My tears fell steadily, and I watched Azurill’s hands twitch as if to reach for me, but he forced them still. I could feel my heart tearing further, cracking along the fault line created by falling for a man I believed to be the blackest of villains.
“I used the trial to take a potion that would show me what really happened that night, and it did.” I laughed wetly. “Oh, I saw alright. I saw Cassan had been there that night.”
Azurill sat up straight at that news, and I nodded grimly.
“He stabbed my father himself,” I spat, my hands fisting as I tried to contain my rage. “Carnelian apparently heard a prophecy that said as long as any person with the blood of House Marit lived, his plans to become the high king would be ruined. But if every member of House Marit was gone, then he would succeed at taking the throne.”
Azurill’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling into a snarl at the news. I watched his eyes shift from teal to silver, the transition mesmerizing.
“I believe he knows exactly who I am, Azurill,” I told him, looking away in shame. “I don’t know whether he knew as soon as he saw me, or if he figured it out later. All this time, I was working for the man who was actually responsible, while planning to take vengeance on the only man who did anything to get justice for my family.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and I nodded. “I saw you, covered in blood and surrounded by the bodies of the men who were there that night. And I can’t thank you enough for doing…whatever it was you did. You got some of the vengeance I’d always longed for. But two remain: Carnelian and Casaan. All of House Rousseau, truly. I’m positive they’re all in on this.”
I wanted to scream my frustration to the world, but that time would have to come later.
“I believe he still thinks I’m with him. That I’ll kill you for him.” My voice cracked around the words, tears falling over my cheeks in steady handfuls. “I wouldnever. Not now. And I’m sure he also plans to kill me when I’m done. After all, if he knows who I am, he knows he won’t get the throne with me alive,” I said shakily.
I’d survived so much, endured tragedy and starvation, all because some arrogant little man wanted more than the gods had given him.
“I want you to know, that every single thing I felt, everything I said,” I told him desperately, shifting forward quickly and grabbing his hand now. Squeezing even as his fingers stayed stiff. “All of it was true, Az. All of it. Ipromised you ‘truth’that night, and I meant it. I’ve felt more true, morereal, with you, than I have in my entire life.”
Azurill stood, leaving me sitting with my hand grasping air and my mouth still open to spill my heart out on the floor some more, but he simply walked away. I slid from the sofa, crashing to my knees as heaving sobs ripped from my chest. Azurill ran as fast as his legs could take him, slamming the door behind himself.
Leaving me,alone, as I had always been.
Chapter Forty
Azurill
Irammed my fist into the closest wall, feeling my knuckles crack under the pressure.
Ihadknown she was up to something.I couldn’t truly hold it against her when I’d suspected she was doingsomethingfor Carnelian.
But the confirmation was…
I had never been more conflicted, and as high king, that was saying something. The truth of her identity was both a shocking discovery and somehow completely unsurprising.
Lady Linnea Maritlived.
I had beaten myself up over the loss of House Marit for years. A critical failure of our spy networks, of the protection we offered our lords, of justice itself. Elros and Lulit were amazing, loyal Elves who deserved better. Everyone in the household that was slaughtered that night did. But I’d agonized over the loss of little Linnea most of all.
She was soyoung, and to die so brutally was an injustice that I could never reconcile. It had lived like a shadow in my heart, one that had only begun to lift when I mether. Not even knowing who she was, seeing the vision of what I’d expected the daughter of Pearl to be was enough to begin healing the long bleeding wound.
It filled me with joy to know that she lived, even as I despaired and raged at what she’d been forced into. From having to see her family executed, twice over now, to living on the streets and having to turn to a life of crime, all the way to being manipulated by Carnelian into becoming his assassin.
And then there was the fact that I struggled with most now—knowing she’d planned to kill me the entire time. She’d flirted and teased while behind her smile, she plotted my destruction.
It stung badly.No, that was hardly descriptive enough to encompass what felt like a dagger to the heart. Our connection had been built over the length of the competition, but for half of that, she’d not just been playing a game; she’d actually planned to joyfully assassinate me.
It was enough to make my head spin. The two extreme revelations on such opposite ends of the spectrum that I swung from one to the other like someone had flicked an arrow to spin quickly around them.
I suppose the real question was, what did I do now?
I had to speak with everyone, but I first needed to get a handle on whatIwanted before they tried to decide for me. I didn’t want them throwing her in the dungeon. So that was one thing I knew for sure. She had to continue in the competition, which was another.
I also knew we had to deal with Carnelian and his son. If Jacin—Linnea, had desired vengeance for this long, and been willing to kill the fucking High King for it, then she deserved to take their lives herself. But we needed to plan how to handle the downfall of House Rousseau, a nice bit of turnabout for what they did to House Marit.
I knew she had to be involved in all of it, but I wasn’t ready to see her yet, to speak with her…it was just too much.
