Page 175 of Promise of Darkness
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I hatemy mother’s balls. I loathe them with a passion. It’s one thing to be on display like a prized pet, quite another to walk alone through a room full of people who watch and whisper every time you turn around.
But appearances must be kept.
Andraste finds me amidst the revelry I’m trying to ignore.
“Drink,” she insists, pushing the goblet of wine into my hand.
It’s instantly suspect.
“Thank you.” I take the goblet but don’t so much as sniff it. “I’ve missed the taste of betrayal.”
Andraste looks away. “Not here.”
“If not here, then where?” I ask coolly. “Or will I even get the chance? How does she do it, I wonder. I’ve been here twelve times. I know what she does. I must have been on the alert each and every time, yet she still slips beneath my guard. I keep wondering how that happens.”
“Curse you, Vi.” There’s a pleasant smile on her face as she surveys the ballroom. “There are too many eyes watching us.”
“Tell me one thing,” I say, not taking my eyes off our mother. “What was the cost of the coronet on your brow? Was it my happiness? My memories? My husband?” I can’t help hesitating. “Us?”
“It’s not like that,” she insists.
“No?” The rage stretches its wings inside me. “Do you remember when we were little girls and you would creep into my bed because you were terrified the boggart was going to whisk you away in the night?”
Our old tutor had used such a creature to terrorize us into obeying him, and Andraste had slept in my bed for months before mother found out.
“Do you remember the times I would slip you bread and water when Mother had you locked away in the oubliette?”
She looks away from me. “Yes.”
“And when we planned an elaborate escape for the demi-fey that mother’s cousin, Matisse, kept locked in a cage?” I could list a thousand such incidents when we were children. “When did we lose that?”
I know the answer now, of course.
I lost her the night I met him.
I lost her the minute I gave my heart to the enemy.
But she’s the one who turned her back on me.
Andraste turns on me with a hiss. “Youbetrayedher, Vi. How do you think you kept your head over such a move? You want to know the truth? The curse wasmyidea. She was going to give you to the goblins as their pet, and I talked her into this. Yes, you lost your memories. Yes, you lost him. But you were still alive. You still had a chance.”
It stuns me. “I lost everything.”
“Not everything,” she returns, her eyes glittering furiously. “Do you think I gained anything when Mother gifted me with her favor? You had his love. I was there the night they made the pact. He would have torn the world apart for you, and I? I lost my sister. I lost my heart.” Her voice softens. “My soul. Do you know what she’s had me do over the course of the years? The blood these hands have worn? I let her turn me into what I am so you could keep your head on your shoulders. I did it for you. No crown is a gift to its wearer, and hers shall be even heavier than most.”
“I hope it weighs you down.”
“Drink,” she tells me again, her eyes glittering fiercely. “It won’t hurt for much longer. All you have to do is forget.”
It’s my sister who brings me such sweet poison.
I refuse to let the tears in my eyes fall. “She’s going to kill him if I cannot remember him.”
“He made his choice,” Andraste says softly.
I look her in the eye. “And so did you. Remember that. For I will never forgive you. Perhaps I’ll forget this moment, but I know you never will. Remember it forever. That’s my curse upon you. We will never be sisters again.”
