AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Did it matter? It isn't like I would have chosen to be the one who survived in her place. Though, that seemed like reason enough for her.
"To torture me?"
Her eyes darkened with a rare emotion.
"You don't know what torture is, girl." Her expression cleared. "You were close to escaping, you know."
Was she rubbing salt in my wounds? Regardless, I had failed. I didn't respond.
"The simple answer is this. You are more useful to me than she was ever going to be." She glanced toward Melodi's chambers, the threat clear in her eyes. "See that you stay that way."
How fitting that the very reason she took me, the very thing that kept me from joining Rose in the early, peaceful grave I had been so envious of, would lead to this small moment of failure for Madame.
Chapter Five
Einar
It takes me less than two minutes to open the passageway behind the tapestry and reach my private study.
It takes me even less time than that to realize how well she has played her game.
I grind my teeth as I play through each moment in my mind.
Just this morning, I showed her the rose. Showed her how to get to it, and where I keep the key. And now, that key is gone. And so is she.
I pull out a series of books by more muscle memory than thought, ignoring Khijhana’s anxious shuffling at my heels. When the bookcase finally swings open, I’ve already prepared myself for the sight of the empty glass cabinet.
But that’s not what greets me.
The door is open on its gilded hinges, the key that should be around my neck still in the lock with the chain hanging freely from it. And in the cabinet stands a single black-stemmed rose supported gently by a wooden stand.
I stop just short of sighing in relief, though, because my rose had two petals remaining this morning, and this one only has one. Then there were the three on Zaina’s floor.
Nothing is adding up, so I move closer to inspect it, comparing the petal on the flower with the ones in the vial. I have spent seventeen years studying every last nuance of the rose that poisoned my people, the one that holds the key to curing them. This is not that rose. These are not those petals.
It’s close, though, nearly indistinguishable. But the petals are just a shade too bright, the stem too shiny and new. Even the thorn is slightly off. I have searched the entire world for another rose like mine, consulted every expert between here and Aurelia, and no one has known of a single comparable plant.
I flip the rose over in my hand again, shaking my head. This isn’t just another version of the same rose, from the same vine. It’s a fake.
I slam my fist into the wooden table, splintering the wood and causing the open notebooks to go sailing in every direction. I don’t pick them up, though. There isn’t time for that.
I need to find the last hope my people have left.
And for that, I need to find Zaina.
I spend each step from that room to my chambers cursing myself for my own idiocy.
I knew. Iknewmarriage was a terrible idea. I knew I couldn’t trust her from the moment she got here. That’s why I hated her, even then.
Liar,my mind tells me as I try to ignore the images of our wedding day that pummel me, while I fling my clothes on.
She’s late. For her own wedding.
I’m sacrificing time I could be researching. Standing at the end of an aisle for a woman who won’t even bother to show up on time, all while my people are suffering, and for what? I look around at the masks they insist on wearing when the public comes around, the symbols of the pain and shame they live with day in and day out, and my blood starts to boil before she even arrives.
Then the solid wooden door creeps open, and in she strides.
And for a moment, I don’t breathe.
