A gasp left my lips in tandem with Sania’s.
“My goddess?” she asked, with a wailing note of panic in her voice. I laughed raggedly, lifting my head to look at her.
“Did you really think she would favor you after your wretched family betrayed mine?” I taunted her, leaving her wide eyes to find her father, frantically seeking reassurance. There had been something distinctly strange about that old Elven woman who’d given me the clam, and I realized now she must have been a messenger of some kind. Erodite had ensured that I had that necklace, and I could only send my thanks to my goddess for her protection.
“Regardless.” Carnelian cut through the racket. “We need her blood. It will just have to be given willingly instead.” I glared at him incredulously.
He glared right back at me, “You will cooperate.”
“Really? Will I?” I scoffed, shaking my head, my eyes finding Ula’s once more. A sinking feeling grew in my chest when she wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I moved back to the ruby-red ones staring at me patiently.
“Oh yes.” He gave me a smug smile, “Unless, of course, you don’t care for your dear friend, Ula, here?”
I looked between the two of them as Carnelian walked over to her, placing his hand around her neck and squeezing slightly. Ula stiffened, looking back at him with wild eyes.
“You wouldn’t!” she cried, and I had to fight back the nausea as I realized that she actually trusted him to some extent. “I did my part!”
My eyes closed in defeat. I didn’t want to believe it. Ula had been there for me since I was achild. She’d all but raised me since the day she found me. Been there for me every day since. Taught me everything she knew. Kept me safe…
But she also taught me to survive.
Which is why Ididbelieve it.
“What did he offer you?” I asked her softly, my eyes locking onto hers. Her face crumpled, her eyes closing as she shook her head.
Carnelian merely laughed, “Oh, don’t play at guilt, my dear. You played your part fabulously! As soon as I located you, Lady Linnea,” he spat my title like a curse, “I realized there was one sure way to get you here. Ula had to be convinced, don’t get me wrong, but she soon saw the benefit of helping me. Small bits of poison, just enough to make Ula sick, but nottoosick, to get you to just the right place where you’d walk into my castle willingly. A few false leads, and it was all too easy to draw you right in. As if I’d ever let a worker who knew of such a hole in my security live.”
He shook his head at me like I was the biggest idiot he’d ever seen, and I couldn’t even disagree with him. I’d been played from the beginning. From long before it, even. How long had Ula been planning this?
“What’d you get for selling me out?” I asked her dryly, even though I was swallowing back the tears I wanted to shed over her betrayal. For so long, she was the only person I trusted. But I had other people now, and Ula had always made it clear that she was out for herself first and foremost.
“Enough wealth to get herself out of the gutter.” Sania laughed from the sidelines. “Somepeopledon’t want to live like rats, you know. Even if filth like you seems to prefer it, no matter how much you play at being a lady.” She taunted, a proud look crossing her face as she lifted her nose haughtily.
“I’m sorry, Jac,” Ula cried out, even as Carnelian’s fingers clasped around her neck and squeezed. “He already knew who you were! I wouldn’t have ever told him, but it was already too late.”
“So you got what you could out of it,” I answered back, raising a brow at her as I grit my teeth.
“Like I always taught you.” She raised a brow back, a pleading look on her face. I closed my eyes to it, not wanting to see the earnestness on her face after what she did. She didn’t deserve it. Even if I could understand it.
She didn’t come from the same world I did. One where betrayal, like the kind perpetuated by the Helmi’s, was seen as the worst action one could take against their blood. One where loyalty was expected among the nobility, even when they tried plotting to advance their station, it was assumed that they did so within the confines of that loyalty.
She came from the world I had grown to know. One where you did anything you could to survive. It was cut-throat, and Ula had taught me long ago not to trust a soul on the streets. She was right, and it was more proof that I never really belonged there. I tried to fool myself into being…if not happy, at least accepting of my circumstances. But after returning to my world, after being reawakened by Azurill, after finding friends I could rely on, I knew I could never go back.
“If you don’t freely give your blood, your little friend here will die,” Carnelian said with a bored tone that showed how little he cared about this. His only stake in this side of their plan was obviously just to get his loyal minions to stop mooching off him and finally be self-sufficient.
“Why should I care?” I asked him, keeping my face totally blank. “She literally just admitted to betraying me.”
“Because I’ve learned a bit about you, watching you all this time,” Carnelian said, a knowing gleam in his eye. “You may not want to care, but you do. You’ll never forgive yourself if you let her die now.”
I stared him down, watching Ula begin to choke as he tightened his fingers, a cruel gleam in his eyes. I wanted to call his bluff, believe that he wouldn’t actually go through with it. She was his only leverage, after all. But as her eyes began to bulge and her skin tinted blue, I realized he seemed excited by the prospect of getting to kill her…
“Fine!” I finally cracked, along with my voice, “Fine. I’ll give you the damn blood. But I don’t give you permission to hurt me otherwise or in any way kill me. If you try, consider my permission revoked.”
Azurill lived. I repeated the thought in my mind. There was still a chance I could get out of this before they could do anything, and money wasn’t worth Ula’s life, betrayal or not. Hopefully my words would cover my own ass in the process. Magic had an intelligence to it, based on intent and feeling, so I had to believe Erodite had my back here.
Carnelian released his hold on her neck with a disappointed sigh, and she fell to the ground, coughing and spluttering as she rubbed her neck. Our gazes met, and she shut her eyes to avoid the pity I knew was brimming in my stare. She’d made a deal with a demon, and she knew as well as I did that she was now reaping what she sowed.
Casaan stepped forward, blade in one hand and a potion bottle in the other, an amused smirk on his face. He brought the knife to my cheek as he knelt down beside me, digging the point in just enough to pierce the skin and make me bleed, but not a true cut. “Bet you wish you’d taken me up on my offer now, huh?”
