Page 133 of Siege of Shadows

“The Surgeon?” My feet slid and scuffled across the gravel.

“He said I would always be alone.” Belle’s head was low, but tilted slightly. She’d lost focus again. “I think he was right.”

She began closing the distance between us.

“Belle,” I started, wrapping my arms around myself to keep from shaking. “I don’t know what he did to you....”

But I did. I knew that he’d tortured her physically, mentally, and emotionally. He had twisted her for an entire hour while I was locked in my cell, unable to do anything. Yet what he’d done to her maybe wasn’t as important as what I had done.

“I wanted to believe that he was wrong. That I had finally found friends I could believe in.”

Her blue eyes snapped back into focus and she looked up at me desperately.

“Y-you have,” I said, shaking. “We’re... Wearefriends, Belle.”

“Then, as a friend, let me ask you this.”

I already knew what she would ask. My lips began trembling.

“And as afriend, answer me truthfully.” Belle placed a hand on her stomach, touching a hole through the tears her torturer had made in her shirt. “Did you know?”

Tears stung my eyes once again. “Belle...”

“Did you know this entire time?”

What could I say? We’d all heard the confession. The whole world had heard Aidan Rhys admit that he had murdered Natalya.

“Please, Maia.” She was begging me now. “Please, just tell me.”

But I couldn’t. I pressed my lips together to seal up my whimpers. I’d stopped moving, my stomach turning so terribly that I doubled over from the pain. But she was still approaching me.

“Maia, just tell me. Remember...”

The wind chilled, snowflakes slipping out from the air around her, gathering by her hand, forming the shape of her sword.

“I’m asking as a friend.”

I saw the edge of the beautiful sword I’d once admired and suddenly, in that moment, I realized that it was Belle who’d suggested we travel in separate cars.

I could lie. I could tell her I hadn’t known. That I’d been as surprised as anyone. But I didn’t want to. The man whose secrets I was protecting was dead. I would never see him again. And I was tired. I was tired of everything.

“Did you know, Maia? That Aidan killed Natalya?”

“I’ve known for a long time.”

She was too fast. The sword came down on my head before I knew what was happening, but by pure instinct alone, I avoided her. She was emotional, too emotional to be precise. That was my advantage. I dodged her clumsy swings, her enraged, sorrowful cries splitting the air. I called my own weapon, my scythe emerging out of a whirl of flame to counteract her strikes, but she pressed me back, back, and back still. It wasn’t until I felt the rocks crumble and fall down from my heel that I realized she’d pinned me against the cliff.

One more swing and she broke my scythe. It dissipated into nothingness.

This was insane. This couldn’t be happening. “Belle, I’m sorry!”

“Youknew!” Belle dragged the tip of her sword against the cliffs. “You saw me going through hell. I opened myself to you—to all of you. And you betrayed me!”

“I know!” I put out my hands to stave her fury, to save my own life. The tears were falling freely now, dripping into my lips, down my chin. “I know, and I’m sorry. I was scared. I was scared you would do something crazy!”

“Like kill your lover?” Belle’s hair was a shambles across her face. When she swept it back, I saw her eyes glinting with malevolence, with disdain, withpain. She smiled the mocking grin of a girl who knew her world was over and she had nothing left to lose. “But he’s already dead. It was all for nothing.”

A strangled cry escaped my lips as I thought of him, the pain of his death made real by her malicious words. “It wasn’t just for him. It was for you! Belle, this isn’t you. You’re not a killer. Natalya’s gone, but it’s killing you! It’s twisting you! Natalya wouldn’t—”

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