Page 16 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“There we are,” he said, stretching back in his seat and levelling a cold look on me. “You think I’ll do to her what our father did to us. Because you always have thought of me to be like him, haven’t you?”

He was not wrong.

I had.

Many times.

But not just him.

Some part of me will always believe that we were brutalised beyond the point we saw the violence we inflict. That at some point, we became blind to our own violence. The abused will become the abuser without them even realising.

Snow’s head turned to me and I had to look away from seeing the heartbreak written in her face. My gaze landed on steps reaching our table, on the light rose coloured silk slippers peeking from under the heavy fabric of the modest navy dress she wore—I never remembered her wearing such dull colours or such frumpy fabrics.

Thora bowed her crowned head to my brother and then went to hug her sister before quietly taking a seat on Kil’s left. “I thought we’d be alone,” she commented, laying a piece of cloth on her lap as her food was being served before her.

My hands itched to drag her chair closer to me. “You mind my presence that much?”

“I mind it when it disturbs those I love,” she snapped, the air chilling entirely and making our breaths mist. “If you must ruin, Malik, keep ruining yourself, not others. You’ve done plenty of that already.”

Snow’s eyes widened on her sister. “Rora—”

“You two might think you owe him decency, but I owe him nothing,” she replied courtly, cutting though her food.

She’d changed.

She’d changed so much.

My eyes were telling me that she was the same girl who bore all my deepest and darkest secrets like they were the most precious things she’d ever beheld, but my soul recognised the damage it had done.

“I’m afraid your peace will be disturbed a while longer,” I said, reaching for my cup of water, needing to hold something to stop the shake of my hands.

Her cutlery hissed against the porcelain, and she stared ahead at nothing for a brief moment before continuing through her meal. Saying nothing.

“Won’t you ask?”

“I have no interest, but it seems you’re eager to tell anyway.”

I turned to my brother who had stopped eating and had leaned back in his chair, a particularly confused frown directed at me. “I’ll see to Rain’s training.”

“I can help my own child.”

I scoffed. “What will you show her? How to nurture it? We can’t nurture our magic, Kil, it will only eat at her. Like it still eats at you.”

“And you?” Thora asked, finally looking at me. “Will you show her how to cower from it, how to drown herself in misery because of it?”

“Rora, enough,” Snow calmly said, and the whole room went silent.

Cold emerald eyes were still on mine when she smirked with such disdain. “Perhaps not. Even that he’s failed to do.”

Unable to contain my reaction, I grinned at her. “Have you been praying for my downfall, little bird?”

“What downfall? Can someone stoop any lower than where you were last I saw you?” She raised the fork to her lips, offering me a sweet smile before biting on her food.

“That was mean.”

“Aw, diddums.”

I threw my head back and laughed while she glared at me. She had every weapon in her arsenal to destroy me, ruin me, humiliate me, and this was how she was choosing to do so. Using none of the ammunition I gave her, she was using her own.