Page 176 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

And Meryliese steps from the last cell in the dungeon, a smirk playing on her hard, beautiful face.

Chapter

Eighty-Three

Why am I even surprised Meryliese is here? Of course she’s here. She keeps showing up like a pimple on the night before a dance. As I stare at her, Meryliese twirls a key on a chain, toying with it.

That bitch. She’s got Nemeth’s key. I lift my chin and give her a dismissive look, all the while trying to figure out how I’m going to get it away from her. I set my lamp on the sill of a nearby door so I can free my hands. “Hiding, dear sister?”

Her mouth twists in a smile. “Ajaxi’s idea. While he protects his throne, I’m hiding. Or so he thinks. More like I’m protecting my interests by keeping his brother alive.” She makes a face. “Or at least I thought I was until he started shaking with sickness. Now I’ve got to figure out who inherits if all of First House dies.” She sighs dramatically. “These Fellians are truly such a bother.”

I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate Meryliese in this moment. “Why are you so evil? Why are you doing this?”

“Me? Evil? For trying to take control of my own life for once?” She gives me an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

“You don’t think your actions are evil?” I slide my hand under my shawl, trying to reach for my knife without seeming like I’m reaching for a weapon. Keep Meryliese talking, I remind myself. Keep her focused on her anger.

My sister gives me a withering look. “I think I’m being selfish for once in my life and I’m enjoying it. How do you think it feels to grow up, knowing that your life isn’t your own? That your head is filled with prayers to a goddess that demands all of your time and people that insist upon training you on the right prayers to give and how to make your food stretch, all so you can be an obedient lump in a tower to a jealous goddess? So I can save everyone else in the world while sacrificing myself?” Meryliese shakes her head, her eyes blazing with righteous indignation. “It’s shite, sister. No one ever asked me if I wanted to doanyof this. No one ever asked me if I cared about the fate of the rest of the world. I wanted to be a princess. I wanted to marry a king and have babies.” She sniffs haughtily. “And I don’t see why they didn’t make you take my spot.”

“Because I wassick?—”

She waves a hand, dismissing that. “Yes, but they figured out how to treat it. You could have been the sacrifice and I could have gone to court and everything would have been perfect. But no. Mother kept you instead of me, and then Erynne never suggested we switch. I was forgotten. No one wanted me…until Ivornath arrived.” Her eyes flare with intensity. “The Fellians wanted to work with me. And when I suggested we trigger the curse to destroy Lionel’s fleet, Ivornath thought it was an excellent idea. He was going to make me his queen, you know.”

Her cold expression flares with something like hurt, the first real emotion my sister has shown other than pure viciousness.

I can’t help but push just a little more. “But hedidn’t.”

“He was going to!”

“When?” I press. “You’ve been here for over two years. When was he going to marry you? When was he going to give you his bite?” I show her my hand, the mark on my palm, just under my thumb. “I was with Nemeth for no time at all and he took me as his?—”

“Silence!” my sister cries. “You don’t know our situation! You don’t know anything!”

I give her a smug look, hoping it hides the hammering in my heart. Hoping it hides the fact that I’m reaching for the dagger tucked into the front of my dress, hidden by my shawl. “I know he would have mated you if he’d wanted to?—”

“Stop it!”

“I’m just saying that this could have been you.” I rub my stomach with one hand. “If he’d really wanted you, that is. It sounds to me like he was just using you, too?—”

Meryliese snarls and lunges for me.

I let her grab me, using this moment to pull my knife free from my dress. It falls into the folds of my gown, and panicked, I claw for it even as my sister pulls my hair and claws at my face.

“Bitch,” she cries. “You don’t get everything! You?—”

The moment my fingers close around my dagger I thrust upward, into Meryliese. She grunts, and then hot liquid splashes over my hands. Blood.

She stares down at me, her mouth tinged with red. Her eyes are still filled with hate, and she reaches for my neck, her nails scratching at my skin. I shove the knife in deeper, hating the wet resistance I feel against it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “But Nemeth is mine and I’m going to save him.”

Her hand rests against my throat, and for a long moment, I think she’s going to recover and choke me, and I’ve got no strength left, either. We stare at each other, and then Meryliese’s body slumps over mine, heavy and limp.

I tremble.

I just killed my own sister. I just stabbed a person. Meryliese, who should have been dead. Who never had her own life to begin with. I want to understand her—and some part of me does. After all, I left the tower, too. Does she deserve to die for that? Do I?

Doesn’t matter. She tried to come between me and Nemeth and I’d kill her a thousand times if it meant saving him.

I bite back a sob, pushing at my sister’s dead weight. For all that she was slender like Erynne, Meryliese feels as if she weighs a thousand pounds in this moment. I thrust her off of me with my last bit of strength, and her body crashes into the door. The light I perched precariously on the ledge of the door’s window crashes to the ground and breaks, splintering into a thousand pieces near my head.

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