Page 114 of The Throne's Undoing

"Kallie."

Chapter 38

KALLIE

Kallie's limbswere frozen as she sat in the deep tub with her arms wrapped around her legs. The once scorching water, now lukewarm after sitting in it for who knows how long, had done little to bring life back into her body.

After the normal training with Ellie and then getting kicked on her ass by Dani, Kallie had returned to her room and immediately had a bath drawn. But it wasn't just her muscles that ached; the moment the handmaiden had left the room and the door clicked shut, Kallie had entered the bathtub and tears immediately erupted.

Kallie didn't know when the tears had stopped streaming down her face in torrents. She could still feel them staining her cheeks, the steam from the water having caused the salt to stick to her skin.

For once in her life, numbness didn't coat her mind. And even though she knew she shouldn't, Kallie almost missed it.

She missed the way the numbness shielded everything. The way it kept the world at bay and allowed her to live ignorantly.

But now that her mind was broken? Now that her insides had shattered into crystal glass shards, the images within themdistorted and untouchable with their sharp edges? Kallie felt everything all too much.

It was as if Dani had caused something to snap within Kallie when she had forced her to her knees.

Dani's gaze bled with so much hate and pain. It was the first time Kallie had truly come face-to-face with the consequences of her actions.

It didn't matter what Graeson had said. It didn't matter if Domitius and Myra had altered her mind; Kallie was still to blame.

One thought after another weighed down on her as she sat in the tub.

But she couldn't focus on a singular thought. Not when there were too many holes that had been ripped in the fabric of her life.

For years, Kallie had lived a lie, a fabrication she had been made to believe was the truth. What was she supposed to do now that she knew her reality had only been a simple manipulation?

It was almost laughable.

The manipulator had been manipulated.

The woman who had vowed against love when she was a young girl had been betrayed by the one man she thought would never betray her. And even further, she had been betrayed by her best friend, Myra, whom Domitius had instructed to twist Kallie's mind while snaking her way into her heart.

Kallie shouldn't have been surprised.

She should have seen through the deceptions, the lies, the stained glass.

Yet she had ignored the warning signs. She never questioned Myra's presence or why she always felt better after Myra held her.

She had pretended that the holes in Domitius's story--the lack of paintings of her mother, the dismissal of her brothers'involvement in her initial abduction, the endless assignments furthering his own agenda--didn't exist.

The tears threatened to return, but she had no more to give.

Kallie bit down on her lip, pain spiking as her teeth pierced through her skin. She curled her fingers, balling her hands into tight fists beneath the water.

When she was told Domitius had kidnapped her, she had been made to believe that he had done it to protect her. When confronted, Domitius had said he kidnapped her because her mother wished to use her for her gift, that Kallie had been born simply to be used by the Queen of Pontia.

Then, when she was told Domitius had killed the father whose blood ran in her veins, Domitius had told her thathewas her father--the one who had raised her, cared for her, and given her everything she needed in life.

He had turned it around on her, as if she was in the wrong for questioning him. As if she was claiming he had not been good enough after everything he had done for her.

When Fynn died, Domitius claimed he was a needed sacrifice, a death that couldn't have been avoided because of Kallie's actions. An unfortunate casualty, but one that shouldn't have been a concern of hers.

Fynn did not care about her, Domitius had said. The prince had only wished for Kallie's demise.

And when Kallie had agreed to marry the King of Frenzia, she'd been told it was to gain her crown, not to give Domitius access to a sea of knowledge.

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