61. Bria #2
He shoves his hands deep in his pockets and grits his teeth before speaking to me.
Will he tell Aamon or even the king that I know more than I have been letting on?
After all, it doesn’t matter if I stay here.
They are already drugging me, or so they think.
And I’m set to meet with the high priestess.
They needn’t keep up pretenses for much longer anyway.
“I heard many of the rebels got away. I have no idea how many or if your mother was with them.” He sighs and I see something flicker in his eyes, a flash of something within. “Rumor has it some made it to your other camp.”
“And how did my sister make it out? I don’t think I got the whole story from you regarding that. Did I?”
My insides are a mess, swirling with fury, heat building up a firestorm within me. I can contain it now, after the release from last night. But I won’t need to contain it for long.
His eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to speak but Nimai beats him to it.
“He saved me.” A quiet lie, one that barely makes it past her lips. Her head is still tucked into my chest. She lifts her chin toward him as she talks.
But I’m not taking the lie. Not now. Not when we are so close to leaving. Maybe I could just kill him now, get Evander, and we could be gone. Though I need the dark of night to cloak us all in shadow.
Still. It doesn’t mean he has to leave this room again.
“Is that so?” I ask, my lip curling back to bare my teeth in a snarl. Heat pours into my fingers as I caress my hand down her silky blue-black waves.
His nostrils flare. He senses the fight coming. But he doesn’t move, not an inch from where he’s reclined against the door. He doesn’t shift under the weight of my burning stare.
Nimai’s head snaps back, out of my grasp, and her green eyes sear into me. “Leave it, Bria,” she whispers, and I feel her fingers intertwine with mine.
Luthais remains watching us, his gaze floating to our intertwined hands then back up to me. He’s trying to figure us out. Let him keep trying , I think. We will be gone before he understands what either of us are capable of.
“So, you and Ev?” Her question jolts me from my anger, and I glance back at my sister and see her gleaming smile.
Her eyes sparkle like fresh dew strewn across blades of grass, her pink lips turned up in joy.
Oh, how I’ve missed that smile. She is the embodiment of pure happiness, which is what makes it even more painful to realize what has been done to her. To this pure soul.
She’s changing the subject on purpose and I let her. I let her calm the roaring in my ears and block out the hulking figure at the door. I focus my thoughts and my energy entirely on my sister.
“I suppose so,” I say, letting a smile creep across my face.
She squeals in delight. It’s a noise I have not heard in so long that it warms my heart over a thousand times. I think I might faint from the exhilaration I feel just being near her again.
“I can’t believe it!” she exclaims, her voice an uncomfortably high pitch. “You know Dad would have approved.”
My heart twists in my chest when she mentions our father.
But she’s right. He always had a soft spot for Ev as a boy.
It’s probably why he let me play with all of them, why he let me become so close with them despite the ludicrous rules placed on us by our roles.
Then again, maybe he knew that, with my destiny, those roles and rules would never matter.
“I know he would.”
“I never would have believed it if someone else had told me,” she teases.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, though I know too well what she means.
“You made quite a reputation for yourself as a heartbreaker, aside from Cedric. I don’t think anyone expected Lady Bria to be captured by anyone. But Ev makes sense to me.”
There’s a snort from the door but I don’t bother acknowledging it.
“Mmmm, you know I never broke any hearts. Especially not Cedric’s. I just had no interest in those other boys,” I say by way of an explanation, my lips turning up despite my attempt not to smile.
The boys who had shown interest in me often did so because of my status, not because they saw me for me.
Cedric wasn’t like them. He was drawn to me because of lust but remained with me for love.
And Ev is an entirely different story. He’s the only person who has ever seen the real me and still wants me for it.
She laughs, a full laugh that echoes in my bones. Her head tips back, throwing gleams of violet into her waves. It feels like we’re back home for an instant, but I remember too quickly that Luthais is here, lurking by the door, watching his captives.
“You’re in love.” It’s a statement. She’s not asking.
And in that moment, I admit to Nimai what I have not yet admitted to myself. Or to Evander, for that matter.
“Yes,” I confess, letting the truth of it wash over me, pulling me down into the depths of elation. “I am in love.”
We stay like that for hours, talking about our mother and our friends who also fled to the southern camp.
Nimai gives me all the details she can about what life was like there for her—far less stressful than the last five years were for me, but she has changed a great deal, grown into the role she was meant to play.
The southern camp continued to thrive after they’d arrived.
Much like my own camp, it was a well-functioning community, accepting new individuals to the rebel forces over the years.
I only hope enough of them made it out when Luthais and his lackeys torched the place.
Luthais . He remains the entire time, watching us throughout the conversation.
He moves at some point from the door to the small table across the room, making himself comfortable by kicking up his legs and grazing on the tray of food left out by the servants.
But he never speaks to us, just stays. Watching and listening.
Nimai doesn’t speak of her capture. Nor does she say anything of her time in the dungeons.
But here, so close to her, I can see the blue and purple blooming under her eye.
I take in every wince and grimace she makes when she moves her shoulders and back, the glassy look in her eyes that takes over when the pain hits as she relives some horrible nightmare.
The ginger way she walks to the washroom and climbs back onto the bed to avoid aggravating her injuries.
Was her back beaten? Burned? Lashed? Any positive answer is unacceptable.
And no matter the answer, they will all pay.
And it kills me how Luthais appears comfortable. Far too comfortable for someone who hurt her like this. To remain calm in the presence of a person you captured and beat… I don’t understand how a person becomes that way—so callused and jaded with such disregard for human life.
A knock at the door brings me back to reality, makes me remember where I am and who I’m with. Luthais moves to open the door, revealing Evander pressed against the frame. His eyes dart around the room until his gaze settles on me. My core tenses as a smirk twists the corner of his mouth.
“What do you want?” Luthais snarls at him, stepping to block him from entering.
But Evander is having none of it and he pushes past the man, no small feat given he’s a few inches taller and broader than Ev. But he comes in anyway, striding into the room as if he owns the place.
“The high priestess is waiting for you,” he informs me, the smirk abruptly falling from his face.
Fear tightens my entire body, pulling a dark shroud over me. Already? How long has it been? What time is it?
“Now?” I gasp, eyes searching the mantle for the clock.
It’s four. We’ve talked for hours upon hours.
I’m distraught that it’s already time for me to go see her, but even more shocked that Luthais let us be together for so long.
He never once interrupted our discussion or bothered to tell us what the time was, just leaving us alone to spend time with one another.
Sadness ripples across Evander’s face and my stomach nearly drops out of my body. “Now,” he answers, and I think I might vomit.
I feel wholly unprepared for this.