She wanted me to say it. The whole heinous thing.
“The Dragon married your cousin. And Banu and Valuta’s daughter.” I finally yanked the words out of me. They sounded worse out loud. “As you already know.”
Allie closed her beautiful eyes.
That hurt more than the rage.
Better to have her gaze set on me in fury than not at all.
“I do. But I didn’t hear it from you,” she whispered, and I hated what I heard.
Sadness.
Anger.
Worst of all, disappointment.
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said, too fast. “Believe me, I couldn’t. That’s why I offered the palaver portal–”
“Believe you?” She huffed a sad laugh. “That’s rich, after everything.”
Then she finally speared me again with that wild gaze of hers. All the pretend joy was gone, replaced with rage so pure and potent, it slammed into me.
“She had no clue what she was walking into, did she?” Allie’s calm whisper hissed through the room.
The storm had come.
“No,” I said. “She only found out when she reached the throne room.”
“Did she cry?” She asked, looking on the verge of doing so herself. Not because of sadness, but because of the sheer strain of not erupting.
“No.” I swallowed deeply. The Lost Daughter had been too strong for tears, but we’d all seen the heartbreak she’d tried to hide.
Allie nodded and licked her lips.
I braced myself for the next blow. I’d take each one she sent my way.
But instead of more accusations, she simply leaned back in her chair, all her attention now captured by the fire, refusing to look at me.
The longer the silence stretched, the tenser I got.
I expected yelling.
Warnings of revenge.
Possibly the dagger hissing right next to my ear.
The quiet was worse than anything.
I watched as the fire’s reflection danced in her eyes, gliding over her dress, and making her look like a burning sea nymph, come to enact revenge on everyone who’d wronged her.
There was no mortal explanation for the pull she had on me. How my gaze wanted to drink all of her in, watch every flutter of her eyelids, inhale her every breath.
Perhaps she was aware of it.
The dress, this evening, this was her armor, which she wore brilliantly.
Which only made her silence that much more concerning.
