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She snorts. "Light knows this forsaken planet survives because people like me keep it running. When the Orlovs were banned from Sero, Düren was what we had left.” Her laugh turns bitter. “As if the Virels built their empire with cleaner hands. Meanwhile, boys like you spent your whole lives dreaming of escape."
I’m still trying to work out what that means, who she really is, and why we’re back here at all when she leans closer.
“You know why I gave you the music sheet?” she hisses. “Because you were so eager. Little dust boys hiding in the Ward. Such big dreams. You reminded me of her, you know.”
“Of who?” I ask, wincing as another pulse of pain throbs through my ribs. I struggle to make sense of anything she’s saying.
“Of Angela Virel, of course,” she spits. “The reason why my family never got what it deserved. Why I never got what was supposed to be mine.” Her laugh turns sharp. “Halvern never looked at me the way he looked at her.”
For a second, her gaze goes distant before the bitterness comes rushing back. “So I wanted her to hurt. There.” She presses a finger into my chest, and I don’t miss the way her gaze slips to my bare wrist. “After I gave you the sheet, I had you shadowed in case you did something stupid, like playing the damn music.”
Her hand cracks across my face.
My head snaps sideways, and I hit the ground hard. The impact sends the room spinning out of focus.
“You were supposed to stay invisible, forgettable, and alive.”
She continues pacing after that, one hand dragging sharply through her hair before frustration twists across her face and she kicks the chair I was tied to. It skids across the floor and tumbles end over end, slamming into the stone wall.
“Everything was always Angela Virel.” Her mouth twists. “The Noctis. Christian. Every room I ever walked into. Then there’s a Noctis scholarship. Then Caervast. Then the Virels. Then half the planet starts asking why a nobody from Düren matters.” Her laugh turns bitter as she points at me. “And now look at you.”
For the first time since waking up, I realize she doesn’t look triumphant. She looks exhausted. Like everything she spent years trying to prevent is already happening right in front of her.
I struggle to my hands and knees. “I don’t know what sequence you keep talking about.”
The next blow cracks into my ribs and sends me back to the ground, gasping. Blood coats the inside of my mouth.
“You played it tonight in front of Angela Virel, in front of half the old families, and in front of Ciaran Virel, who apparently couldn’t stop touching you long enough to realize what you were.”
My breath hitches before I can stop it.
“Oh.” Her mouth twists. “That part is real, then.”
“Don’t talk about him.”
“Why not?” She tilts her head. “Did you really think he was going to come for you?”
“He doesn’t know where I went.”
“He watched you run.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Will he come for me? Or am I only holding onto the idea of him because I don’t have anything else left?
Still, the words land, and my stomach turns.
Part of me still wants to believe he would come after me anyway, because that’s who he is. My Zoryan. The man who made me believe I could belong somewhere.
The rest of me remembers the way he looked in the pavilion and wonders if I ruined everything before I ever started running.
“That’s not true,” I whisper, half to myself and half to the woman standing above me.
“A Virel prince stood inside a room full of armed men, and somehow the frightened little boy from Düren still ended up alone in the forest.” She crouches beside me, close enough that I can’t look away. “Tell me, Rowan. Did he look at you differently after learning who your sister really was?”
I stay silent, because the last time Ciaran stared at me, I felt and saw his disappointment.
A guard’s fist latches onto my hair, dragging my head back. “Answer her.”
Pain lances through my scalp, and I bite back a scream. All I can see is Ciaran standing beneath the pavilion lights, looking at me like something inside him had cracked open. Like he didn’t know me anymore. Like maybe he wished he never had.
