“If you wish to protect your mother and honor your brother, this is the only way,” Soren says through his teeth. “Thisis the truth. Otherwise, Besnik’s death will have been for nothing.”
“Your Majesty!” the guard yells again. “Please confirm your status.”
Alaric glances back at the gaping wound in the floor. Tears course down his face, and he wraps his jacket around his chest so tightly, a silver button pops free. While he fumbles to catch it, Soren places a forceful hand on Alaric’s shoulders.
“We pray together.Now.”
Alaric looks like he’s going to scream, but he clenches his fists and allows his father to pull him to the ground.
Once they’re both in position, the King of Vanzador begins to sing.
Twenty-Five
The golden light falls away, whisking the phantoms of young Alaric and Soren into the star-swept darkness of the mountaintop. Grown Alaric, however, remains curled over his knees, sobbing. I don’t realizeI’m crying, too, until Delphine reaches over and wipes an icy tear off my cheek.
“It’s just the cold,” I whisper. “I’m not…” But I can’t finish. I’m too wounded by the ragged ache inside my own chest. It doesn’t matter that Besnik died years ago. A loss like this never gets easier to bear. You just learn to live with the bone-deep pain. You go on dressing the infected wound, knowing it will never fully heal.
Alaric rocks back and forth, howling his brother’s name, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
But undeniably convenient, Rowenna says.
I’m surprised and relieved to hear her voice again after our little disagreement. It was wrong of me to purposely make her mad. Clearly, I need her help to see things from a strategic, rather than emotional, perspective.
It’s almost uncanny, how perfectly this new information about Alaric could work to my advantage. Soren commanded Alaric to purge the memory of Besnik’s death, and not only did Alaric disregard Soren’srequest, he somehow found a way to relive the event. A way toproveSoren killed Besnik—a revelation that would be devastating for both men, should the truth come to light. The Vanzadorian people would never look at Soren the same. They might even hesitate to give him their memories if they feared his temper and lack of control. At the very least, his reputation as a strong, compassionate ruler would be shattered. And if he learned Alaric’s disobedience was to blame for his fall from grace, Soren would ensure no one ever looked on his son again.Period.
A shiver overtakes me, lifting the hairs on my arms.
This could be the answer—a way to weaken, or even eliminate, both men—and I know, deep in my bones, Rowenna arrived at this same conclusion. It’s why she was sneaking up the mountain. Why she was murdered. She must have caught Alaric reliving these forbidden memories, and he must have killed her to keep his secrets safe. It would have been so easy. No one would have seen or heard Ro fall from such a remote location.
But could Alaric really have taken another life so soon after reliving Besnik’s death? I consider him, still curled in on himself like a pill bug, too distraught to even notice a threat, let alone overpower one. And his cryptic words from our argument in the solarium come back to me, rife with new meaning:
You know nothing about the blood on my hands or how it haunts me.
There’s no question Alaric Alaverdi is haunted, but I’m beginning to think it’s by his own demons. Not my sister’s ghost.
But if he didn’t kill Rowenna for discovering his secret, who did?
I suppose Alariccouldhave gone to Soren for help, but that would have required admitting he’d kept the memory of Besnik’s death. Something he’s clearly unwilling to do, seeing as how he treks all the way up the mountain to view it. So maybe Rowenna bypassed confronting Alaric and took her knowledge straight to Soren? She could have tried to blackmail the Vanzadorian king in exchange for better terms for Tashir. He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her to extinguish such athreat.
But if that were the case, wouldn’t Soren have come down on Alaric too? He would have destroyed the memory of Besnik’s death at the very least.
“What do you make of all this?” I whisper to Delphine. “What did we just witness?”
“I don’t know.” Delphine slowly shakes her head. “It felt like a memory, but I didn’t know it was possible torelivethem like that. We can recall the memories we choose not to give to the earth, of course. And it’s popular among the courtiers to pay a siphoning tax that allows them to store important memories in prized possessions—in addition to keeping them in their minds—for added assurance they won’t be lost to the tithes. But as far as I know, siphoned memories can’t spring to life in glittering detail. If they could, the courtiers would be obsessed with replaying their proudest moments for all to see.”
I think of my own most cherished memories—all the moments I’d relive if I could—and every one includes my sister: dancing in the apple press during the harvest festival, racing barefoot through the wheat beneath the summer sun, and ordinary nights in our bedchamber when we’d whisper and giggle in the dark until our bellies ached. Bringing those memories to life would be the next best thing to resurrecting my sister—therealRowenna, not the mercurial ghost she’s become on this mountain.
What if they’re one and the same?My irritating inner voice resurfaces.What if Rowenna has always been deceitful and self-serving, but you were too blinded by devotion to see it?
I vehemently shake my head, but another parade of memories is already marching across my mind: Rowenna flirting mercilessly with Middeon Kalendi in order to get invited to dinner with his family so she could gauge his mother’s opinion on her proposal for the planting rotation, as she was one of the only ministers whose vote was undecided. After the vote was cast, Ro never spoke to Middeon again. Or the timeshe purposely told Janesa Ofa the wrong time for their debate on irrigation techniques, so she’d win by default. Ro claimed she’d been too busy cleaning up one of Father’s messes to properly prepare, and she refused to be publicly humiliated due to someone else’s mistake.
I was quick to defend her both times. Middeon had led on his fair share of girls over the years and deserved to be humbled a bit. And Janesa was a know-it-all who was determined to best everyone in the classroom—my sister especially. If Ro wrote a three-page report on the merits of pest control, Janesa wrote six pages. If Rowenna volunteered to help a primary child learn to read, Janesa would take on two pupils and ensure they were sounding out words twice as fast. She needed to be put in her place. They both did. That’s something all of Rowenna’s “enemies” had in common. If my sister was cruel or deceptive, it was always with reason. More often than I care to admit, that reason was defending me.
So you’re admitting she could be cruel and deceptive?The maddening voice of doubt persists, twisting my words.
No.
Yes.
