Alanna felt the nausea rising, burning inside her throat. Nim was right. She ran the back of her hand over her mouth and tried to breathe through the need to throw up.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Knowing it was not, could never, ever be enough. How much had she cost these women? She leaned her hand against the wall and let her head drop to her arm in exhaustion.
But Nim didn’t allow her to sink into her misery. Val’s sister used her free hand to give her a shake, and Alanna gasped. No one except Keely ever touched her. But Nim didn’t seem to care. She simply waited until Alanna made eye contact and said firmly, “None of that. This is on Grendel. I hate him too, by the way, and that asshole you’re married to.”
Alanna was so shocked that she let out a horrified giggling snort and then immediately shamed herself by bursting into tears.
She made a point of hiding behind her frozen walls and never showing any kind of weakness. And now here she was crying in front of the only two women whose opinion actually mattered to her. The constant relentless terror of the last weeks coming to a vicious crescendo in the great hall, Val and Keely’s imminent deaths, Nim’s too… it was suddenly too much for her, and she couldn’t help her breathless sobs.
A pair of warm arms immediately circled her and held her close, which simply made her cry even harder. “Shush now,” Nim whispered. And then Keely was there too, her arms around them both, the hideous chain clanking and rattling as they moved.
Eventually her tears slowed, and Alanna lifted her skirt and wiped her face.
“What the hell are you wearing?” Nim whispered, taking a good look at Alanna’s breeches and mourning dress combination.
Alanna snorted again and then looked helplessly at Keely. She wasn’t used to someone speaking to her. She wasn’t used to people acknowledging her at all.
Keely’s face was grim as she tried to say something to help but found nothing. In the end, Alanna gave a small shake of her head and looked away as she whispered, “It makes me feel safer.”
Her gut tightened, waiting for pity. Or condemnation. But Nim merely nodded in understanding, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then nodded again. “Right. All three of us need to get out of here. And, on our way, we can pick up Val.”
Alanna was in awe. She looked from Keely to Nim, and the words just slipped out. “You’re everything I imagined.”
“What?” Nim asked, confusion clear in her voice.
“Val. He spoke of you often,” Alanna admitted.
“Did he?” Nim raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I wish I could say that he had spoken of either of you.”
Alanna shook her head. She wished that too. “He couldn’t. Not because he didn’t trust you,” she added quickly, seeing the hurt on Nim’s face, “but because he loves you so much. He wanted to protect you from Ballanor and Grendel.”
“Yes. Well. That was a great success,” Nim said softly.
Alanna could feel tears building once more and pressed into her eyes with the heels of her palms. What could she say? Nim was right.
Nim looked thoughtful, as if she were carefully considering her words before she spoke. “Okay. I’m trying to understand. I—” Nim’s voice broke, and this time it was Alanna that reached out. It felt so strange to willingly touch another person, but this was Val’s sister. She owed it to her. And more than that, she wanted to explain. “Val never betrayed the king,” she admitted in a low voice.
“Of course not.” Nim’s reply was so instantaneous that it took her breath away. This was what loyalty looked like. What family should be like.
“And we’re not lovers,” Alanna added, wanting Nim to know the truth. And it was the truth, whatever she may have wished for in the most secret places in her heart.
Nim nodded slowly, looking curious but not surprised, her eyes flicking to Keely.
“Val didn’t conspire with Keely either,” Alanna said softly. And then she forced her spine straight and reached for the ice she was going to need when Nim’s kindness turned to disgust. “Everything he’s done, the reason he’s been tortured, is because he knows the truth.” She lowered her eyes. “And because he tried to save me.”
“What truth?” Nim’s voice held no condemnation, not yet.
Keely answered for her. “The only person who could have set up the massacre at Ravenstone was Ballanor. He chose that location. And he took the letter that Alanna wrote to her mother. He also complained of illness on the morning of Ravenstone and asked his father to go without him. Oh, he told everyone that it was Alanna’s fault he wasn’t going, but he did that so often that we didn’t see how dangerous it was until later.”
Keely gave them both a somber look before continuing. “Val knows all of this because he was Alanna’s personal guard. His proximity to her means he is the only person who genuinely knows everything that happened. If he testifies before the Nephilim Justices, then everyone will know that the king murdered his father and blamed Alanna. Ballanor wants him dead before he can do that.”
“But then why not just kill him? Why wait all this time? Why torture him?” Nim asked slowly in a low, pained voice.
“Too many questions would be asked if Ballanor simply executed the queen. Verturia would be compelled to declare war immediately and avenge a wrongful execution, and, since the Brythorian armies were all decommissioned by Geraint, Ballanor would lose. Ballanor needs her dead too, she’s as much a risk if she goes before the Justices as Val. More, even. But if Val confessed and blamed the queen, it would be enough to execute them both,” Keely explained.
And there was more. Alanna didn’t want to tell her, but she knew she must. “We heard Ballanor commanding Grendel to fetch Val’s family. We think that, when Val refused to confess, Grendel went after you… to force him to say what they wanted.”
“Well, they’ve got me now,” Nim said quietly.
