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“Very well.” I spread my arms out. “Consider me the very antithesis of a…chutiya.”
She raises a single eyebrow at that, then turns to her husband with a fatalistic sigh.
“Do you want to start, or shall I?”
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
AIKA
Zaina was stolen.
Taken.
Trafficked, the way that Jessa was. I went on a rampage to try to save the orphan I barely knew from that fate, and all along, it was one my sister had shared.
There was more to her story—so much more. Einar’s poisoned castle and Damian’s attack and Rose’s death. Though, I noticed she left out the catalyst for that last part.
Whether it was for my sake or hers, I’m grateful. The last thing I feel like doing is fielding questions about that time Madame sold my virginity when Remy already looks at me like I’m defective.
Maybe I am.
All this time, I thought Zaina and I were more or less the same. Unwanted orphans who chose a life with Madame over one on the streets. I only thought that Zaina had learned to hate it more quickly than I did, had let her resentment over what happened with Rose build.
She wasn’t unwanted, though. She had a family who missed her. And now she has Einar, who looks at her like he would jump off a bridge after her just to make sure she didn’t die alone.
While I have a husband who despises everything I’ve done and everything I am.
Even Madame wanted her enough to take her at risk of getting caught.
We aren’t the same. Not only was she wanted, she didn’t make the choices I did. I chose for myself, while every single sands-blasted thing she has done has been to protect someone else. Rose. Mel. Me. Einar.
I can’t decide if I feel better about the part of her story where she said she didn’t trust him, either, at first, or if I’m just frustrated at realizing that she would actually rather die than clue someone in on her precious plans or give up an ounce of her brittle pride.
That she would rather let me believe she had died than find a way to trust me.
“And what about your other sister?” Remy’s question is a welcome reprieve from my thoughts. “Was she taken, too?”
“No,” Zaina and I answer at the same time before I continue. “Mel is Madame’s by blood.”
“And where is she? Off masquerading as the Empress of the Eastern Lands?” He sounds like he’s only being half sarcastic.
I exchange a loaded glance with my sister. Where is Mel now? Alone, on Delphine, grieving Zaina, and hell, preemptively grieving me, too.
I’m worried I’ll have to miss you, too,she had written.
I never even got to respond to that letter. By the time it was delivered, the seas were already too treacherous to travel. She’s trapped an ocean away from us.
“On Delphine,” I answer shortly, having exactly zero desire or energy to explain the rest.
Remy’s head tilts to the side, questions brimming in his eyes. “Running Madame’s operations there?”
Zaina finally breaks our eye contact, turning to answer him. “No. Melodi can’t speak. She was born mute. So in Madame’s eyes, she’s…useless.”
She spits the word out between gritted teeth. Being useless is worse than insulting in Madame’s eyes. It’s dangerous. It puts you one step closer to being eliminated at her whims.
I think of our youngest sister, intelligent and kind and talented, and how she has nothing to offer our mother because she isn’t close enough to her ideals of perfection, and my insides twist.
Remy nods, as if he’s piecing together the complexities of our family, but he doesn’t. He can’t. I don’t even understand it.
