Chapter Forty-Six
Valeris
“Hunt her down,” I said.“No one leaves the city until you find her.”
I didn’t recognize my own voice filled with the harshness of a biting blizzard.Every soldier in the keep was searching the streets of Paravellia, but discovering anything in the dark would be difficult.I had watched her scale the wall and get away.I should have tried harder to stop her, shouldn’t have let her slip through my fingers.I hadn’t meant to let her go, but shock had left me paralyzed.
Seeing her for the first time after leaving my uncle’s office, it was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes.I couldn’t comprehend why I hadn’t been able to tell before, but I remembered my uncle saying after meeting her that there was an enchantment around her face.
I’d stared at her surrounded by the guards.
It was Analleia.
But she wasAnalleia.
Analleia Kallistar from the kingdom of Donnovar.A fugitive.A criminal.Everyone believed her to be dead along with her entire family, but anyone who had once met or heard of a Kallistar could immediately identify one.White-blond hair.Bright blue eyes.Iridescently pale skin.Sharp features.They looked like the gods come to walk among men, and I didn’t understand how the enchantment could undermine that kind of recognizability.That family all possessed the same unique features.It would be impossible to mistake them for anyone else.
So why had I?
I had, and now she’d lied to me.Used me.
Had she only been trying to get to my uncle, or had she planned to kill me too?
I hesitated, thinking back on all the times I had been alone with her, how many times she could have killed me if she’d wanted to.When we’d scaled the wall during the puzzle ball, she could have pushed me off the ledge.Called it an accident.Why help me with Ezrielle, why kiss—
I clenched my jaw, pushing the thoughts from my mind as I headed to the infirmary to check on my uncle.He insisted the damage was minimal, but he’d lost a great amount of blood.
When I entered, the physician was inspecting the wound and the stitches.I stopped short at my uncle’s bare chest.I had only ever seen a brief glimpse of it when I was younger and even that had been an accident.He hid it well.Fresh bruises colored a few patches, but it was the silver scars littering his skin that I remembered.A broad and jagged one swiped across the center of his chest, the remnants of an injury that should have killed him.Hundreds of others decorated his skin.Some small and insignificant while others were larger.
He never spoke about where he had disappeared to in his younger years, but wherever it was, it had been brutal.I had always known that.
He inspected the wound himself when the physician stepped away.
“Anything you would like to share?”He didn’t look up, but I sensed a hint of accusation in his voice.“You’re not stupid, Valeris, and I know you grew close with her.Too close.Why didn’t you tell me?”
I remained silent, shame flooding through me.The signs had been there, but I hadn’t had the right pieces to put everything together.
“Perhaps the beginning would be a great place to start.”He met my gaze, waiting for me to spill.
