Lord Hareth seemed to gather his composure as he folded his hands together. “I wanted to apologize,” he repeated, his voice growing surer—and more pained. “I never meant for you to get wrapped up in all this. I promised your mother I would keep you safe. You should be tucked away in some far away manor by now. But instead, my ambition got the best of me, and I am sorry, Anniliese.”
Well, that certainly hadn’t been what she’d expected him to say. After the initial surprise washed from her, it was slowly replaced by something cooler. Something darker.
“I don’t accept your apology.”
Her father reeled back as if he’d been struck. “Excuse me?”
Anniliese held her ground. “I said, I don’t accept your apology.”
Lord Hareth snorted. “I don’t think you have a choice whether you accept it or not, Anniliese. Don’t be ridiculous?—”
“Actually,Father,” she said, drawing out the name. “I think it’s the only thing I have left. Everything else has been stripped from me. Every scrap of freedom I had—gone.” She took a step closer to him, crowding into his space. She had no idea where this confidence came from, but it was sweeping through her, overwhelming her, heat igniting under her skin and in her palms.
“And do not lie to me. You meant for this to happen. You also intended to sell me, your daughter, like I was nothing more than a prized heifer at auction. Whether the buyer was the Onitan throne or some wealthy son, it didn’t matter to you. You brought me to Khento to further your own goals. I remember all of it, Father. And I did everything you asked. I tormented the new queen. I put on a show with the elder Laurent son. All so I could prove my worth to you and one day buy myself a life of my own.”
Her father’s eyes widened with shock.
“If I had been Chosen as queen,” she forged on, more heat swelling around her, “it would’ve beenmypower Kol used to free himself from Enfara. How, exactly, do you think Shawth would’ve weaseled it out of me? What would you have let him do to me to set his god free?”
“Ourgod,” Lord Hareth corrected her weakly. So weak that it was Anniliese’s turn to snort.
“Don’t tell me you never meant for this to happen, Father. Not when all your actions say something far different.”
Lord Hareth’s gaze finally hardened, some semblance of steel reentering his stance. “I did not know what Shawth truly planned or what was coming for us. We were all deceived, Anniliese.”
“Were you deceived when you slit the throat of a priestess who could’ve been my peer?”
Lord Hareth stumbled. The blood left his face, pallor washing out until it was pale and nearly sickly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he whispered, horror replacing the indignant anger in his voice.
“I know what I saw. The entire court saw it that day.” Anniliese lifted her chin. “For me, that was the day I lost my father.”
She turned on her heel, ready to walk back to the other priestesses. The back of her eyes burned, but she refused to let those tears fall.
“Anniliese—wait.” A hand grabbed her shoulder. She shrugged it off with a hiss. Still, she turned back to her father, finding a look of raw defeat on his face.
“Please, Anniliese,” he said hoarsely. “I know I’ve done terrible things. But you are all I have left. This is our world now, and I’m only doing what must be done for both of us to survive in it.”
“Fuckthis world.” The curse slipped past Anniliese’s teeth before she could stop it. She’d never been one for cursing; it was far from lady-like. But with the fire roiling through her veins, all those pretenses and masks were falling away.
Her father’s eyes hardened. “I am trying toprotectyou, Anniliese. But it seems you are determined to make that difficult.”
“I don’t want to be protected, Father.” The first tears slipped past her lashes, spilling down her cheek. “I want to befree.”
That was her real truth. Down beneath all the masks she wore, both in this life and the one before. The one she kept hidden in her heart, a truth she’d gotten so close to acknowledging the night she’d set Lisabel Salis’s body ablaze in the Khento gardens.
She’d twice been offered that freedom. Once by the queen and again by Andrian. Twice it had been offered, and twice she’d turned it down.
She supposed pets always did prefer their cages.
Anniliese lifted her gaze, finding her father wearing a grim expression, his mouth set in a thin line.
“None of us are free, Anniliese. Freedom is a myth for people like you and me.”
She didn’t turn away. Even as his words tore her apart.
With a heavy sigh, Lord Hareth sagged. In the flickering light, he appeared to have aged ten years. Slowly, he slid a hand into his jacket. The light caught the glint of metal. Her father pushed it toward her, shoving the object into her hands.
Anniliese glanced down, eyes widening. It was a knife—small and delicate and finely made, sheathed in a simple holster.
