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“I don’t know. But I know I’m supposed to be here.”
“But you were at the castle.All the wayback at the castle. How did you get here so fast?”
“I had help from a friend.”
“Friend?”
Valerian took a step toward me, but I met his advance with another retreat. He frowned. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
I lowered my eyes. “You couldn’t if you wanted to.”
“Why do you step away from me, then?”
“Because I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone, right now. Nobody seems to know who I am except you, which tells me you could be aligned with whatever did this to me.”
“Aligned… with what?”
“I don’t know. You handled the Souldirge too well, and that thing was made of dark magic.”
A memory suddenly locked itself into place.Dark magic.I remembered standing in the woods, with Tallin at my side, staring down into a ridge that shouldn’t have been there. It was dark, and eerie to look at, with gnarly roots sticking out of the ground angled in such a way that you would have kept falling if you fell in.
I had smelled it then, and I had smelled it in my dream as well, only I hadn’t recognized it.
The world tipped to one side, making me instantly dizzy. I stuck my hand out to hold onto the tree I was standing next to, fearing I would topple over and fall. Valerian made a move toward me, but I held my other hand up toward him.
“Don’t,” I warned.
“I’m not your enemy, Princess,” he said.
“How can I possibly know that?”
“Because what just happened to you also happened to me.”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“You said nobody knows who you are, right?”
My eyes narrowed further. “I did.”
“Yesterday I woke up at dawn, as I always did. I got changed for the day’s training, then I began to meditate—again, as I always did. I found it strange that Tellren hadn’t come to my door to tell me breakfast had been served. I found it even stranger when I walked out of my room and heard the sounds of people eating coming from the dining hall. I thought Tellren had forgotten about me. I was right.”
“They didn’t know who you were?”
“As soon as I entered the dining hall, panic broke out. No one knew who I was. They all got up, some of them brandishing cutlery as weapons. I didn’t have friends in the Selection to begin with, but their attitude was even more hostile than usual.”
“What happened?”
“One of them called for the guards. Tellren rushed in with two armed guards, demanded that they seize me. It’s a wonder I got away from them at all.”
“You escaped the palace guards? How?”
“I have my ways of avoiding detection.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
“No. I didn’t have to. Once I made it out of the palace, I knew I had a long way to go before I could reach the city, but something happened.”
“Something?”
