Page 193 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
I averted my gaze. I didn’t want to look at him, not anymore. I didn’t even want to share the same air as him.
I blocked him out of my mind with wave after wave of my all-consuming, all-encompassing fury. There was still a flutter ofhim at the edges of my thoughts, yes, but it had no room to sway, no room to breathe over my suffocating feelings.
The guests held their breaths as I marched toward the future that had excited me mere minutes ago.
One step for Allie.
One step for Clara.
One step for Dax.
One step for Dara.
And the final, biggest one for me.
Walking toward Fabrian had been horror mixed with blistering hate that had taken over me. I didn’t recognize that girl, sobbing underneath her veil.
This was so much worse. Because with Fabrian, I hadn’t hoped. Hadn’t…gods, hadn’t ached for him, mind, body, and soul.
My parents’ deaths, horrifying as they had been, had a finality to them I couldn’t fight. Who fought death? Who could claw their souls back to this world?
But Zandyr, standing there, breathing, living, doing this…That, I could not understand.
I could not forgive.
He’d made a fool out of me. A damn fool for walking into this farce of a ceremony unprepared. I didn’t care what reasons he had. One didn’t ask the person who bludgeoned you to death why they did it.
That’s what I felt like now. Dying.
The priests began such a sweet melody that soared to the skies, through the temple’s roof.
To my right, I felt Kaya shifting, trying to catch my eye. I didn’t look at her either. There we were, the Jewel of the Blood Brotherhood and the Lost Daughter.
Thejewelhadn’t bothered to warn me about this, holed up in her house. If she hadn’t wanted to face me then, she had no right to do it now.
But Zandyr, dressed in his armor, vials gleaming, with his crimson ceremonial robe on, dripping with golden emblems…he’d held me last night. Had spoken such sweet words to me. His heart had beat against my back as he’d lulled me to sleep.
I gasped as realization hit. That’s why he wanted me to promise.
I’d trusted, lowered my shields, and fell. Gods, I’d batted my eyelashes at him before I left Phoenix Peak, with Adara, Leesa, and Goose witnessing how love-struck I was. My cousins had seen me blush when speaking about him. The guards and warriors had watched me walk out of my courtyard, all excited and floating.
I wanted to crawl into the ground, right through this polished floor, and vanish from sight forever, buried in my own mortification. The shame would turn me into a husk.
They’d all known, hadn’t they?
“Now, the Blood Brotherhood heir shall choose,” the eldest priest’s voice rang out. “Who is the favorite and who is the other love match?”
A crazed cackle bubbled at the back of my throat. I was going mad, wasn’t I?
“And he will choose wisely,” Banu said. His tone was different than Valuta’s sickly-sweet attempts at politeness, I realized. Like an oil slick, clinging too long even after you tried to scrub the sickening layer off you. “And prove Blood Brotherhood might cannot and will not be bent by some other Clan that–”
“I would also choose my words carefully if I were you, Banu.” Zandyr’s voice was like a whip, snapping through the entire temple and quieting everyone.
Banu simply bowed, low enough that his humongous headpiece, adorned with gold and crimson feathers, tilted. For him to still be smiling…he mustn’t have heard the threat in Zandyr’s lethal tone.
Or maybe he had. It didn’t matter. Banu and Valuta had already won.
They hadn’t managed to kill me.
