But ‘thinking’ is a step up from what I’m currently doing. My brain has halted any and all operations. I stare at the paper lying on Lydia’s lap, no longer seeing. I’ve never heard of these destructive urges before.
It’s all too sadistic. Too depraved.
And Tiss…Goddess. The mad glint in her eye that day she stabbed me.If I’d gotten away sooner, would she have turned the paper knife on herself?
And the greenhouse. The way her eyes were so glassy. And she was trying to seduce me.
Fuck.I should’ve guessed.
The chaos within her was trying to feed. Doing anything and everything it could to ensure she did so before the starvation got worse.And this would be why.
Guilt spreads through me like a virus. Here I’ve been judging her. Distrustful of her. Chalking her behavior up to being out of control and rash.
With the way she seduced me the night our soul-tie was forged, I just assumed—
And I was so hard on her last night, throwing things in her face that weren’t even her fault. Not really.Goddess save me, I need to talk to her.
Lydia clears her throat. Nudges my shoulder. She’s flipped the paper over and scrawled information that brings on a different type of shock:
Bard Fiach put me here. I know something I shouldn’t
“What?” The past is suddenly breathing down the back of my neck like never before.
Her hand must cramp because she rotates her wrist. Lays down more hasty words and holds it up:
About his daughter.
Wait.My head snaps up.“Hisdaughter? What does your being here have to do withTiss?” A steely protectiveness flares to life, gripping me in a visceral way. “You twokneweach other in Aronya Dar?”
“Mmm,” she tilts her head, eyebrows pinched. Writes:
Never met. Heard of her.
Hard at work, she’s breathing rapidly now as she writes. My breath races alongside hers, my stomach crawling up my throat as I lean in to read:
Boss told long ago. I’m only other person who knows.
“Your boss… theViper? What could he possibly have told you about Tiss?”
She scribbles the next thing. Underlines with a quick slash of her pen that steals the air from my lungs.
Nothis true daughter.
What the fuck?My brain stalls out. Nonsensical combinations of letters swim on the page. “What do youmeanTiss isn’t his true daughter? Whose daughter is she?” I hiss.
Lydia is bending to write more when out-of-tune humming drifts across the courtyard. Our heads rise in unison.
Damn it. “Listen, we have alotto catch up on. Maida and I are cooking up a plan to get out of here. The two of us and the acolytes. You too, if we can get our shit in order before the Festival of Eisha.”
Lydia makes a strangled noise. Puts her head down, writing again.
“We’ll need your help,” I continue.
She shoves the paper in front of my face:
HOW? Impossible!
A boot scrapes the pebble-littered path over by the radishes.
