Stark’s brow just barely tightens. “There is one person here who might have some answers for you.”
I roll over onto my back with a groan. “Iknow, I was thinking the same. But I’m not sure how eager he’ll be to help us this morning after we just tried to assassinate him last night.”
We both contemplate the absurdity of that statement for a moment.
“He let Noemi live,” Stark points out. “He made you grovel for it, the bastard, but still. That’s not the action of a monarch who’s willing to walk away from this peace negotiation.”
I turn that over in my mind. “You’re right,” I admit. “He’s been insufferable and insulting, but he’s actually been fairly cooperative so far. Ugh, I was really hoping to go a few more hours without seeing his dumb face.”
Stark gets out of bed, and I follow him reluctantly, throwing on a set of clean clothes.
I need to talk to Saela. She should be the first to know what I’m thinking since the necklace is in her possession—and keeping her safe.
My eyes are bleary from lack of sleep as I push open the door to our shared living room and then stop dead in my tracks.
Saela and Venna sit on the couch, speaking slowly but conversantly in sign language. Saela looks so comfortable—or at least she did until I arrived.
I didn’t realize she learned so much sign language, and so quickly. Then again, she’s always picked things up fast.
“Good morning, you two.” I try to remember the signs I saw before they cut off their conversation, but there were too many words I didn’t recognize.
Saela looks up at me, blushing.
She’s clearly hiding something, but for the life of me, I don’t know what it is. What were she and Venna talking about?
Venna rises. “I’ll let you two get ready for the day,” she says, moving to leave.
“Wait. Venna, can we talk first?” I say. “Walk with me?”
She nods and follows me away from my sister’s prying ears, into the palace corridor. I aimlessly turn us left.
“What was that? Is Saela okay?” I blurt out. “It felt like she was hiding something from me just now.” I glance sidelong at Venna’s face as we walk.
Venna presses her lips together, inhaling deeply. “That’s between the two of you, Meryn,” she says. “I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
I stop short. So I am missing something here, after all. “If she has something she needs to talk about, she should talk tome. I’m her sister! She shouldn’t sneak around, keeping secrets by using a language I can barely understand.”
Venna sighs in obvious irritation and turns to me, eyebrows raised. “Well, Meryn, whose fault is it that you haven’t moved past basic signs yet?”
I bite my lip and pivot to look out the window behind me, studying the courtyard just beyond. My body burns with shame. I know she’s right. It’s not something I’ve prioritized enough, not like I should have.
“Look,” Venna says from behind me, voice kinder than I deserve. “Saela is going through some things that she feels like only I will understand.”
My eyes flood with tears unexpectedly, and I blink rapidly to clearthem. “What things?! She should know that she can always talk to me about anything!”
“Can she? Be honest with yourself, Meryn.” Venna puts a hand on my shoulder, and I turn to meet her gaze. The look she gives me is piercing, but not unkind. “Do you know what it feels like to be marked by difference? To be made to feel like some essential part of you is unwanted? Can you put yourself in that perspective?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat.
Venna lets her hand drop from my shoulder, taking a step back. When she speaks again, her voice is weary.
“Saela is excited to be in a place where she fits in, where she’s not seen as a problem but as something common. And she doesn’t know how you’d take that.”
It stings. I’m such a fucking asshole.
I’ve been holding so tight to the idea of the future that I’d imagined for us, one where we grow old together. One where we pass through all of life’s important moments at each other’s sides.
It’s everything I strived for with the Trials. Finding my sister and returning our lives to normalcy.
