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If I wasn’t trapped inside this monster I’ve become, could I…
I squeeze my arms tighter. Dig my fingernails in until they pierce. But I don’t stop, not even when blood bubbles to the surface. Can’t stop my mind from fracturing further.
Could I be whole again?
ChapterThirteen
ALIA
Ifollow my stepmother onto the terrace. The mid-morning breeze bears a slight chill, but she requested we speak out here, so I oblige, though I can’t bring myself to settle into one of the chairs. Not when she strides straight to the stone railing, places her hands on it, and tips her head back with a sigh. Her wavy hair flutters across her back and upper arms.
“Precisely what is so urgent?”
A deep instinct begs me to apologize for interrupting her, for even coming to her in the first place, and scurry away like the mouse she wishes me to be.
Instead, I swallow hard and stand firm.
“It’s about Prince Kirran’s birthday ball seven years ago.”
Several moments pass. Each one scrapes at my fraying nerves.
She finally angles a frown at me. “Why do you seek answers about this now? Why not upon your return?”
The months I spent away from Hazal, either in Palla or traveling to and from it, seemed like ages back then. On this side of things, everything just feels like it was ages ago.
I inch forward a step but don’t dare to join her at the barrier. “I didn’t want to speak of it then. Or think of it. But I need to know.”
“Well, you may find my answers lacking.” She flips dark brown hair off her shoulder. “I barely remember that ball. I have been to many since.”
“That’s fine. Anything you can tell me will help.” It’s likely better to make her think she’s helping, even with miniscule information. It’s more than I currently have. And a better option than letting her think she’s completely wasting her time. “First thing — did I go to the ball?”
She blinks at me like the question is absurd. “Are you asking if I saw you there or if you went? Because I did not see you there, but…Alia…” For a sliver of a second, her expression falters with something I can’t read. Then she straightens and places her hands atop the stone wall again. “I imagine you did attend. Thoughwhyis another matter altogether. Surely you knew what would happen.”
I shake my head. Uncertainty twists within me. “Please. I need to know. Was I there? Did Kirran…”
“You never said in detail what Prince Kirran did or didn’t do.” Her lips tighten. “You said little upon your return that evening, in fact. But you were intensely distraught, Alia. Moreso than when your father died.”
No. What happened at that ball wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been.
I force back the thought. “Do you remember what I wore? What I was wearing when I returned from the ball?”
Annoyance flashes through her eyes. “Really, Alia? You expect me to remember a single dress from seven years ago?”
“A single dressIwore. There have only been a few.”
She stares at me and finally huffs. “Fine. Let me think. It’s not like my magic is memory-focused…” She huffs again. Her gaze tips toward the sky.
Sky blue. My favorite color.
Silence laps around us like water from an ocean.
Like the Sallica Sea, where the rising sun glistens…
I jolt and drop my gaze to my feet. I’ve never been to the ocean. Not even since moving here, where the Charna Sea cradles nearly three-fourths of the nation. And not before, either time I lived in Palla, whose eastern border is the Sallica Sea.
And yet…
A shiver goes through me. I let my eyes close as something akin to a memory touches my mind.
