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1. Aurick Demechnef
It isn’t exactly the name that hits me first.
It’s the proud glint in his glacier-blue eyes. The tilting of his head. The upward curve of his thin lips. He’s absorbing my shock with a sense of achievement, exhilarated in his deception, anticipating every reaction I will have. Because he managed to fool me. He managed to play me at my weakest.
Aurick Demechnef.
Our country’s leader.
The man who saved me from the cold. The friend who cared for me after Scarlett died. He plucked me from the snow, gave me a home, a job, a support system that came crumbling down when he first hit me.
And it was all a trick.
Why?
Betrayal sinks into the pit of my gut. Sharp and jagged, like a rusted nail. I open and close my mouth. Words rushing to the surface, then sputtering out before they reach my lips.
A large hand grazes my shoulder, and even though it’s Dessin, I jerk away like I’ve just been slapped. My wide-eyed stare rips from Aurick’s face to Dessin’s cautious mahogany eyes.
How could he keep this from me?
Pathetic, glossy tears coat my eyes and blur my vision. I’m a scared, cornered animal. Thoughts slam against the inside of my skull. Aurick Demechnef. A trick.Liar. Everyone lied.
“Skylenna,” Dessin says softly.
“No.” The small word comes out in a gasp. A puff of breath from a collapsed lung.
“Wait,” someone says from behind me. “Thisis Aurick?”
I focus on the flickering candle sconce to my left, the smooth cherrywood walls, avoiding the faces turned to me, avoiding my name being called, avoiding the urge to take off in a sprint.
This entire time I was building a friendship with Dessin in the asylum and he never told me. The moments he would hint at his contempt for Aurick. But what about the time Aurick struck me down? Left a mark? He didn’t think I deserved to know then?
A few men remain behind Aurick’s desk, waiting for orders, leaning back into the shadows until they’re needed.
“How—” My question falls off the face of the earth. I’m looking into those cold, glassy eyes and wonder how I didn’t see it? The money. The power. The questions about Dessin. The consistent curiosity about the asylum.
Is that what happened to Sern? Dessin said Demechnef found her, tried to use her family against her, which is why he broke her spine.
“He used me to get to you,” I finally say to Dessin. But Aurick makes a sound that is close to a laugh. As if I’m so deep in the dark he wouldn’t know where to begin with me.
I turn my head to him, cut into his silhouette with a glare of fire and blood. “You were my friend.” And this time, I don’t look away. I let the tears spill over my bottom lashes, dripping from my chin to the floor.
Aurick’s shoulders droop, but he holds my gaze as if looking away would admit defeat.
“We have much to discuss.” But that voice is detached, distant, absent of any sentimental feelings he could have had toward me.
This man is a stranger. He looks like Aurick. Sounds like Aurick, but we’ve never met.
“You—” I clear my throat. “You must have thought me such a fool.” I look back and forth between Aurick and Dessin, unable to decide who I should direct the majority of my hatred toward.
“We can discuss my lack of a moral compass, or we can get down to business,” Aurick says, straightening his back.
“Thisisgetting down to business,” Dessin growls.
“No. He’s right.” I back into the comfort of Ruth’s hand, running up and down my back. “We’re here for a reason. Let’s get to it.”
Dessin watches me, unsure of how to continue after this obstacle.
