Page 104 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Someone was talking, I was sure of it.

But all I could hear where his grunts from last night as he stroked his co—

“Thora,” Elias snapped, and the blur of the meeting room cleared.

“Yes?” I asked, snapping straight and looking around the empty room like I’d just woken up from a dream.

He frowned. “Meeting is over. Don’t you have to visit the academy?”

I blinked. “Yes.” Standing, I frantically turned to search for my cloak. “Where is my cloak?”

“You came without one,” Elias said, frowning even deeper.

“Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“W-wrong? Nothing is wrong,” I said, hurrying outside.

I still hadn't seen him after last night when he left like his soles were on fire using the excuse of his soldiers alerting him to danger around the castle. Utter lies. My wolves would have alerted me, too, if that had been the case.

Before I reached my room, I noticed Oryn standing by the doors of my waiting chambers. The old man looked perturbed.

“She insisted,” was all he said before pointing inside the room where a little girl waited on the massive sofa arrangement. Blonde hair fell straight and long to her back, pinned back and away from her face by two flowery clips. Her pale-yellow eyes had fallen on an uninteresting spot on the wall. They were not quite like Snow’s or Silas’s. They were lively somehow, as if she didn’t know of her fate. No one who’d been born with her fate would ever have so much life in their eyes. But then again, my brother had managed to make me a mirage of propriety, too, despite all.

Lilith’s mouth slowly pulled into a little smile, and she turned a look around the room, her lively yellow eyes emptily searching. “Your Majesty.”

“You don’t have to call me that. You’re not my subject,” I said, taking a seat across from her.

“You must be wondering why I’ve come,” she said, reaching a hand forward to touch the table, her fingers searching the surface until they met the teacup.

I’d heard conversations here and there about her. The Ybris who’d barely survived her own power. Melanthe had overestimated her daughter’s magic—the magic that was born to consume. Ice and death. The seal she’d put on her daughter had been insufficient compared to the one Lysander had put on us three, and the magic had consumed her ability to see.

“Does your brother know you’re here?” How did a ten-year-old cross my lands and even get herself inside my castle without a single hair out of place.

The cup stopped halfway to her lips. “He doesn’t. This doesn’t concern Eren.”

“Not much does, does it?”

After giving me an uneasy smile that reminded me too much of my own, she took another sip of her tea. “You must be close to him. He speaks so highly of you—”

“I don’t care how he speaks of me. I’d rather he doesn’t speak of me at all. Especially to you.”

She reached to feel the table and lowered her teacup with shaky hands. “You loathe the people that birthed me, I understand why you would loathe me, too.”

Even though I wished to feel spite, to loathe her as she said, somehow I couldn’t. “I loathe nothing. Especially a stranger. Especially a stranger whose father I killed. Whose mother I wished I had killed. Whose memory still gives my sister nightmares even after ten long years. A stranger who would prompt those nightmares to come back. A stranger who would only invoke more than nightmares to come back, demons, too. I can’t allow that. I’m very protective of my sister.”

She gulped, hiding her now trembling fingers under her thighs. It bothered me how similar our mannerisms were. “I see,” she said lightly, forcing a quivering smile on her face. “Not literally. Cause I can’t really see, you know.” After letting an uneasy little giggle, she took another sip of her tea.

The doors flew open, and we both jumped. “Who do we have here?” Malik asked, strutting inside the room. “And who is this beautiful young lady?”

She bowed her head. “Lilith Delcour, a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.”

“Mal, little sister-in-law. Just call me Mal.” The idiot took a seat beside me and threw me a wink and an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t be angry at her,” he murmured in my ear, and kissed my cheek with a loud smack that had me go a deep red because Lilith shyly giggled.

I was not angry at her. The only thing I wanted was to keep my sister safe. Snow was pregnant, and gods knew how she would react to seeing her here.

He turned to her. “How did you know it was me?”