Page 66 of The Blood Crown

She’d lost all sense of time in their journey back here, but it must have been nearing Yuletide—or maybe it had passed while they’d been fighting their way back. Did the Blood Folk even celebrate holidays? She’d never thought to ask.

“Could you ever have imagined, Ari?” Asher asked quietly, his voice scattering her thoughts.

“No,” she answered, “not until I’d seen it for myself.”

He braced his hands against the sill, watching dusk fall over the Shades.

“I understand it now.” He glanced toward her, green eyes glittering with emotion before they dropped to his feet. “Why you were so different when you came back.”

“I hated lying to you,” she whispered. “I just didn’t know how to begin to explain . . .” she shook her head, gaze falling to the floor, “any of it.”

“Then explain it to me now,” Asher murmured.

So she did.

He'd asked for the truth before, and she hated every second that she had lied to him—so she told him everything. From thinking Ven had been responsible for their father’s death to walking through the mirror into an entirely new world.

The words caught in her throat as she told him the First Brother had orchestrated their father's death, along with the things he’d failed to accomplish.

And even as Asher's eyes darkened threateningly, he didn’t interrupt her as she told him of Bastien’s part in it—her voice detached, as if someone else were telling the story. As if she were speaking of strangers.

“That son of a bitch,” Asher uttered under his breath. “He was my friend—he would have been your husband.”

“He didn’t realize the First Brother had been responsible for father’s murder—and I think he kept himself ignorant of the grittier details of gaining his title.”

Asher’s copper hair fell over his eye as he shook his head. “He’s a fucking coward. And now he holds a seat on the High Council.”

“And we’re both here,” she offered, putting a hand on his. “And you’re alive.” Emotion swelled in her voice as she leaned over to wrap her brother in another embrace. “The rest of it doesn’t matter now.”

Asher extracted himself from her, turning toward the desk in the corner of his room. “I have something for you.”

Removing something from the top drawer, he held it out to her.

“How?” she asked, taking the book from his hands.

She'd never thought to see it again, locked away in her old rooms in the palace. She’d nearly forgotten the book Ven had given her until now.

“I went to your chambers that night—” Asher answered, his words trailing off as his eyes fell to the floor. “I saw the bluecloaks posted outside of your door looking half-terrified and half-remorseful. I knew them well enough to convince them to at least let me inside . . . but by then you were gone already.”

His mouth tightened into a grim line as he shifted his feet. “I should have guessed then that Bastien had a part to play in all of this.” He shook his head. “I looked through your room—trying to find something to make sense of what was happening with you, and I found it. I had it in my jacket when I went looking for Bastien. I was going to demand an explanation for why you were missing—why your chambers had been under guard when I followed him from the gardens and into the temple. And, well. . .”

The memory invaded her thoughts—his throat slit . . . the stone soaking up his blood. So much blood.

“So,” Asher began, “the stories we were told growing up . . .”

Turning the book over in her hands, she ran her fingers along the gold-embossed cover. “Yeah.”

“And you’re—" Her brother seemed at a loss for words maybe for the first time in his life. He waved a hand to encompass the black fortress around them, the people that inhabited this place.

“I’m—” she gave a small shake of her head, “I’m not entirely sure.” That was something else she could explore now that they were back. Safe.Home. “I possess magick, some of it seems to belong to the Blood Folk, but . . .”

Don’t you wish to know what you truly are?

She gave a small shrug, shaking off the chill that pebbled her skin. Appreciative that Asher didn’t hound her with questions that she couldn’t even answer for herself.

Asher glanced around his chambers. “This place. These people . . .” A sad smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “You belong here.”

“We’ll find a way for you to go back,” she replied fiercely. She’d left her old life behind, but it didn’t need to be the same forhim—even if it would break her heart to see him go. She smiled faintly, trying to mask the sting of the thought of him leaving. “Provided Embra finds you fit for travel.”

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