Chapter 22 #2
My eyes shot open and I gasped, my entire body lit with astonishment.
I knew exactly where I’d seen him before.
I rounded on Jett. “The man who’s won me…”
“Yeah, what of it?” he murmured, gaze fixed on Kenton and my father.
Bracing a hand on my hip, I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at the man.“HE’S YOUR GARDENER!”
Jett’s gaze whipped to mine. His eyes had gone big and round with shock. “Ahhhh, huh? Hmmmmm, whaaa… noooo,” he tried, flailing around pathetically in a sea of lies and half-truths.
I snatched up the end of his tie and yanked him closer. He stumbled forward, and I got right in his face and hissed, “He’s your godsdamned gardener, Jett. I’ve seen him before, working in your mother’s shared lawns!”
The day that Graysen had shown me around the Keep, he’d stopped to talk to this man, who’d been pulling weeds from Tabitha’s rambling wild roses.
Jett muttered something strangled beneath his breath, and I caught a name that sounded like Oswin.
At first, here at the Emporium, I’d assumed Oswin had hidden behind a wall of bodyguards to protect his identity from my father’s wrath, but clearly, they were shielding him because he wasn’t a member of the upper ranks.
I scowled at the Crowthers’ gardener, supposedly bidding on me.
His head hung low in remorse because of what he was pretending to do, not because he was ever going to actually do it.
And I knew deep down that Oswin, supposedly outbidding everyone to own me, represented the Crowthers at their core—what they were capable of, or in this case, not. It certainly answered why Jett had been so vague about when Oswin was going to claim me.
Never.
The godsdamned Crowthers weren’t complete bastards, nor were they comfortable with their choice of threat.
Caidan was unnerved and sickened as he paced back and forth.
The gardener was so pasty I wasn’t sure if he or my mother would faint first. I’d even seen a chip in Kenton’s armor and Jett’s too.
It was a sick and vulgar ploy, and beneath the Crowthers for even employing it.
But…in some small way, I understood. What choice did they have when the only option to gain an audience with a Horned God was at the Emporium, a bordello?
Here, they could fell two birds with one stone—Jurgana and my father.
This was a ruse to terrorize my father into handing over Brangwene’s Hjarte.
Yet another question itched at me.
Why did Jett despise me so much?
Jett stared at me with big, wide eyes, reeling from my discovery of their lie, while I stared blankly back, my thoughts unspooling at lightspeed. Years of questions, memories, and half-formed answers collided in a rush so densely packed I couldn’t think.
I needed to stop and take a breath.
I needed to pull this apart to find the Crowthers’ truth.
Something rose inside my mind, stirred by the Crowthers’ gardener. I mentally clicked my fingers, trying to jump-start my memory.
They’re deranged! You’re all vicious bastards!—I’d spat at Graysen about his brothers. And what had he said?
Exactly. That’s all we’ll ever be to you because it’s easy to see what you want to see. Take a closer look, little bird, and ask yourself, why.
I’d refused to listen then, too stubborn and too pissed off. But now I needed to. I needed to look at the brothers’ actions, not their words.
Tabitha Crowther had stamped herself upon her home and within those ancient walls.
When Graysen took me through the Keep, I discovered a place with a loyal heart that beat true and kind.
My father always said that to know the truth of a family, you watched their servants.
The Crowthers’ servants, their staff, formed one entity with the ruling family.
They were respectful and at ease. They didn’t cower, nor did they fear the Crowthers.
Over the past few days, when I’d wandered the Keep or leaned over the tower balcony to spy on them, the brothers had seemed like any normal family, trading jibes and laughter with each other and those they worked alongside.
Their mother had raised them that way, and that kind of upbringing, the kindness and compassion at the very core of them, hadn’t been erased.
Hells, I’d been living in comfort at the top of the tower with Graysen, every whim I fancied was supplied.
And his brothers… Any one of them could have gone against his wishes and snatched me up while I drifted around unprotected.
I could have been dragged beneath the fortress and tossed into the dungeon.
Yet none of them had done it. Ferne, Caidan, and Kenton had left me alone.
Jett had been the only one to mess with me, claiming he and his brothers had made a bet about whether I’d find the escape tunnel.
But was that just a lie he’d spun?
He’d been the only one to truly threaten me, and yet…
A thunderous jolt of clarity cleaved through my thoughts.
The answer was so simple that I should have realized it earlier.
Graysen had been battling what he felt for me long before our supposed courtship.
He’d had the responsibility of binding me with the Alverac and placing me on the auction block at the Witches Ball thrust upon his shoulders.
So he’d been cold and distant, keeping up that wall of ice because he couldn’t go through with what he’d been asked to do if he felt something for me.
His brothers only wanted to shove me into the dungeon, hidden away out of sight and out of mind, because they couldn’t bear to face what they were going to have to do.
Penn had been their last offering, and not a single Crowther had been able to go through with it.
They hadn’t even managed the Goods Appraisal.
Like Graysen, they couldn’t afford to feel anything for me, or recognize my innocence, because if they did, they’d falter.
I was their last and only chance. They couldn’t fail again.
They despised me more than they should, more than what was warranted, because someone had twisted them to do so.
By Valarie. I was certain of it.
If I were Valarie, what would I do to keep my family on task?
I’d manipulate their way of thinking about me.
Hells, I’d probably do more.
I sharpened my gaze on Jett and pressed my mouth into a grim smile.
No one would hear this conversation between us, as everyone else was too distracted by my father and Kenton. Letting go of Jett’s tie, it fluttered back into place as we both straightened.
His black hair wavered around his shoulders as he steadied himself. I steeled my spine, jutting a hip out in a cocky manner. “Why do you hate me?”
I needed to reveal the heart of the Crowthers, and I was going to do it by shoving a mirror in front of Jett. I wasn’t going to shatter his resolve, he was going to do it himself.
He blinked at me with exaggerated slowness. “What did you just ask?”
“I asked you, Jett Crowther, why you hate me so much,” I said, pointing a finger at his face and circling it.
The Crowther brothers didn’t despise me in any rational way.
It was simply self-preservation, the only way they could go through with this to save their mother.
“What is it about me that causes so much dis—”
“Are you really that dense you can’t figure it out?” he snapped, lips souring into a scowl. “My mother was betrayed to save your life!”
“Not good enough,” I scoffed, ignoring the asshole’s rudeness.
“That was my parents’ doing, not mine. I’m innocent in all of this and you know it.
So why the need to despise me?” I’d felt it every time the brothers looked at me with derision at the House Gatherings.
I puffed out a baffled breath. “What could I possibly have done to offend you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he snarked, stamping his heavy combat boots apart and bracing his fists on his hips. “Maybe appearing at House Gatherings with your family, safe and sound and happy, while mine fell to pieces.”
“That’s bullshit, Jett, and you’re old enough to know it.
Of course I felt like that—any child would when their parents kept them safe and loved them.
” I slanted my head, knotting my arms across my chest, staring down at him through narrowed eyes.
“I bet your aunt kept feeding you lies about why I was deserving of this, right?” Bestowing a mocking smile, I dropped my voice lower and forged on.
“The spoiled Wychthorn princess whose secret is safely hidden behind the might of Great House while so many others were discovered and ended. I probably seek them out, right? Whisper their names to my father so he can report them to Master Sirro.”
Unease flashed in his eyes. I knew I was right. Valarie had fed him lies of this kind before.
I pushed onward. Stabbing my finger into his chest, I prodded him several times, each one harder than the last. “I’ll marry well, right?
Raise spoiled, entitled children just like me.
Live a blessed life while scorning everyone beneath my lofty rank.
Especially you lot—the Crowthers, mere enforcers, not worthy of my attention.
I’ll find a way to annihilate your entire family to keep my secret safe.
” I rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all and snorted. “Such utter rubbish.”
“Rubbish?!” he snarled, offended. He shoved forward, muscles bunching as if he were coiled to spring.
“Do you know what gets me every fucking time? The hypocrisy of your father when he spouts canon law bullshit about others needing to be turned over to the Horned Gods every chance he gets. And here you are, an other, protected within the Great House while everyone else suffers!” His long fingers twitched as if itching to snatch up a weapon and bury it in my chest. “So many have been taken or slaughtered over the years. My mother. Elyse Estlore. That little Simonis boy last month, a storm-weaver. His mother sacrificed herself to save her family. And yet you remain untouched by it all.”
Shame was a cold sensation that hollowed me out from the inside. In some twisted way, he was right, but I didn’t care to heed it. “Do you know what I think?”
“I don’t give a fu—”
“You lot need to hate me.”
“Well, it’s not hard to do when my family can see my mother’s suffering through me!” he spat.
I sucked in a shocked breath.
The world around me seemed to grind to a halt as his admission sank in.
“You’re their window. The one who can feel her pain,” I whispered, instinctively knowing he was the one with this connection.
Now his hatred made a sick sort of sense.
What would that do to someone? Feeling her suffering for so long?
If I were Jett, I wasn’t sure I’d treat me any differently.
I might have been even more ruthless to save my family, my sisters, Lise and Evvie.
His gaze clouded with bewilderment at how I knew his secret.
“Graysen revealed it when I asked how your family knew she was alive after all these years.”
A dangerous tension sharpened Jett’s features as he jerked his chin down in a terse acknowledgment.
Shadows seemed to gather around him, feeding his dark rage.
There was a drawn-out pause before he spoke.
His nostrils flared, eyes hardening like granite as he weaponized his words.
“Whenever I saw you at House Gatherings, you shone, radiating in that strange fucking way you have about you.” Though the words were lovely, he delivered them in a sneer.
“But while you shone bright and warm like sunshine, my world was bleak with darkness and cast in shadowed pain.”
All the warmth seeped from my body.
“I’d be standing there watching you. You’d smile, and my mother’s blood would catch fire.
You’d laugh, and the sound of godsawful cracking would fill my ears, my body fracturing beneath me because her bones had shattered.
” He sliced an infuriated hand through the air.
“And when you shared some joyous moment with your sisters, a bolt of white-hot lightning would explode in my head, fry my brain, electrify my flesh from the inside out.”
Dizziness swirled within me, and I swayed on the pedestal, trying to fathom the magnitude of what she’d endured…what he’d endured.
“Every night you lay down on a bed of feathers while my mother’s flesh is chilled from the cold ache of concrete.”
“I didn’t know…” I whispered, horrified.
“So yes, Wychthorn, it is easy for me to loathe you.”
“Deep down, you know the truth of me. That I’m innocent.”
He closed his eyes briefly as if to shield himself from me.
“You’re going to have my blood on your hands, and you know it, Jett.”
His mouth pinched into a firm line as if he dared not reply.
And then we both became aware of the strange silence that had fallen over the crowd. Even the music seemed to quieten to allow the click of high heels upon stone to ricochet outward.
I turned my gaze from Jett and watched Kenton melt back into the crowd as Valarie strolled across the rooftop to halt elegantly before my father.