The High Master of another territory.
By stepping into that dress tonight, I tore down the walls I’ve come to rely on.
I’m not okay.
I grip hold of the rusty handle and jerk my door wide, greeted by the sight of my room exactly as I’d left it. Nothing has changed.
Except me.
Shooting steel into my spine, I make for the crystal goblet sitting atop my side table, snatching it around the neck. I carry it to my workstation where I lay it sideways, using one of my unpainted rocks to hammer the rim.
Small, sharp bits of crystal crack free.
Spin,smash. Spin,smash. Spin,smash.
I keep going until every inch of drinking surface is sharp enough to slice. I hurt every damn night for that man—an act that now feels hollow—it’s about time he bled for me, too.
Leaving a mess of shattered glass, I retrieve my needle and hold it in the bud of a candle flame.
The tip turns red, but still I leave it there, letting the heat leach up to the pinch of my fingers where it scalds my flesh like a branding iron. I close my eyes, holding,holding... until the tears darting down my cheeks are from equal parts pain and heartbreak.
Let the anger win, Orlaith. Let the anger win.
“Fuck. You.”
My finger and thumb are throbbing with bolts of fiery pain by the time I whip my hand back and blow on the needle, the smell of fried flesh tormenting me—trying to pull memories forth.
Dark ones.Painfulones I dash away.
I stare at the needle ...
My gluttonous curiosity has never been a deal breaker when it comes to giving Rhordyn my blood. Though desperate to know why he needs it, the simple fact that hedoeskept me pricking my finger night after night foryears.
I built my life around the act. Clung to it with every bit of my being.
Hungered over it. Fed off it.Reliedon it. Convinced myself it somehow made us special...
But Rhordyn slaughtered that theory the moment he fastened his cupla around Zali’s wrist.
I stab the needle into the tip of my pinkie, hissing when it almost digs all the way to the bone, but it’s nothing compared to the painful pinch of my heart.
A bulb of blood swells, and I let it drip into the otherwise empty goblet, wishing I could drain my emotions just as easily. Turn the tap and let my undiluted anger, sadness, and heartbreak drip until there’s nothing left ofhiminside me.
But he’s still there, sitting heavy in my heart. Making my stomach twist and twist and twi—
I stab again, this time into my thumb, gouging deeper than I ever have before. The flow of blood is instant, but still that weight lingers.
So I stab again and again andagain, only stopping once all ten of my trembling fingers have given to the goblet, adding to the little red puddle of undilutedme.
I hate that color—the color of secrets. The color of my past, my present, but no longer my future.
But I alsoloveit.
In that heavy pool of blood, I can almost see Rhordyn’s reflection—see the way he looked at me from the edge of the dancing square.
In his eyes, I saw betrayal. And if I peel back the layers of heartbreak I fed into by convincing myself we were so muchmore, I can see the sense in that ...
I’ve been safe in this tower for the past nineteen years. Been fed, clothed, and tutored. I’ve been trained—been allowed to freely roam a castle that belongs to someone who seems to value privacy above most other things.
