AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One: Loïc
Loïc isn’t real.
None of this matters.
Loïc Leduc, Journal 14
The force of my heartbeat shook my entire body. Darkness clung to me like a shroud.
Were my eyes open or closed?
Her face clogged my mind.
Beautiful. Austere. Cold.
I knew that face better than I knew my own. I’d learned to read every movement of muscle under her alabaster skin. I could anticipate her whims better than I could read my own hunger pangs. An abundance of meaning was evident in the narrowing of ice blue eyes.
My brother’seyes.
My own.
She was displeased. I could feel her irritation grate through me, even though she said nothing. I’d fucked up. I didn’t know what I’d done, or failed to do. I rarely did.
That was the game.
My life.
Guess, Loïc. Stupid boy.
Cold prickles crawled up my spine, and ice shuddered through my limbs. I shut my eyes hard and opened them again, but she was still standing there, pale and perfect, in the middle of my moonless room.
I loved her desperately.
Forlornly.
She’d never loved me. Not even a little.
My breaths heaved, loud and ragged. Full of terror.
Martine wore the silk I’d killed her in, her expression as cold as she’d been in life. Still lovely, still heartless.
“You’re a nightmare. You always have been,” I whispered into the silent room. The words dropped, shaking from my lips. Treason. Blasphemy.
She frowned, although to other people the difference would be almost imperceptible. The queen was offended.
“You’re not here.”
She wasn’t, was she?
What if she wasn’t dead?
Maybe I’d only run away again. Maybe poisoning her had been a dream.
But no. Every other time I’d run, she had me found. She’d been dead for years now. I’d seen her body in the ornate gilt casket. I’d hosted her funeral. Given her a charming eulogy.
Her cold, dead eyes reflected steel.
She laughed at my fear, the sound making me feel small.
