Chapter 43
Armies travelled slowly.
They made camp along the road, utilizing a vast open space between the spreads of forests spotting the Onitan countryside. Smoke rose from a farmer’s cottage, but Anniliese knew its owner was no longer its occupant.
She hadn’t seen it, but she’d certainly heard it. The farmer and his wife were ordered to kneel before their true emperor and vacate the premises or suffer the consequences of loyalty to Qhohena’s queen.
Anniliese still felt the heat of the dragonfire that burst across the field when they had chosen the latter.
She sat now with the other priestesses, all of them huddled together in the grass. Not for warmth; not at all.
They were sheep surrounded by an army of wolves. Soldiers were often bored and lonely while marching; that put a group of women in a dangerous place. Ksee did nothing to stop them, so the priestesses used the only defense they had.
The defense of community. It was a meager one, and it hadn’t stopped two girls from being dragged away already this evening, but when they were returned, they at least had each other to wipe away the blood and tears.
Anniliese wasn’t sure if they would do the same for her, but thankfully she was never chosen. Burning a lord alive, she supposed, had earned her at least some sort of a reputation.
Not one she’d ever wanted, but she could hardly question the small blessing at this moment.
Boots crunched in the dried grass. The girl beside her stiffened. Anniliese tensed as well, wondering if she would have it in her to pull out those cursed flames one last time, just to keep another monster from taking a bite—
All her fight died when her eyes met those of Lord Hareth, fine clothing and decorative sword out of place in the camp.
Her father.
He halted a few paces from her, gaze unreadable. “May I have a moment to speak with my daughter?” he asked Ksee. “In private?”
Ksee stared at him down the bridge of her nose, a look she’d perfected even to those taller than her. “She is not your anything anymore, Lord Hareth. She belongs to Kol.”
A muscle tightened in her father’s jaw. “Then may I have a moment in private with Priestess Anniliese?”
Ksee sniffed. “Fine. But be quick. There are prayers and offerings to be made.” She snapped her fingers at Anniliese. “Up, girl.”
Anniliese rose slowly, feeling the wide eyes of the other priestesses on her. Her father’s gaze scanned her as she faced him, and she knew very well what he saw.
The tattered, dirty robes. The dirt-smeared skin. The limp, loose hair falling around her face and shoulders.
So far removed from the lady she’d once been. From the daughter he’d once had.
He tentatively extended a hand. “I won’t keep you long,” he said softly, and she swore there was some sort of pained gentleness in his tone. She placed her hand in his and let him lead her away from the huddled circle of priestesses.
They stopped when the voices of the camp faded to quiet murmurs, when the lights from flickering allume lamps hanging on wagons and tents barely cast shadows around their feet. Anniliese faced her father.
Once, she might’ve been afraid to meet his stare so directly. Not anymore.
Not when she knew he was as weak and spineless as the rest of them.
Lord Hareth opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.
Anniliese shifted in her uncomfortable slippers, growing tired of waiting. “Well?” she asked. “You wanted to talk?”
Her father swallowed, and something had her withdrawing at the sudden hesitancy that flashed through him. “I-I wanted to apologize.”
Anniliese blinked. “What?”
Lord Hareth seemed to gather his composure as he folded his hands together.
“I wanted to apologize,” he repeated, his voice growing surer—and more pained.
“I never meant for you to get wrapped up in all this. I promised your mother I would keep you safe. You should be tucked away in some far away manor by now. But instead, my ambition got the best of me, and I am sorry, Anniliese.”
Well, that certainly hadn’t been what she’d expected him to say. After the initial surprise washed from her, it was slowly replaced by something cooler. Something darker.
“I don’t accept your apology.”
Her father reeled back as if he’d been struck. “Excuse me?”
Anniliese held her ground. “I said, I don’t accept your apology.”
Lord Hareth snorted. “I don’t think you have a choice whether you accept it or not, Anniliese. Don’t be ridiculous—”
“Actually, Father,” she said, drawing out the name.
“I think it’s the only thing I have left.
Everything else has been stripped from me.
Every scrap of freedom I had—gone.” She took a step closer to him, crowding into his space.
She had no idea where this confidence came from, but it was sweeping through her, overwhelming her, heat igniting under her skin and in her palms.
“And do not lie to me. You meant for this to happen. You also intended to sell me, your daughter, like I was nothing more than a prized heifer at auction. Whether the buyer was the Onitan throne or some wealthy son, it didn’t matter to you.
You brought me to Khento to further your own goals.
I remember all of it, Father. And I did everything you asked.
I tormented the new queen. I put on a show with the elder Laurent son.
All so I could prove my worth to you and one day buy myself a life of my own. ”
Her father’s eyes widened with shock.
“If I had been Chosen as queen,” she forged on, more heat swelling around her, “it would’ve been my power Kol used to free himself from Enfara. How, exactly, do you think Shawth would’ve weaseled it out of me? What would you have let him do to me to set his god free?”
“Our god,” Lord Hareth corrected her weakly. So weak that it was Anniliese’s turn to snort.
“Don’t tell me you never meant for this to happen, Father. Not when all your actions say something far different.”
Lord Hareth’s gaze finally hardened, some semblance of steel reentering his stance. “I did not know what Shawth truly planned or what was coming for us. We were all deceived, Anniliese.”
“Were you deceived when you slit the throat of a priestess who could’ve been my peer?”
Lord Hareth stumbled. The blood left his face, pallor washing out until it was pale and nearly sickly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he whispered, horror replacing the indignant anger in his voice.
“I know what I saw. The entire court saw it that day.” Anniliese lifted her chin. “For me, that was the day I lost my father.”
She turned on her heel, ready to walk back to the other priestesses. The back of her eyes burned, but she refused to let those tears fall.
“Anniliese—wait.” A hand grabbed her shoulder. She shrugged it off with a hiss. Still, she turned back to her father, finding a look of raw defeat on his face.
“Please, Anniliese,” he said hoarsely. “I know I’ve done terrible things. But you are all I have left. This is our world now, and I’m only doing what must be done for both of us to survive in it.”
“Fuck this world.” The curse slipped past Anniliese’s teeth before she could stop it. She’d never been one for cursing; it was far from lady-like. But with the fire roiling through her veins, all those pretenses and masks were falling away.
Her father’s eyes hardened. “I am trying to protect you, Anniliese. But it seems you are determined to make that difficult.”
“I don’t want to be protected, Father.” The first tears slipped past her lashes, spilling down her cheek. “I want to be free.”
That was her real truth. Down beneath all the masks she wore, both in this life and the one before. The one she kept hidden in her heart, a truth she’d gotten so close to acknowledging the night she’d set Lisabel Salis’s body ablaze in the Khento gardens.
She’d twice been offered that freedom. Once by the queen and again by Andrian. Twice it had been offered, and twice she’d turned it down.
She supposed pets always did prefer their cages.
Anniliese lifted her gaze, finding her father wearing a grim expression, his mouth set in a thin line.
“None of us are free, Anniliese. Freedom is a myth for people like you and me.”
She didn’t turn away. Even as his words tore her apart.
With a heavy sigh, Lord Hareth sagged. In the flickering light, he appeared to have aged ten years. Slowly, he slid a hand into his jacket. The light caught the glint of metal. Her father pushed it toward her, shoving the object into her hands.
Anniliese glanced down, eyes widening. It was a knife—small and delicate and finely made, sheathed in a simple holster.
“I hope you never need that,” her father murmured. “And I know it is not enough. But please, take it. Keep it hidden, but keep it with you.” His eyes dropped. “For your mother’s sake.”
She couldn’t speak. There was nothing left in her, even as shock thumped with the beat of her heart. She slid the knife into the folds of her robes, between her underclothes and her skin. It was light and discreet, so small she could hardly feel it.
Weariness suddenly weighed down on her bones, abrupt and oppressive. She met her father’s gaze one last time, giving him a simple nod, dull hair falling around her face.
Lord Hareth smiled sadly, the lines in his face deep and weary. He walked her back to the circle of priestesses, murmuring a farewell to them all.
Anniliese sat back amongst the grasses, huddling with her fellow sheep. She steeped in her thoughts, trying to forget the press of cool metal on her spine.