“Cason,” she whispered. It took a long moment for his eyes to drag away from that spot on the wood to meet her gaze. “The world has made us enemies. You can hate my people all you want. You can curse the shadow-kind and spit on the Veil Worshippers or string me up as the Veil Scholar, but hear these words and know I mean them. I trust you, and I do not want to be your enemy.”
He blinked, but that was the only indication he had heard her. Completely unreadable.
Brela forced herself to look back at the map. “Returning to Valisea will be my own personal hell, but I am doing it to protect my family.” She stood and straightened her shoulders. “Farrah needs an hour, but that map is yours to study. Collect your questions or pack during that time, but I would appreciate it if your father never found out about those locations.”
Serill cleared the rasp in his throat before nodding. “It will only be the five of us today. I will not let it out of my sight.”
“Thank you.”
She didn’t dare look back at Cason as she walked toward the door. It killed her more than she ever thought it would to know that there would be no more flirting with him, no more banter, and definitely no more knife teasing.
Still, as she reached the door, she found herself whispering under her breath. “I’m sorry.”
Brela didn’t know why she waited another half a second for a response that would never come. It only made the Veil shard in her chest burn colder through her heart.
* * *
Farrah’s heartthundered against her burning lungs. It was impossible for the walls of a solid structure to be shrinking in around her, but that’s exactly what the prince’s dining room was doing. That open area suddenly felt crushing as her limbs turned leaden and the ringing in her head became unbearable.
Squeezing the air out of her throat, just likehisgrip had done. Digging into her skin, just likehisfingers and whip had done. Making her bones feel brittle, just likehisfists had done while she was strung up like those women in Calcheth.
She couldn’t go to the room, not when she’d seehislimp body and pooling blood. Not when she’d see her father glaring at her from the shadows, cane ready to strike her for her trembling weakness, or her mother’s cold stare and ignorance as she turned away in disgust.
The hallways closed in on her. Farrah picked up her pace and headed for the courtyard.
Every scar along her back and shoulders stung as if they were as fresh as the day they’d been cut. Sweat rolled down her neck and between her shoulder blades, clinging to her shirt. She ripped at the fabric along her neck, trying to pull it away from her skin.
Sweat, not blood. Sweat, not blood.
She repeated the words to herself—words Brela had given her some of those first nights after she’d rescued Farrah; words she’d heard Brela whisper after her own nightmares.
Farrah found a bench in front of the fountain and curled her arms around her stomach. She hated the touch. Hated it, even if it was her own skin, but she tried to remember that not every touch was cruel. Not everyone in this world was cruel.
Brela had taught her that. She’d fought her own battles and could still be soft and kind and warm, even if something dark brewed inside. Brela had reminded her that there was still light and strength within Farrah’s heart, too, and that what she’d faced or done didn’t make her any less worthy of being loved.
It was Brela that taught her a touch could be intimate and beautiful rather than full of brute strength and dominance. It was Elias who taught her that there were men capable of that kind of touch and gentleness as well.
As painful as it was to admit—since Elias was the only man she truly trusted—Farrah was thankful that he sat on the other side of the bench from her. He’d made his approach known by closing the castle doors loudly and echoing a few coughs, not disguising his normally silent steps and breathing. Though he watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye, he would wait until she gave him permission before he did anything more.
It wasn’t until she could hear the trickling of the fountain over the roar in her ears that she finally felt like she could get enough air to speak. Even though she knew Elias wouldn’t stand for it, she whispered the words anyway.
“I’m sorry.”
“None of that,” Elias whispered back. With steady hands and careful movements, he set a cherry tart between them on the bench. “Not as good as Madame Bele’s, or yours, but there’s enough sugar to make up for it. Veris and Diggory would be running up the walls if they got their hands on just half of one.”
Distractions. Farrah’s lips twitched into just enough of a smile that Elias’s shoulders slackened. Her arms even loosened around her stomach. “Is Brela—“
“She’s taking care of it,” he replied, cutting her off with a nod toward the food. A silent and firm order, albeit kind. He waited until she had swallowed two bites, smiling at her cringe at the overpowering sweetness, before he continued. “They’re different. Even Valkip. Brela can see that, though I’m not sure the captain is quite ready to admit it himself.”
Farrah let out a soft snort. “I don’t know how she does that.”
Elias shrugged. “That’s why she gave us the map. She neededusto see that they were different. It wouldn’t have been enough if she was the one to tell us that the prince had given her those books. We needed to hear it from him. We needed to see that the prince wasn’t like his father.”
Or, perhaps even more critical, Brela wanted them to see thatshewasn’t blinded in her trust just because the prince had given her a book about extinct magic. She’d been desperate to learn more about the shadow magic in her, even when she still believed it was a curse. Having that book—ausefulbook, according to her quick signing back in the dining room—was more powerful to Brela than the enormous sum of money that would pull her out of Ovir’s debt. Now she would be walking away with both.
No wonder she wanted Farrah and Elias to be the final vote. Maybe Brela didn’t trustherselfto make the right decision with that much power in her hands.
Elias swallowed and turned his shining green eyes toward her. “You don’t have to go.”
