Page 70 of Ties of Deception

A mirror on the wall shattered as I let my emotion run wild. “Explain what just happened, or I will smash everything in this room.”

The prince sighed as if I were being overdramatic. “I only know he lied about the poison, because I know who arranged for the kitchen maid to slip it in the ambassador’s drink, and it wasn’t the Aidis.” I frowned at him in disbelief.

He raised an eyebrow. “It was Constance.”

The last strength in my legs gave way as they buckled under the shock. “What? Why?”

He gave me a pitying smile and hooked his hands under my armpits, ignoring the way I squirmed to get out of his grip. He dragged me to the couch, and I rolled out of his arms as soon as possible. “Just sit there, won’t you? Sit still, and stay calm, and I will tell you. If you keep breaking everything, I won’t say anything.”

I slumped back against the silk cushions, wishing I could move miles away from this man, yet needing to hear what he had to say. He had to be lying, surely. Constance wouldn’t have poisoned that man.

He moved away and poured himself a drink. “Trust works both ways, Purity. I need you to listen to me carefully and calmly. Constance and I have been working together to find the Aidis’s Fated Grace. With this move, we tested both you and Charity. It was you he came to save, so you must be his Fated one.”

I blinked in shock. He paused to let his words sink in, then continued. “Of course, we only meant to frame Charity by using her ex-maid to poison the man. Taking the poison herself—not enough to die of it, mind, just enough to cause a stir, in order to point the finger back at you—was unexpected. It was quite the clever move on her part and made our results come quicker and clearer than we had ever dreamed. The Aidis stepped in to your defense.”

His words crushed my chest. I licked my lips, trying to ask the right questions—trying to understand this mess. “But surely finding the Fated isn’t worth such extreme methods? Not the death of an ambassador and potential war with the Unseen Lands? I don’t even have powerful Blessings yet.”

He shook his head slowly. “Purity, you don’t understand. It’s good to have you as the Fated Grace—I want you to know we appreciate having you here—but you're not the one we’re after. It’s him. And the threat of war makes him even more vulnerable.”

Dread buried cold fingers into my stomach. “Why?”

He tilted his head, looking down to neaten the sleeve of his tunic. “Now you are here, we have leverage to ask him to do what we want.”

My voice dropped to merely a breath. “What?”

His serious expression was replaced by another disarming smile. “It’s really nothing you need to worry about, Purity. Soon you’ll return to your family, and I’ll get my mother off your back.”

All the mirrors in the room smashed at once in tiny shards of silver. “What are you going to do to him?” I repeated, firmer this time.

Sebastian pinched his forehead. Behind me, a lock clicked and a door opened. I turned to see Constance entering the room, dressed as immaculately as always, a starburst tiara in her chestnut hair. She took in all the shards of glass and bit her lower lip while frowning as if trying to solve a small problem. She had killed the ambassador just to identify me—Constance, always so doe-eyed and innocent. I didn’t understand any of this.

She came and knelt beside my couch. “Purity, please don’t be anxious. Everything is all right.”

I shook my head and glared at her. How could she say that when I was lying half-drugged on a couch so they could get to Ethen?

“Purity, for the sake of our friendship, please listen to Sebastian. He is not your enemy.”

“Neither of you are my friends. Why are you after the Aidis? Why am I locked up to be used asleverage?”

“That was a…poor choice of words.” She swallowed, her eyes full of compassion and pity. “Purity, things aren’t exactly as you’ve been told. The Aidis is your enemy—not us. He killed you in your past life, even as he claimed to love you. In this life, he used you to attempt to disrupt our access to Graces and so stop our people being Blessed. One of his own followers was so disgusted by his treatment of you in your past life, she gave us the nightstar from the Unseen Lands. She wanted us to frame him, so he would be forced to leave. He is hated by many.”

Ava.

I glared at her. “By all accounts he is the one who saved me while the two of you also framed me as a murderer. Was it you who ‘tested’ Serene? What did you do for her to end up dead?”

Her gaze hardened. “We didn’t intend for her to die. She was already feeling trapped by the palace and had recently lost her friend Harmony. She was asking many dangerous questions about what happens when goddesses are retired, and the empress had reprimanded her. When her life was threatened and nobody came to save her, even though she came through unharmed, she…simply couldn’t cope anymore.”

I rose my eyebrows. “So threatening her life was nothing but a small final straw for her?”

Tears glistened in her eyes. “Please, Purity, you don’t understand. She wasn’t in her right mind. She’d made many poor choices. The Aidis was just as much to blame. I think his rejection affected her more.”

Sebastian rested his hand on Constance’s shoulder for comfort and she took it in her own, nestling the side of her face in his arm. The familiarity between the two of them was obvious.

I looked between them, wishing I didn’t still feel so drowsy and weak. “You two are genuinely courting?”

Constance nodded and pushed the sleeve off her left shoulder to reveal a gold tattoo. “More than that. We were married in secret four years ago.”

My mouth fell open. None of this seemed real. “But…but courting the other Graces. The boundless flirting. The contest…”

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