22
M ARISOL HAD NO IDEA WHERE SHE WAS GOING, BUT she felt better the more distance she put between herself and Teo.
People were still making their way to shore, chatting as they left their boats and made plans for the rest of their night, and she twisted away from them, so she could have silence to quiet the screaming in her head.
It felt as if she were on a precipice, a breath away from free-falling into a terrifying unknown, and her eyes burned at the prospect.
Her thoughts were in tatters around her. She had to either weave them back together or let them slip away on the wind like the sky lanterns.
The road away from the harbor curved up a gentle hill and cut through tall trees and stucco houses.
Shadows on the slanted tiled roofs made it clear that she wasn’t the only one who had watched the showcase from the highest point she could find.
Her shoulders eased as she passed the welks; they reminded her that her revenge had a more important purpose.
In fewer than two months, she had seen two lavish Houses, surrounded by lands and greenery that seemed endless, while the regulars of Coventry were forced into these buildings packed so close together that one could hardly tell home from home or civilization from wilderness.
Then again, Gaspar was not the one who had wanted the prince dead.
That was her embellishment, her sin. Could she go through with it now that she still felt the gentle press of his thumb on her mouth?
Now that she had seen in his eyes how badly he had wanted to replace it with his lips?
Now that she knew, when suspended in that moment, that she was just weak enough to let him?
The clearing shocked her back to the present.
It was hidden by tall grass, and she would never have found it if she hadn’t burst through the copse of trees on her way to nowhere.
Slowing, she fought to catch her breath and get her bearings.
The woods were dark, every bit of foliage the same in the night, but she could see the open sky still lit by lanterns expanding across the horizon.
She sat down, ignoring the twigs and burrs that caught on her dress, and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
“I miss you, Yoselin,” she whispered. “I wish you were here.”
She imagined what it would have been like if both she and Yoselin had survived the bloodbath.
With her magic, Yoselin would have been accepted as a morpher in House Cambio, and perhaps Marisol could have lived with her as her lady’s maid.
If they had both met Gaspar, Yoselin would have thought he and all his promises were suspicious.
“I want things to change, too,” she might have said, “but I don’t want to change to something worse . ”
Tears began to fall, because Marisol was always just guessing at what Yoselin might have said and done.
They had been so young . Their time together had been so short .
She felt like a mess, so her imaginary Yoselin was decisive and confident.
But the truth was she didn’t know how things would have turned out with Yoselin at her side.
She would never have the chance to see who her best friend, her sister, would have become.
“Marisol,” Bas Arroyo said, stepping into the clearing with his face cast in shadow. “Teo is looking for you.”
“Leave me alone.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, and yet it was colder than the wind that stirred the harbor. “I mean it, Sebastjan.”
He ignored her to come closer. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“What do you think?” Marisol swiped at her tears before she got to her feet, the hatred that had been wavering in her heart roaring back with a vengeance.
“Yoselin was only seven when you got her killed. She’ll never get to see something this beautiful.
” She threw her hand toward the sky and the multicolored lanterns that trailed across the stars.
“Sometimes, I get really upset about that. Strange, isn’t it? ”
“I’ll tell Teo that we’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
And then Bas rolled his eyes, and whatever tenuous control Marisol had on her temper snapped. She shoved him. Hard. His arms pinwheeled as he stumbled away, and she shoved him again because it felt good, to see him unbalanced for once.
“ Damn you,” she snarled. “How can you be so unfeeling? Why am I the only one destroyed by what you did? Why don’t you even care —”
“You think I don’t care?” Bas caught her hands before she could shove him again, his grip like an iron band. “You’re acting like a child, Leya, unable to see beyond your own feelings.”
“Shut up,” she hissed, trying to yank her way free.
“You’re not the only one who lost family that day.”
“I said shut up !”
“ They were my family, too ,” he roared over her. “Did Yoselin ever tell you that ? Did she ever tell you that she was my half sister?”
Marisol stopped her attempts to escape. Everything in her mind had gone quiet. “You told me that you were from Esquivel.”
“My mother was.” Bas ran a hand over his face. “And since I couldn’t tell the truth, I turned her history into my own. The king insisted.”
Her mouth hung open. Her heart revolted against this information, and yet she looked at Bas now and she could almost see it.
The dark eyes. The thick curls. The strong jaw.
He looked remarkably like the portraits of a young King Oberon, but with darker skin and a fiercer stare.
But it couldn’t be true. Yoselin had never said anything.
She had never once reacted to Marisol’s stories about the kitchen boy who saved her treats and laughed at her bad jokes.
“Oberon had an affair with my mother. She couldn’t afford to feed us both, so she sent me to the castle. He agreed to take me in—as a servant. And to keep her quiet and me under control, he killed her.”
“He—”
“She was found in our old house, bleeding out from over a dozen puncture wounds. They never found the weapon. Because there was no weapon to find.”
“How—”
“He told me himself, when I asked to go home.” Tears glistened beneath Bas’s eyes, but he didn’t let them fall.
“He told me that my mother was dead and that I would follow if I said anything to threaten his family. He had me tested, tortured , for magical aptitude so many times. Evaline kept the bowels of the palace so dark that no one would have seen me even if they’d heard me screaming.
And Yoselin… she didn’t care. Why would she?
She was seven years old and heir to the throne. She had her parents. She had you.”
Marisol’s vision blurred, and she realized that she was crying again.
Bas had grown up in the same castle that she had, but he had clearly not had the same experience.
He had tried to tell her so many times, but it wasn’t until now—after a perfect day, after nightmarish grief—that she felt the truth of it cut through her.
If she thought about it, she remembered the many times she had been turned away from the kitchen and told that Bas wasn’t feeling well enough to play.
His grip loosened, but Marisol didn’t move away. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You were happy,” he said simply. “You were one of the only parts of my life I enjoyed, and I didn’t want you to live like I did, terrified of what each new day would bring. The more you knew, the worse they might treat you.”
“So you killed them? That was supposed to make me happy?”
Bas released one of her hands to rub his temples. “Leya…”
“You can make this about Coventry as much as you want, but you were saving yourself,” Marisol whispered. “You didn’t care about me. You never did.”
“If that’s what you need to believe, fine .” Bas’s other hand fell to his side, giving her the freedom to push past him if she wanted. “Stay loyal to a family that was running our country into the ground. I’m sure they’d thank you for it if they were still alive.”
“I hate you.” And this time it wasn’t a whisper; it was the culmination of years of loneliness and terror and rage, so much rage. “ I hate you! If you’d told me the truth—If you’d let me help you—”
“You wouldn’t have helped me. No one did.”
“You didn’t trust anyone. I have no idea who you are anymore.”
“That’s rich”—his smirk was cutting—“coming from the girl wearing someone else’s face.”
Tears soaked the collar of her gown, making it cling to her skin. “You taught me a valuable lesson that night. I suppose I should thank you for that and for saving my life at the expense of everyone I care about.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“I know. Neither am I.”
It was quiet except for their breathing.
There was a sob trapped in Marisol’s chest, but she smothered it.
She had been right all along. Their friendship had just been in her head, and he had never trusted her with the truth of who he was.
A Seaward bastard, treated like less than, tending to his resentment until the right opportunity fell into his lap.
An indirect murderer, dodging responsibility by laying the blame on his mistreatment rather than his mistakes.
She saw all of him now, and she hated it.
In seconds, she had her dagger—Sol—in hand, pressing it to the line of his throat. “You,” she hissed, “owe me your life.”
Bas didn’t even flinch. “I saved you.”
“You took everything from me.” The blade punctured his neck. Flecks of blood welled up, too little to satisfy her. “I should kill you where you stand.”
“You can kill me right now, if you need to avenge them.” He leaned forward, allowing her dagger to cut deeper. Crimson stained her blade, his skin, in light lines, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. “I won’t stop you. I won’t even fight back if that’s what you want.”
“You don’t know anything about me or what I want.
” Her hand shook around the handle. She should end it, slice through his trachea and watch him bleed out on the ground, but she couldn’t make herself move.
Not while he was acting as if she’d be doing him a favor.
Not when he refused to suffer the way he’d made her suffer. “I’m not that little girl anymore.”
“And I’m not that little boy. So where does that leave us?”
Marisol waited just long enough to give him pause, and then she withdrew her dagger. Her cut had barely broken the skin, but she hoped that it would scar. She hoped that every time he looked in a mirror from now on, he thought of how easily she’d had him at her mercy.
“I don’t know.” She turned her back on him so she could slide the dagger back into its holster.
The heat from his body was equal only to the fires of her anger.
It felt as if every part of her were burning, and he had lit the match.
But if she caught fire, she would make sure he died with her. “And, honestly, I don’t care.”