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“Well, I might be traitorous,” I offer. “But at least I’m not your wife anymore, now that I’m officially dead.”
Einar blinks a couple of times like he hadn’t actually considered this yet, which is fair, since it will hardly matter once he gets what he needs from me. Whether he kills me or lets me go, the issue of our marriage will be settled.
“We have more pressing things to discuss right now, Zaina.” He reaches into his cloak pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. I try to keep my features neutral when I realize exactly what it is.
“Did someone send you this note?”
That was not at all what I was expecting him to say.
“No,” I answer, forcing my tone to stay calm.
“Well, it doesn’t match your handwriting,” he says.
I pause.It most certainly does.
“When would you have seen my handwriting?” I stall for time, needing a moment before I decide how much I can safely say about the contents of the note.
Einar’s brows raise. “The marriage contract.”
Something in my expression must give me away, because he shakes his head.
“Which you clearly didn’t sign.” He looks back at the parchment in his hand. “But you did write this.” It isn’t a question, so I don’t answer, but my silence is proof enough.
“The alchemist, is it Dvain or Ulla? Someone else?”
“Dvain.” I choke his name out through the bile creeping up my throat.
My heart thunders within my breast so loud, I’m sure Einar can hear it. All at once, I am thirteen and in a room alone with the most evil man I’ve ever met. Forcing the memory away, I try to think this through.
Even if it wasn’t for my sake, I know enough about Einar to know that he would never allow a man like Dvain to live in his kingdom, or to live at all.
And if Einar kills the revolting man based on information that only I know, none of us will be safe, least of all the king himself.
“Why shouldn’t I trust him?” His eyes are glued to my features, like he sees straight through to the small, damaged girl that resides within me. Like he is as disgusted by her as I am.
Khijhana’s ears go flat as if she can sense the memories warring with the logic I’m considering now, and I will myself to stay calm.
In an effort to stave off further questioning, I wrack my brain for all of the information I can safely give him. “Madame told me nine years ago that she had purchased his loyalty.”
That’s true enough. Though Madame hadn’t specified, I know now that was who she referred to when I asked her what price my virginity had fetched.
“Besides which,” I offer a rare bit of conjecture before he can argue. “If he is as talented as he says, there is no reason he could not find a cure in nearly two decades of searching. It’s more likely he’s been intentionally leading you astray.”
Einar’s jaw flexes, and his eyes harden. “And I’m supposed to just take you at your word?”
I glare right back.
“I don’t know why you asked me only to argue with my answer, but no, don’t take me at my word. Go with your own instincts. Just the fact that he chose me as your bride should be cause to at least investigate, wouldn't you say?” It is taking everything I have to remain calm, to push him to go somewhere else to think about it and leave me alone long enough to collect myself.
I will never despise Madame as much for anything as I do for murdering the kindest soul I knew while I looked on helplessly, but the day she forced me to go with Dvain is a close second.
Khijhana growls, and I try to rein in visceral images of the disgusting man who still has the power to haunt me with his mere existence.
Fortunately, Einar is too caught up in his fury and shock to pay much attention to my chalyx. I will die before giving him another piece of myself to doubt, before hearing him talk about how we all have choices when I had exactly none that day.
For that matter, we will all die if he acts on any of this. My sisters and Einar and I by Madame’s hand, and his people with no one to supply them a cure.
So I take advantage of his distraction to even out my breathing and my features, to pretend the alchemist is just another of Madame’s contacts and that his involvement in this is of no consequence to me.I am unaffected.
