Page 122 of Realm of Wind and Vines
They are not responsible for what the Icehearts have done. Just like I am not responsible for what that small group of entitled fae did six thousand years ago.
Dropping my hands from my hair, I tilt my head back and gaze up at the overcast sky above. Thick dark gray clouds float lazily over the heavens. A couple of birds soar past high above.
I drag in a deep breath.
It disturbs me to my core that I actually understand Jessina and Bane now. I understand the rage, the hatred, the intoxicating feeling of power, and the feral need for revenge. I understand it all.
Because I want it too. The only difference is that now, I will only direct it at the people who deserve it. I won’t take out my fury on innocents. I won’t torture sisters or slit the throats of mothers just because I’m angry about what someone else has done.
I will happily kill and torture the people who do the Icehearts bidding, becausetheyare standing in the way of our freedom.
And I still want revenge. I remember the pain Draven had to endure when the Icehearts whipped his wings. I remember the fear and shock on my parents face when they died on a cold stone floor in pools of their own blood. I remember the crippling regret that still hits me every time I’m reminded that I will never know if my parents loved me.
I don’t want justice for that.
I want revenge.
Vicious, merciless revenge.
And I will get it.
I will carve that revenge out of Bane and Jessina’s bodies until they have paid for it with their blood. Because they killed my parents. And they hurt Draven. They tortured him and enslaved him for two hundred years. I would kill them for that alone. He ismine.
So I will get my revenge on the Icehearts and everyone whohelps them. But I will not cross that final line and punish an entire clan for a crime that only a few of them committed. I am disturbingly similar to Jessina Iceheart in how I react to things. So I need to pull myself back from the edge. I cannot cross that final line. I refuse to become a new Jessina.
I will get fucking everything.
But I will not becomeher.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Dread twists inside me as I open the back door and slip inside. I don’t want to face Alistair. He saw everything. He saw me torture an innocent woman for a crime she has not committed. How am I supposed to explain everything that has been going through my head for weeks?
While trying to swallow down that sense of dread, I walk past the now closed door to the cleaning closet and approach the open doorway to the kitchen. But before I reach it, Alistair steps out.
My heart jerks.
“Here,” he says, and hands me a glass of water. “I’ve locked the Osteria family in the closet. By the time Ferver comes back to let them out, it will be too late for him to warn people about us anyway. So I think we should just go meet up with the others.”
Taking the glass of water, I stare at him in disbelief. Isn’t he going to… I don’t know, mention it? What I just did? How terrifyingly similar I am to Jessina Iceheart? Anything?
He doesn’t. And there is not a single shred of judgement on his face. He looks at me in exactly the same way as he always does. As if this didn’t change his perception of me in the slightest.
Still stunned, I walk over to the kitchen sink and raise the glass of water to my lips. After rinsing my mouth, I drink the rest of the water. It helps soothe some of that acidic taste of bile in my throat.
“They’ve started taking off,” Alistair says, craning his neck to look out the window. “We should hurry.”
“Yeah,” I reply.
After setting down the glass on the counter, I jog after Alistair towards the front door.
The city outside is in chaos. Ferver apparently followed our orders to tell every soldier he met on the way up to the barracks about the fake invasion as well, because silver dragons explode into view in open squares and atop rooftops all around us. Dragons roar and wings boom through the air as they push off and shoot into the sky.
I drag in a deep breath, still trying to get my wits back after the horrifying realization in the Osteria house and my embarrassing breakdown in the garden. Alistair still says nothing about what just happened. I glance over at him where he is jogging up the street next to me.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice so soft that it’s barely audible over the screeching dragons that take off into the sky.
Alistair glances at me from the corner of his eye, looking genuinely surprised. “For what?”
