“Nothing,” Arbina said as she turned back to playing in Aydra’s hair. “It is about time after so many years of our squabbles that the people take rest.”
Aydra paused a moment and stared out at the beach. Hairs and a chill grew on her skin as Arbina played in her hair, and her eyes began to drift. But Draven’s face came to the front of her mind, imagining he playing with her hair instead of Arbina, and she began to fumble with her hands.
“Why did you and Duarb become enemies?” she finally asked.
Arbina paused and stared at her. “Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason…” Aydra lied. “I just… I was hurt in their realm a few weeks ago. They took me in. Helped me heal. I knew no terror or felt no hostility from them. After everything I was taught growing up—”
“Duarb is a liar,” Arbina cut in, yanking at Aydra’s hair. “He tried to seduce me. Enslave me and tell me his children were so much more superior to my own. His children are no different from he. They are manipulative. Cursed. Treacherous. They’ll say and do anything to get you to think they are anything more than a group of rebel mercenaries. The ones they call Venari are full of such vile miscreants, even more so than their shifting brothers they’ve entitled the Infi.” A huff of amusement left her lips. “Venari King,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Such a title given to them simply to appease their aggression. Make them think they have a say here in this world.”
Aydra’s eyes narrowed back at her mother. “I don’t think that’s true,” she argued.
Arbina dropped Aydra’s hair and balked at her. “Are you calling your mother a liar?”
“I am not. But… I think these people have grown from what you knew them as, what they used to be. What Duarb used to be.”
Arbina reached out and pushed Aydra’s hair from her face, cupping her cheek in her hand. “My dear, sweet, daughter… how do you think you came by those injuries in the first place? Did you think it was by chance?”
Aydra’s stomach knotted at the way her mother looked at her, and she started to back her way out of the pool. “I think you’re wrong.”
Arbina’s jaw tightened, and she rose to tower over Aydra, eyes blazing with a fury Aydra had not seen before. Just as Aydra thought her mother would snap at her, the fury in her gaze relaxed, and Arbina leaned down to give her a kiss on her forehead.
“Vigilance, my daughter,” she told her. “Do not turn your back on them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE NEXT THE Council came to Magnice made Aydra’s body nauseous. She met the Council with her siblings the night before as she always did. Ash had come early this time, and he’d joined her in her bed that night, but she never found her end.
Every time he would kiss her, all she could see was Draven’s face.
And she hated him for it.
Lex met her in her room that morning as Aydra got dressed, kicking Ash out to his own room. Aydra was throwing clothes from her closet to the bed when Lex threw a grape at her back.
“What’s your problem?” Lex grunted.
Aydra glared at her over her shoulder. “I’m fine,” she insisted.
“Something tells me you should have used the Venari King’s gift last night,” Lex mumbled.
“I want nothing to remind me of him,” Aydra spat.
Lex frowned and sat up in the bed. “Weeks ago, you told me he made you feel things you didn’t know how to take. Now he’s arriving on our doorstep this morning and suddenly you want nothing to do with him?”
Aydra sighed and willed her core to relax. She pulled out one of her less formal dresses and held it against her. “It’s not like that.”
“Explain it to me.”
“My brother has Belwarks watching my every move. Whatever is between the Venari and I… it is too new to risk him being thrown in chains over.”
“So you would allow him to think you feel nothing? That you hate him more than usual?”
“I would.”
Lex paused and gave her a once over. “Is that why you’ve been wearing his shirt to sleep every night?”
Aydra’s jaw tightened and she glared at Lex’s smirking face. “It smells like the forest and it’s comfortable. Shut up.”
