“What happened?” I ask softly, as a teacher who’s worried for their student would.
Alor slams the fist still holding the letter into her desk so hard her knuckles split. She doesn’t even flinch. “My sister is dead, and Clara Graysword killed her.”
“What?” I breathe. The shock is at least somewhat real. It’s one thing for Emilia to vanish and be assumed dead. It’s another to pin it on me.Did someone see? No, it’s more likely blamed on me like everything else currently wrong with Oricalis.
“Emilia was getting close to finding her. She thought she had a lead—wouldn’t tell me, of course. Wouldn’t tell anyone. Just that she was confident she knew the traitor’s next move.” Alor can barely get the words out through her clenched jaw. “She went off, and she must’ve found her because she’s gone. And Emilia would never desert her post. Which means one thing:My sister is dead.”
Her voice breaks, and I feel a thousand tethers snap in me at once. I see Arina in her. I see myself in her. Without warning, I grab her, prepared to bring her in for a tight embrace.
“Don’t touch me!” She shoves me back. With movements as precise as her sister’s, she draws a dagger from a hidden sheath tucked in her waistband, striking as quick as a viper. She moves so fast that I can barely dodge in time. Warmth blooms along my jaw where blood now beads.
Her shoulders and chest heave with every breath, nostrils flared as she brandishes the blade that she clutched as a promise and a threat so many nights. She doesn’t even know it finally found its target.
“All right.” I keep my voice steady and measured as I slowly lift my hands. If I want her to calm down, I need to be calm. “This is on your terms, Alor. I’m just here to help.”
“What can you do?” It’s as much a demand as it is a question. “What could some young new professor of wielding possibly do that a trained daughter of Clan Tower and a legion of Stellis couldn’t?”
I say nothing.
“You don’t understand what it’s like—what this feels like.” Alor waves the dagger frantically as she speaks. She points it to her own chest, and I fight not to react. “What am I supposed to do? I’m now the heir to our clan, and I am half the woman she was.”
“Alor, you are incredibly talented and strong.” Even as I say it, there’s a whisper in the back of my mind that I could best her with ease.
“You didn’t even know Emilia.” Alor turns away sharply, shoulders slumping, her whole back curling as though she’s about to fold in on herself. The dagger clatters to the ground. “And you never will…No one ever will again…”
Dark spots appear on the stone floor by her feet as the tears fall. She fights so hard not to let her shoulders quiver. She rolls them, straightens, and tilts her head back as though she could keep the tears contained to her eyes if gravity weren’t working against her.
Finally, she crouches and gathers her dagger, speaking as she does. “Clara Graysword isn’t going to stop with my sister. One by one, she’ll pick us all off in Clan Tower…or at the least me and my parents.”
“Emilia was chasing her; I’m sure—”
“You know nothing.” Alor turns sharply, dagger in a white-knuckled grip. “Clara was after us from the beginning, infiltrating through me, then Emilia.”
“Wasn’t she here all last year?” I say gently, leaning in to my alternate identity. “I heard you roomed with her.” Alor flinches. “She could’ve killed you then if that was her goal.”
“She wanted me to get information,” Alor says softly. “Sheused me.Played me. She no doubt already knew what she was sending me to find. Probably knew I was the last of my family to know and wanted to make a joke of it.”
Alor drags her fingers through her hair and lets out an almost crazed laugh. She’s not looking at me anymore. Her gaze has gone soft and distant.
“She planned it all,” she begins to ramble, the words frantic and raw. “My finding out. Probably knew Emilia would go after her. She’s going to kill me next because she wants to watch my parents suffer like her family did. Mother should have made sure to kill the children, too. Get rid of the evidence. Not that she knew at the time the full extent of my father’s infidelity.”
The floor drops out from underneath me. I can’t breathe. All I hear is my heart pounding against my ribs and the blood rushing through my veins.
“Alor, are you saying…” My words are weaker than I would like. But Alor is too far gone to notice just how impacted I am.
“Clara Graysword is a stain upon our family. A living mark of my father’s shame. Her whore mother no doubt entranced him into herbed.” She grips her dagger tighter and takes a step toward me. The sharpness of her stare. The murder in her movements. I think she’s finally seen through my disguise. That she’s coming forme.She laughs bitterly, her smile too wide, eyes too joyful. “I suppose I’m not even the heir of Clan Tower. I’m still not the oldest. I suppose that’d beher.”
Lord Ventall.
Lord. Moreus. Ventall.
Is my father.
The townhome with the symbol of Clan Tower. The question that Bristara wouldn’t answer:Am I a Clan Tower bastard?
Yes.But I’m not just some lower-ranking nobody’s illicit child. I’m the daughter of the High Lord?
The room tilts, and I nearly vomit. It takes all my strength and training to keep myself upright. To keep my mask on even when I’m crumbling beneath it.
