Page 196 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
Tonight, even the famed Blood Brotherhood control had loosened.
No guards and no warriors accompanied me now.
I led our small little group, followed by Adara, Goose, and Leesa. The usual suspects.
And Zandyr.
I’d avoided him all throughout the ceremony, the congratulations, and the party. Kaya and her beauty had grabbed most of the attention, anyway.
I didn’t know why he followed like a ghost in the night, and I didn’t care.
I strode into my house in ugly silence. Only the wood creaked as I walked up the stairs. This house suddenly felt like a mausoleum.
Zandyr followed me into the bedroom.
I tried hard to ignore the petals strewn all over my bed and only stopped once I reached the farthest wall.
Nowhere else to run to. Nowhere to hide from this heinous reality.
He remained silent behind me.
“Was it part of the oath?” I asked, still not turning. My voice was as dead as I felt. Cold. Ice incarnate. I didn’t recognize it.
I didn’t recognize myself, this glacier of a woman who stared at nothing and felt even less.
“Yes,” Zandyr hissed, the word coming out choppy and rushed. The oath must’ve been leashing his tongue again. Perhaps if I probed more, he would bleed onto my floor. He deserved it.
Liar, that primal part of me roared, as if I was to blame for this mess.
Zandyr took a shaky breath; I felt his pain through the bond, every ripple of the muscles on his chest, constricting around his heart to stop it. Stop him from revealing too much. “It was before–”
“Shut up.”
He did.
I rolled my head from side to side, feeling every tense little muscle begging to be free of this dress. Of this mess. Of this world.
It hurt too much. Too bloody much.
Whatever truths he was ready to sacrifice himself for now, I didn’t need them. They didn’t change the fact that I was now tied to him–and Kaya.
For eternity.
For the rest of my miserable life, I had to watch her parade around Phoenix Peak with that crown on top of her pretty littlehead, smiling her pretty little smiles, after she and Zandyr had made a fool out of me.
A naive fool who had been blinded by his attention. His affection. His secrets and his clever tongue.
No more.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Let this carcass of a body rot here, just like my imposter’s, and have my soul break free from Clans and their machinations.
I sucked in breath after breath that did nothing to calm me down. I was on the brink of panic. Of falling into desperation and never crawling out.
I placed a hand on my chest, fingers digging underneath the rubies around my neck that suddenly felt like a noose.
I couldn’t fall now. Nobody would catch me.
My cousins were scattered. I didn’t even knowwherethey were. The people in Phoenix Peak had stood by and applauded at that farce of a ceremony.
