“Vanitee herself claims it was you,” Creatchin tilts her head at me, and that faint smile widens to a full display of pleasure.
Vanitee sniffles lightly but keeps her chin held high. Her mother smirks lightly.
I don’t understand her manic amusement.
“I—” Once more I try to use my words carefully, but it doesn’t matter because I’m cut off immediately by a rush of accusations.
“Cersia killed her,” Nyra blurts, her lower lip quivering, but she clamps her jaw shut against the apparent rising of her sadness and continues on. “She’s a rare beast that all the realms have heard of but seldom have seen. She’s a dragon. She needs to be tamed. She’s too reckless.” Her eyes blaze like fire amongst the darkness. “Just like our father.”
The breath in my lungs leaves me in a cutting surprise of bitterness.
I should be bitter. I should be outraged by the turn of my sister’s loyalty.
But I lost her loyalty a long time ago. Creatchin wanted that. She wanted me alone and lost. And I didn’t even realize it until now.
Ravar said she’d kill me.
She never wanted to kill me. She wanted me to lose everything I love, and that might be worse than death. What’s life without love?
It may as well be death.
But she didn’t realize I had love, lust, and adoration hidden away within her very own High Hell. Whatever she’s prepared me to suffer, she already failed.
“Cersia of The Upper Realm, I am displeased with your use of your shifter.” Creatchin sweeps her gaze across my deliberately vacant features. “I should kill you on the spot for the death of such a kind and honorable soul as my advisor.”
And yet . . . she hasn’t.
She left me alone in a cell all night to really drive home my isolation.
But I wasn’t alone.
Will she drag out my loneliness for all eternity? Will she lock me up in the tallest tower?
I’m not a damsel. I’m a fucking dragon. I’m the reason fair maidens in towers even exist.
So whatever it is this conniving woman has planned, I’m here to shut it the fuck down.
“I think the kingdom of Hell will use you, Cersia. You’ll serve a life sentence as property of the greatest kingdom in all the realms.”
I blink at her. Those words pass over and over through my mind as I try to understand, but the whispers around me scuttle about like cockroaches.
Dragon.
Traitor.
Queen’s pet.
Slayer.
And that’s the one.
She wants me to slay her enemies. She doesn’t even know about the few known dragons in the Upper Realm. She wants to have the greatest realm, and she wants to take any realm who dares challenge her. And maybe—just maybe—that was her plan the moment she asked her High Hell to find the most beautiful woman in all the lands.
She didn’t want someone pretty. She wanted someone deadly.
My features remain impassive as I stare up at my humble—manic—queen. Everyone’s gazes are so heavily on me, I can feel them crawling across my skin. Still, I remain emotionless. Hell is a game to be played.
I knew that from the start.
