Page 108 of A Dance of Lies

Myfather.

Pain and panic lace between my ribs, knotting my insides, and I can’t seem to pull in a breath. The monster who murdered Emilia is conversing with the man who holds my noose.

I had assumed Illian was working with King Rurik, not with my father. Not directly.

Anton slides the wooden slat closed, and distantly, I hear himwhisper my name. But my head is spinning, the room twisting, turning, like I’m on the bow of a ship being knocked about by vicious winds—

He cups my face, brings it toward his own. “Vasalie?”

I snap my gaze toward his but his expression isn’t one of concern. It’s urgency. “I need you to tell me what’s going on—and fast.”

I force a breath, hanging on to his green-gold gaze like an anchor. “That . . .” I rasp, “is General Stova.”

“And?”

I shut my eyes, squeezing them tight, but Anton runs his thumbs over my cheeks. “Look at me,” he commands.

With an exhale, I obey, forcing out my next admission. “Vasti-anna Stova,” I say. “It is the name I was given at birth.”

“You are his daughter?”

“Yes.” I breathe, rubbing my arms against a sudden chill. “I ran away. My stepmother was supposed to come with me, but he”—I swallow—”he found out.”

At that, Anton goes very still.

“Vasalie,” he says softly, “why were you running away?”

I turn my gaze toward the wall, as if I could see through it to the demon beyond. “Because he promised my hand in marriage to a suitor across the sea, effective immediately.” I look at Anton then, my fingers balling into fists. “I was thirteen.”

He lets out a curse, his hands falling away.

And the story breaks from me, a gush of water against a collapsing dam. “My stepmother, she begged him.Beggedhim not to go through with it.” Because while I hadn’t known my suitor, Emilia seemed to. I remember her shouting at my father, saying he was dangerous. Vile. Not to mention how young I was—“My father had become increasingly violent over the years. And when he found our bags . . .”

I trail off at that, unable to say more, but it doesn’t matter. Anton must see it on my bloodless face.

He squeezes my arm. “I have to open the slat again; I need toknow what they are saying. Do you need me to take you downstairs first? I can, but we may not have much time . . .”

“No,” I say, frantic, even as my stomach tightens. “I—can do this. I can stay.”

Iwantto stay. I have to know why they’re together.

A nod. “Squeeze my arm if you need anything.”

With that, he reopens the spy hole. When he leans in, I do, too, straining to hear over the music.

“. . . and you’re certain that she’ll go through with it?” Illian clanks down his glass on a side table.

My father shifts in his seat. “The little princess wants her power, prepped and presented like a cake in time for her next name day. I am the only one who can give it to her. She knows this.”

“Bold of you to think she won’t dispose of you and keep the crown for herself once Rurik is dead.”

King Rurik.

Dead?

“Laughable,” my father says, flexing a broad-knuckled hand. “The army answers tome.If I perish by her hand, not even a Fate could maintain command over my men. Of this, she is aware.” His voice turns feral, then, bitter as gall. “I earned their loyalty, plain as that. I raised them. Bred them. Proffered their earnings. I knocked them down and built them up again; their loyalty is tome.Aesir is no different. I’ve groomed her, primed her, ever since she was little.”

So that was how he did it. The times he was gone, neglecting Emilia and me, he was there, making sons out of comrades, followers out of allies.