Page 177 of House of Lilith

And she does, in a near whisper. “Would you like to know whatreallyhappened a hundred and fifty six years ago?”

The question makes me hold my breath. For a second, there’s silence, before I realize she’s waiting for me to reply and I just nod vigorously, gesturing with my arms for her to start fucking talking.

“Maybe I should start from the beginning,” she says, capturingallmy attention. I don’t say anything, I don’t even move.

I just watch her let out a sigh as she comes into a low crouch, starting to trace circles in the stone floor in front of her with a pensive look in her eyes. “I was born in 1703, the third daughter to Archduke Orlov. As I already said, they married me off to Peter the Great when I was fourteen years old.”

She scoffs, but she doesn’t look up. “And I can only imagine what the history books would say, but it was mostlymyefforts that made himgreat. For one hundred and forty years, I was a Queen ruling from the shadows. In 1846, when we finally agreed on the Unveiling, I was there. In 1847, when we executed it, I was there.”

Still holding my breath, I watch her shake her head. “And the next twenty years, those twenty years werebrutal. The Scions publicly executing captured Originals and Originals wreaking havoc in the Scions’ communities. But that’s how O’Connor and I met, at strategy sessions.”

My eyebrows shoot up.

“Now, O’Connor was a king himself, a shifter king, powerful, handsome, amazing in bed. And he didn’t seem to feel threatened, like other men did, by my being a queen. And for a while, we were lovers. Then, one year, during the Games, while Grimm Academy was winning, I found him trying to tamper with the Box to rig the Games.”

What the…

She looks up, catches the look in my eyes and clicks her tongue.

“But if you’re thinkingthat’swhere it all went wrong… It didn’t. It went wrong the following year, after I finally got fed up with my husband threatening to send me to live the rest of my life out in a convict every time my actions hurt his pride. I killed him and took the throne for myself.”

She pauses, making me hold my breath. “Sadly, I only ended up getting two years to rule on my own.”

Thosemust’ve been the two years I could find almost no information on — 1865 and 1866. And I have so many questions, but I don’t linger on it. I nudge her to explain.

She gives me this weird little smile and says, “It was the same year O’Connor’s country got attacked, took serious damage and only avoided being wiped out because I led my army against his enemies.”

She looks away for a second. “My lover never did manage to let it go, me saving him.”

“And?”

She lets out an annoyed sigh. “It stopped being enough for him to try to rig the Games. In 1867, the year of the Umbrage, first he got Grimms and Fiains to turn on each other. Then, slowly, throughout the course of the entire year, as I later found out, he looked for ways to use the Box to steal Grimm Academy’s Heart’s power. And he almost succeeded, during the Fifth Game, until I caught him and he waged war against me. But you know what he did then?”

I shake my head.

“He lured me into a trap, talking about love and whatnot, and he trapped me in this portrait and he used all his resources, magical and otherwise, to wipe all traces of my ever having existed.”

“He didwhat?” I ask, my eyebrows pulling down.

“And he told me he’d be using the same methods to make it seem as ifwewere the ones trying to rig the Games and eventually starting the Umbrage.”

She pauses for a second, letting out a scoff. “Men. They will only ever want to make you small and take away all your power.”

Then, without taking her eyes off me, she gets up, making me follow suit, and she gets in my face and says, “So you know what you need to do? You need to come to realize that love… it’s just an urge that’s best overcome, girl. Nothing more to it.”

For a second, there’s silence as we just stare into each other’s eyes, the look in hers growing strangely soft.

Then she turns her back to me and comes to stand in front of the portrait, looking over her shoulder. “Come see me after tomorrow’s Game,” she says, suddenly sounding worn out. “But not without a way to destroy this fucking portrait. I’m sick and tired of everything. I just want eternal sleep.”

And with that, she walks into the painting and disappears.

I just keep standing there, her words ringing in my ears. And they make me realize I wasn’t just being a little bitch about Howe. I was being a little bitch about everything.

And just like that, my mind is exploding with the images of the kind of future I’ve never even dared conjure up for myself. The kind of future in which I say fuck it and actually do whatIthink should be done.

And it’s scary because it’s major and it’s not what anyone would expect of me.

But I’m already working on a strategy.

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