Page 82 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
I’d stubbornly clung to that hope to keep from shattering.
But it was true.
It was all heartbreakingly true.
A deep gash of shocked disappointment flooded me–but it was quickly swallowed by anger.
Hot.
Blistering.
Unstoppable.
The storm was rising to the surface and no mortal could stop it.
“You traitorous waste of space,” I hissed, slamming my hands against the desk.
The Commander raised a brow, but didn’t say anything.
Even Silas seemed taken aback by my outburst. I’d always had a cutting word for him, but not in anger. Pity and disgust, yes. Never in anger.
This time, he deserved it.
“What did you do?” I said, a woman uncaged and unlocked in her rage. “Who helped you steal the throne?”
Silas opened and closed his mouth. “I was the only one left who could–”
“Why didn’t you send the army after my cousins and I?”
“I told you, the situation is tense in Aquila and–”
“Did you kill my father?”
The question dropped like an anchor in the middle of a cyclone.
Everyone and everything went very quiet, only my harsh breathing resounding on either side of the palaver portal.
Silas’ eyes widened and his lips parted. I saw shock and hurt in his lackluster face, not the cold expression of a killer.
A stab of shame pricked at my quickly crumbling heart, but it quickly faded as Silas’ eyes narrowed menacingly and his lips thinned to the point of vanishing. “Careful how you speak to your leader, girl.”
The stabbing continued, this time with pain, so deep and visceral, like a thousand arrows pierced my back at the same time.
“You do NOT command me,” I said with the fury of a thousand storms, The Huntress in full swing. “You are an usurper.”
Silas’ face transformed with a cold edge I’d never seen glint in those beady eyes of his before. “Says the girl who ran away from the fight.”
I gripped the edges of the desk until my fingers turned white. “I was in that maze riskingmylife to savethem! All of you.”
“You didn’t save Alaric.”
He should’ve pierced me straight to the heart and smashed my head to keep the memories and guilt from consuming me whole.
It would have hurt less.
My entire spirit wavered for a moment. I barely registered the Commander kicking himself away from the wall and thundering my way–or Orion approaching the throne with a determined glimmer in his eyes.
“I was there,” I said. “You weren’t. I have witnesses.”
