dragon.
Only one name was missing on the page.
The one that would seal my fate.
Mine.
“Why do I have to sign it, too? It’s done,” I said, voice scratchy.
“Formality. You’ve already verbally accepted the marriage. Now we’ll seal it.”
“So I can’t change my mind.”
“If only magic worked that way,” he said and I swore it sounded wistful.
Could I be the Blood Brotherhood’s queen? I didn’t know.
But I’d promised to marry to keep my cousins safe and my blood craved revenge.
“Do you have a pen?” I asked, steadier than I expected.
Out of thin air, Zandyr produced a quill. It didn’t have a feather on its end, oh, no. It ended in a transparent orb, which had blood swirling inside it, like the Blood Brotherhood weapons’ hilts. He tilted it toward me.
“That’s not menacing.” I stared at the haunting quill like it was crying out for my blood. “At all.”
“A magical contract needs to be signed with magic.” Zandyr nodded at the parchment. “A magical quill helps circumvent that.”
Since I had no power and had told him that. And he’d paid attention.
