Page 136 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
This day had tired too much of me. But all thoughts of sleep had vanished the second I’d heard The Huntress.
This woman had already haunted and disrupted so many of my days by just existing, what was one more night?
I’d resigned myself to toss and turn in my bed, but then one of her sighs cut. That one didn’t sound annoyed–it sounded pained.
I was in front of the door before I’d even realized I’d moved, arm raised to open it.
But I’d told her I wouldn’t step into her room without being invited and it was a promise I had to keep above all else. She was already in a foreign place with foreign people from a foreign Clan. She needed to feel like some space was hers and hers alone, even if it was a single room.
The Huntress had come here with trust issues oozing out of her in every hard movement and sharp word–the ordeal with Orion couldn’t have helped.
I wasn’t about to worsen them.
I gritted my teeth hard enough to hurt and fisted and unfisted my palm too many times, trying to regain control.
Instead of breaking down the door and taking all her worries away like I desperately craved to, I swallowed my urges and, in my own fortress, I fuckingknocked.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
ALLIE
Why?
The single most useful and maddening question I’d ever learned–and one of my personal favorites.
Things always needed to make sense, even in chaos.
And if this whole situation wasn’t chaotic, I didn’t know what was.
I simply had to find the pattern, but I felt like a key was missing, and no matter how hard I racked this brain of mine which so many had said was brilliant, I couldn’t find it.
“Come on, Vegheara,” I muttered to myself as I paced in my room, letting the soft threads of the carpet grazing the soles of my feet soothe the ache I still hadn’t fully gotten rid of since I’d walked barefoot through the fortress. “Think.”
And, gods, that was all I’d been doing since talking to my cousins, a migraine already pressing against my temples, as I turned the issue on every side and inside out.
The massacre seemed to have been planned for a long time, but only a few weeks had passed since Evie had returned to Aquila and the wedding had taken place.
Sanctua Sirena was secret–but if Silas had been plotting, he could have revealed the location.
Despite my earlier fears, the Blood Brotherhood had been caught just as off guard as the rest of us. But someone had wanted them–and their best warriorsplustheir heir–at that wedding.
I cursed loudly and rolled my head, the strain in my shoulders now turning into painful pricks that spidered down my spine.
Silas wanting to off the rest of the family–though I still held hope he hadn’t wanted to hurt his own daughter–was a tale as old as Malhaven. Weak men always resorted to betrayal and killing when they didn’t have the skills or the intelligence to claim power through peaceful means.
However, why would he have wanted to hurt The Dragon or any of the Blood Brotherhood? That was a risk nobody in their right mind would take. I still had my doubts about Silas’ intelligence, but above all else, he was concerned with himself and his comfort. Always had been, he was the first one to take a seat for himself in the shade, fill up his plate before he even bothered with his daughter, and lounging about, profiting off of the protection and prestige the Vegheara name offered him.
No, Silas wouldn’t have wanted to hit the Blood Brotherhood Clan unless he had a very good reason.
Or someone else had wanted to get rid of usandthe Blood Brotherhood leadership in one go.
Evie had told me about those nasty Capital advisors, Banu and Valuta, but they didn’t sound like they wanted to dethrone the ruling family, only suck on its tit until nothing but ashes remained. And, again, they wouldn’t have benefited in the least from The Dragon finding out Evie was alive.
So why? And who?
Who in their right mind would want to destabilize the two biggest, most powerful Clans on the continent, which also hated each other?
