CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The screaming from that night rang clear as a bell through my head, the images of their bodies so crystal clear a shiver ran the length of my spine. Finally. Everything would finally be worth it. Like the stonetalons before him, this death wouldn’t leave a mark. I would savor this death. For Them.
I awoke to bile surging from my long-empty stomach.
The first thing my eyes found was the scabbed-over cut on my palm.
I ripped the pin from my matted hair and dragged its tip across the wound.
The pain barely registered. I waited long enough for it to stop actively bleeding before crawling out of Beck’s bed.
I hadn’t bathed. Or bothered to sift through the carnage of my room for a change of clothes.
I ignored the disgusted stares and crinkled noses that were tossed my way as I ghosted through the halls.
Breakfast was still an hour off, but I trailed into the kitchen anyways.
The head cook took one look at me and ushered me to a small table in the corner.
She set a plate of eggs, jam-slathered toast, and thick bacon in front of me and patted my shoulder before leaving me to my misery.
The amount of time she spent scrubbing her hands wasn’t lost on me.
I methodically shoveled the food into my mouth, my glazed-over stare aimed at a divot in the gray-hued wood.
I was almost done when a soft ahem from a few feet away dragged my attention up.
A young woman held a plate of strawberry tarts in a softly shaking hand, her smile tentative but warm.
I blinked at her, trying to remember how to speak.
She cleared her throat again. “Thank you. For fighting for us.” She shuffled forward and edged the plate onto the table. She started to turn around but stopped halfway. She glanced back at me. “Did your friend ever find you? On the winter solstice?”
The fork paused halfway to my mouth. “What?” I croaked.
The woman’s shaky confidence leached from her hazel eyes. “I suppose not. Sorry for bothering you.”
“Wait.” I lurched halfway out of my chair. “Tell me what you meant. Please,” I tacked on.
Her hands fidgeted with her grease-stained apron. “The human—Beckford, I think? —came here after dinner on the solstice to see if we had anything left. He figured you hadn’t eaten, given the day. I was just hoping he had found you and cheered you up, is all.”
I flashed her the closest thing I could manage to a smile. “He did. The food was lovely, thank you.”
Her returning smile was unsure, and I knew she didn’t believe me. But she left anyway, her red curls bouncing against her shoulders. I sank back into the chair.
Had Beck found me with Griffon? Watched as I clung to him and spilled my darkest secrets? Beck, who had begged me to need him for something other than sex. Beck, who had asked me to spend solstice with him.
My stare slipped back to the divot as I forced myself to view the battle through the lens of hindsight I now possessed.
The memory immediately snagged on our descent into the courtyard.
Their entire plan—that net—had been predicated on the full legion landing in Council.
On waiting until I left for Indra to conceal it and trap them in.
But they couldn’t possibly have guessed—
The fork clattered against my plate.
Not guesswork. Knowledge. Because Beck, who I suddenly knew had watched as I gave Griffon everything he had begged me for, possessed the power to do so much more than just read moods.
I surged to my feet and sprinted out of the kitchen.
My chest hurt for so many reasons by the time I hurtled through the door to my room and into the washroom. My knees drove into the ground as I dropped in front of the vanity. I sucked in a tight breath and yanked open the bottom right drawer.
The pile of annuleaf was right where I had left it, after taking it from Beck that first day he was here. I scooped up the pile and weighed it in my palm. It looked like it was all there. Crumbs dusted the bottom of the drawer, and I tossed the sprigs back on top.
I sagged and rubbed my tired, burning eyes. “You were wrong,” I breathed. “He didn’t do it. Couldn’t have, without annuleaf.”
My fingers stilled as Bellan’s words from that godscursed temple clanged through my skull. A little birdy had already informed me of your rather…unfortunate transformation.
A little birdy.
I glanced toward a soot-covered window in the bedroom. “Oh gods. Astra,” I breathed. “She brought him more.” I knew it with every fiber of my being.
I scrambled to my feet and punched through Beck’s door. I flung the dresser drawers to the ground and emptied the armoire. Upended the mattress and crawled under the bed. After I’d smashed the last vase against the wall, I spun a circle, my hands gripping the back of my neck.
“It has to be here,” I breathed. “It has to be.”
My eyes landed on a small painting left hanging by the door. I crept toward it and plucked it off the wall. My fingers shook as I swiveled it around.
And dusting the ledge was a pile of crumbs. The painting toppled out of my hands.
My lungs were ready to explode by the time I careened into the short hallway that led to the dungeon.
A shrill scream drifted up from the staircase that led into Falcos’ belly.
A shiver tripped down my spine as I doubled over and clamped a hand over my mouth, the eggs I’d shoveled down threatening to make a reappearance.
When I righted myself Davina, Sorrell, and Aris were all staring at me with eyes that were narrowed by varying degrees.
“It was Beck,” I panted. “It was all Beck.”
“Go get Griffon,” Davina said to Aris, not taking her eyes off me.
Aris departed down the steps at their backs.
My mouth dried out in anticipation of seeing him.
I bounced from foot to foot and toyed with the bracelet I hadn’t had the strength to take off.
Every aching, broken piece of me throbbed when his head appeared at the top of the stairs, those four gashes still stark against his cheek.
My gaze dropped to his hands as he fully crested the stairwell.
They were covered in blood that he scrubbed at with a dirty cloth.
My gaze flicked back up to his face. He jerked back as he took me in, and I had to have imagined the flash of concern in his eyes.
“It was all Beck,” I said again, the words barely a croak as the truth of them really hit me.
“What the hell do you mean?” Griffon demanded.
Five words teetered on the tip of my tongue. Five words I never thought I would say aloud. Five tiny, simple words I had intended to take to my grave. They fell off my lips, heavy as a rock in water.
“Beck’s power isn’t reading moods.”
The declaration was met with a heavy, loaded silence.
I swallowed hard and plowed on. “He is just…incredible at reading people. Reading body language like it’s an open fucking book!
He can tell how someone is feeling just by watching them.
Him having to ‘decipher’ the moods is a load of bullshit to cover for the occasions where he misreads someone’s body language. ”
“Then what does he do?” Aris asked, his words slow and laced with fear.
I swallowed again and betrayed my oldest friend in the worst possible way. “He reads motivations.”
Davina, Sorrell, and Aris remained stiff, but Griffon actually laughed. “Well, who fucking cares? My motivation for taking a piss is I have to take a piss. Motivations are fickle. They change as often as the wind.”
“That isn’t—you aren’t listening to me!” I all but yelled and took a step toward him.
“You think his power is a joke? I am certain that Vircann was the perfect trap”—my gaze slid between the three ancient beings beside Griffon—“designed to play on the deepest needs and motivations of the four of us. Give me a minute to think, and I’ll tell you how. ”
I stared at the floor and started pacing again, my mind spiraling back to that awful battle.
I played through it again, starting with the moment Vircann had come into view.
As we’d gotten closer, Sorrell, general of the legion, had heard all those people dying and he’d tried like hell to go save them.
My head jerked up to him. “When we reached Vircann, you fought to join the battle immediately. Even Archon Davina mentioned your will to protect. That is what drives you.”
His ruddy-brown skin drained of color.
I didn’t give him time to confirm before I leveled my stare on Aris.
“You argued that we didn’t know enough to fly in blind.
Let me guess; that lunar priest plied you with information after I left.
Enough for me to make it to the temple and out of earshot.
Because you are driven by the need to understand.
Or…knowledge. Something like that.” I crossed my arms. “How am I doing so far?”
Aris followed Sorrell’s lead and his gently tanned complexion blanched to the color of snow. Both men looked like they were going to vomit.
I took that as confirmation and turned to Davina. “I haven’t worked out how you were involved, but I can guarantee you were.”
Her hands were shaking slightly at her sides. It was the first time I had seen the unflappable leader…flapped? “I’m the reason they knew we would come.” She didn’t elaborate, and no one pressed her for more.