I’m so exhausted and irritated, I’m tempted to let him go. Let him win this one small battle. But that’s not what Rowenna would do, and despite how confused and exasperated I am with her, I know there’s a reason she led me to this hidden solarium.
I dart past Alaric and wedge myself in his doorframe.
He glares down at me. “Stand aside, Indira.”
I brace my arms against the glass and try to ignore the fact that his bare chest is just inches from my face. “How you spend your time, and who with, is definitely my concern,dearest husband,since one of the brokenhearted maidens you callously tossed aside could have killed my sister in a jealous rage.”
“Except we’ve established that no one killed Rowenna.”
“Or maybe you and your secret lover plotted Rowenna’s death together,” I continue spinning. “To ensure she didn’t keep you apart.”
“I swear, in the name of the kings, I had nothing to do with your sister’s death. My hands are clean.” Alaric holds both palms out, just like my maid in the stairwell, and another thought occurs. One so obvious, I don’t know how I didn’t think of it before.
“You weren’t working with a former lover. You were working with my maid!”
Alaric touches his fingers to his temple with a grimace. “Your theories are getting more and more outlandish.”
“It seems pretty straightforward to me,” I argue. “You hired the serving girl to kill Ro—to technically keep your hands clean—and now you’ve ordered her to do the same to me.”
“Do you honestly think my father would let me kill you?”
Once again, I scowl at his bothersome logic. “To frighten and unnerve me, then. Make me more cooperative.”
Alaric scoffs. “Nothing on this continent could makeyoumore cooperative. And I couldn’t distinguish your maid from any other employeein the palace, so I don’t know how I could possibly be in league with her.” He shoulders past me but then pauses before he vanishes into his rooms. “Iamcurious, though, what she did to frighten and unnerve you so much? Just in case I want to follow her lead,” he adds with an acidic smile.
It goes against all of my instincts, but I decide to tell him. Sometimes the body says more than the tongue ever will.
“I found her sleeping in a closet in my washroom, which was disturbing enough. But then I discovered menacing inscriptions covering the walls from floor to ceiling. Grisly things about blood, flesh, and bone along with my sister’s name.”
“‘Blood, flesh, bone’?” Alaric says with a roll of his eyes, but I swear a bit of color leaches from his cheeks, and he abruptly turns to go.
I jam my boot into the door before it closes, wincing as the heavy glass smashes my toes. “Those words clearly mean something to you. Tell me what you know.”
Groaning, Alaric attempts to nudge my boot out of the way. “I don’t have the time or the energy to do this again.”
I catch him by the wrist and dig my nails into his velvet sleeve. “Make time.”
His eyes flare, even though my bitten nails are too short to inflict any real damage. “Unhand me,” he snaps.
I squeeze tighter. “Maybe you didn’t physically carve those words or shove Ro off the cliff, but it’s obvious you had something to do with it. An innocent person is dead because ofyou. Doesn’t that bother you?”
Alaric reels back as if I slapped him. “You know nothing about the blood on my hands or how it haunts me,” he says in a low, shaky whisper. Then he slams the door so hard, the panes of glass rattle behind him.
In the sudden quiet, my nerves rattle too.
Sixteen
I spend the rest of the day pacing my chamber, stewing over myencounter with Alaric.
He was as irritating and condescending and secretive as ever, and he obviously knows more than he’s letting on. Part of me wants to storm through the palace and track him down. If I refuse to let him catch his breath or give him time to spin more lies, he just might break and finally tell the truth.
Unless heistelling the truth, the other part of me whispers.Unless he’s broken already
Rowenna scoffs.Does he look broken to you?
Not physically, but there was something undeniably vulnerable in the way he stumbled back. A familiar heaviness, hidden in the depths of his silvery eyes.
It isn’t until I stop pacing and stand in front of the floor-length mirror, that I realize what it is. Alaric wears the same haunted expression I see every time I look at my reflection. A face carved out by grief and guilt, not malice.
