He moved back to his dais, regarding me with delight. “There we are, finally asking the right questions. Do you truly believe Goddesses and Demon Princes have much to gain from casting an illness upon us?” My eyes narrowed as his smile grew at my hesitation. “Think.Who truly has the most to gain from the separation of Luanthians and Solerians?”
Bran stepped forward, but Wraith's head shot to him, lip curling. “Youare not playing.”
Bran's lips pressed to a thin line, his gaze darting to me. Worry danced there, he was not enjoying this. That made two of us.
“That’s not an answer.”
“So astute and soboring,”he complained, as his hand twirled in the smoke he let loose. “If I must spell it out for you, I believe The Fever to be of human creation, not born from the divine. What better way to sow such division of hate than to use tactics of fear and blame to justify your mistreatment of half a population. Cruel yet brilliant, don’t you think?”
My mind whirled with this information. He didn’t truly think thatSolerianshad created and infected the kingdom with The Fever purposefully, did he? How could such a feat even be possible? Yet he had drunk the same truth serum as I.
He spoke again. “I knew a woman once,” his voice softening, “with silver hair and eyes blue as ice upon the sea. She danced so lovely and you, little liar, are the spitting image of her. Show me what hangs from that chain around your neck.”
My hands shook as I pulled the pendant free from beneath my shirt; he watched it swing with such intensity I thought he may try to snatch it.
“Why do you believe The Fever was a human creation?” Iasked.
“Because my grandfather claimed he helped make it, before his execution of course.”
I stilled, the air too thick, too hot. The shadows stirred.
They hissed, near gleeful beneath my skin. Preening and purring.
Oh to see how the future shall unfold.
The Soleil's reign will crumble when this truth is told.
“You are not truly Solerian.” It was not a question. “I would wager the empire I have built that you hide silver hair beneath the magic of that pendant. I was the one who gave it to your mother after all.”
My breaths were coming quickly now, panic stirring low in my belly. “What were you to my mother?”
“Not your turn,” he tutted. “What became of her, after she left Amareshi?”
“She burned when I was seven, the night of The Cleansing.”
His lip curled in disgust. “And your father? Where was the coward when she was tied to a stake?”
My brows furrowed, not caring that he had asked two questions. The knowledge that he had known my father was far more telling than any question I might have asked. “I never met him.Whois my father?”
He stilled. The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity, his throat constricted, letting out a wheezing cough before he spoke. “His name was Altan, a man I once considered a brother.”
He took another pull of his opium as my world crumbled piece by piece. I took in his black hair, the hooded eyes he watched me with.
His smile was anything but kind. “Did your mother ever speak of her time here?”
“Rarely.” My mind was whirling, thoughts jumbled and frantic as my fingers brushed over the pendant. “What was my mother to you? Did you love her?”
His lip curled. “Love is such a fickle thing,” he murmured, the sand chaos around us, so loud now I could hardly hear his response. “I worshipped her. Iownedher. She wasmine.She was one of my favorites—a perfect pet. Before Altan thought she should be freed, too wild to be tamed, and stole her away into the night. I never saw her again, nor him.” He moved closer, his fingers hovering just centimeters from my cheek as if to caress me. “Until now. You have her beauty, her rage in you.”
He breathed deeply, as if he could scent the despair that swirled within me. “But you have his eyes. As grey as a storm filled sky. You carry their knack for deception to the marrow of your bones, little liar. Does the Luanthian know what you are?”
“No.”
“A pity,” his smile curving. “Perhaps you have your mother’s skill for betrayal and heartbreak as well.”
“What magic does this pendant hold?”
He still searched my face as he spoke, a longing for the ghost of the people he saw somewhere within me, as though my mere presence was a haunting he could not escape. “It is an old relic. Older than the Goddesses we now worship. It was crafted in the fires of treachery and deceit, built and forged with the blood of a God older than you and I could ever fathom. Its purpose is to conceal, to contain.”
