Guilt. Regret. Horror. Self-disgust?Whatever expression was on her face looked like pure torment and was my least favorite by far.
“Not armed?” she parroted back at him as though it couldn’t be possible. The boy nodded.
Her face crumpled.Emmerick shook his head.
“Surely, you are wrong.” She looked between us.
My heart ached for her, but I longed for her to realize the consequences of blindly following orders. Another part of me was so angry with her and hated her by proxy.How could she not see it?
“What part did you play?” I was unable to control the accusation plaguing my tone. It came out harsher than I meant it.
She looked at me with wide, pooling eyes.Fuck,not tears.Seeing a woman cry was always my downfall. Seeing a woman who didn’t seem to have emotions at all cry would be torturous.
“I’m their Oracle…I told the Sisterhood what I felt, what I heard—the radical’s thoughts were so violent. I heard their whispered conversations. When I told them, Firose initiated a vote to take out the threat.”
The threat.Such a cruel way to view it. My teeth ground, and I was thankful that the boy Commander spoke first. I couldn’t look at her.
“Yes,” Emmerick confirmed. “But they werepeacefulprotestors,not a threat.Angry, yes, but armed, no.” His tone was venomous. He was losing his composure too. Apparently, me and the Commander had found common ground in our anger.
Asterie’s eyes turned to a dark swirl again behind the welled tears.
What the boy had said to her had to come as a shock. She didn’t strike me as a good actress. I tried to remember that none of it was entirely her fault—it was hard not to be angry even still.
“Count…” I said quietly before I turned to the Commander. “Clearly, she didn’t know. Lay off for now.”
Was that my guilt defending her?
I’d been used as a pawn once too. I had destroyed and set ablaze any claim to my innocence with one idiotic act.An act of love.Asterie was suffering the same manipulation, and from experience, I knew facing it head-on was a bitch.
“We should keep walking. We’ll be able to rest in Belray. The Egress is at an estate outside town. It would be best to travel in the daylight, and we could all use a night’s rest.” My words were flat.
We walked away from the setting afternoon sun toward Belray and tried to put the horrors of Kullworth behind us.
Chapter14
Asterie
We arrived in the township of Belray during summer commencement celebrations. A crowd of people dressed in vivid emeralds and blues had taken to the cobblestone streets that wound through the town.
I stood, a wallflower, against the brick of a blacksmith shop as a quadrille of dancers whirled about the town square. The musicians that accompanied them played a cheerful tune. I barely noticed Emmerick and Fenris slip away to secure our rooms at an inn nearby.
Dusk settled on the bustling town, and men were lighting oil street lamps, but music still played in the square. Bunting banners with an emblem of a rising sun were strung from lamp to lamp.
Tucked into a valley among the evergreens and pines, the township of Belray was built of low-roofed stone shops and cottages that surrounded a great lake. Insulated by the Hussa mountains surrounding it, Belray seemed a hidden gem—an oasis of the North. Even the winds were not as chilled here.
Groups paraded past me, traveling from one doorstep to the next, lighting a candle on each and singing songs to the Sun Source as they went. Amara had once explained that it was not uncommon for some towns to be devoted to both the Sources and the Order. The people here were of that unique combination. By Emmerick’s earlier explanation, Belray was prospering. I wondered whether this was where the wealthy and fortunate families of Kullworth had ended up migrating.
I’d read about the summer traditions.
Light for light.The ceremonious act was meant to ask the sun to shine bright and let the days grow longer. A simple ritual with Brennac origins.
As the dancers passed in graceful sways and spins, the image of that man on the platform wouldn’t leave my mind. I replayed it repeatedly—the rage in his eyes as he lit that robe, the blood running from his throat.With every passing smile and laugh, it seemed more and more unfair.
A simple “I” of agreement had condemned a peaceful assembly to death. No one else was to blame for the events that unfolded in Kruthin and Kullworth.
While the people of Belray emanated happiness to welcome the sun season, their neighbors were being slaughtered and brutalized. For fighting the Order—fighting against the constructs I’d spent so long upholding. Constructs that had doomed their town to poverty.
Emmerick and Fen found me still staring blankly at the dancers. We hadn’t spoken during the rest of the walk to Belray. The weight of their words and their anger hung heavily on me.
