Page 13 of The Scarlet Star

From the side, Saturn piped up, “We’ll take up an offering. We’ll fund you, Adassah.Wewill be your benefactors.”

Kai’s head snapped toward him. “She said she didn’t want to go back!” he protested.

“And we can’t possibly be expected to work alongside Geovani and the priestesses,” Theo muttered.

“Quiet, you two,” Saturn scolded. He reached for Ryn’s hand and gently placed it into Heva’s. But as Heva’s grip tightened around Ryn’s fingers, a spark of something lifted in her chest—terror? Hopefulness? The urge to run and vanish into the darkness outside? Ryn ripped her hand back and nearly bumped into Kai.

Saturn sighed and turned to Heva. “Tell Geovani we’ll get her whatever she needs. Tell her that, for once, we’re on her side with this.”

Heva gave him a curt nod, but her attention fired to Kai dragging his hands through his hair and pacing in a small circle. Ryn thought Kai might protest again, but he stopped before her and cradled her cheeks. A tear spilled down his face.

“Ryn, you can do this,” he said. All thoughts of running melted away as Ryn looked into her cousin’s eyes. “You’re brave, and pretty, and smart. You can do this,” he repeated.

A slow, sharp pain settled in Ryn’s chest. She couldn’t imagine surviving the next day, let alone three months. There was no way her secret wouldn’t come out. And her death wouldn’t be easy, either—it would be public and horrid.

Brave. Pretty. Smart? What did it matter if she was dead?

“What if I can’t?” she rasped. “What if the King is heartless like gossip claims? What if he really has no heart to steal?” She imagined what the King looked like; a cruel, dark being stamped with the hideousness of all the bad things he’d done. How couldshe look someone like that in the eyes and keep her food down while trying to bebraveandprettyandsmartfor him? While trying to convince him to fall in love with her?

Kai swallowed and placed a hand atop Ryn’s head, like a father, like an older sibling. A dark look came over his eyes and a snarl curled his lip. “Then kill him,” he said. “Before he kills you.”

Heva’s gaze darted to Kai in surprise, but she didn’t object. Neither did Saturn, or Theo, or any of the priests. Ryn forgot how to take a breath as that settled in, as she wondered if that was what everyone in this room really wanted. If that was what they’d been hoping to send her in to do the whole time.

“For the Adriels,” Kai added. “For your mother, Ryn. And my parents. And all the parents who were discovered and slain unjustly. Do it for them.”

Why did Kai mention her mother? Only he knew what her mother’s death meant to her. The pain she’d buried.

The torches around the room turned hotter and brighter than a moment ago; Ryn’s flesh burned as she looked at the Priesthood, at Kai, at Heva. It was clear to her now what they all were. Enemies of the King. Devoted Adriels. Her people. Her hands felt wet as if they were covered in blood, but she lifted them and saw it was only sweat.

“Let’s not get carried away.” Saturn’s objection sliced through her thoughts. “Fornow, we just need you to be our spy. We have three months to decide what to do in the end.”

Ryn closed her mouth. Saturn had failed to remind anyone what a spy’s death would be. The last spy caught committing treason against the King was dragged through the Mother City behind a steed. Ryn had been so afraid when the rumours reached their village; she’d slept in her mother’s bed for three nights afterward.

It was absurd. Only a fool would walk back into the palace to die. But death was just the peace at the end of a long, difficult road—that’s what Ryn had told herself after her mother’s passing. And though she’d never admitted it to Kai, there were days when Ryn had missed her mother so much, she’d craved the reunion death would bring.

But she couldn’t win the despicable King’s love against the three fairest maidens in the kingdom. So, would she be able to kill him in the end? And could she reallyspyon the most powerful beings in Per-Siana for the Priesthood? Could she will her feet to walk her back into that palace at all?

A phantom clock ticked in her head, rushing her decision. But perhaps she already knew the answer as she looked around the room and saw the desperate faces—faces of people who’d lost loved ones, people who’d been treated like insects because of their heritage, people who’d suffered.

Yes.

For her people, she could try.

But still. Kai was her cousin, whom she loved. Who loved her.

She wished someone else had asked her to do this instead of him.

5

RYN

It was a sin to be an Adriel.

Ryn learned this the hard way more than once. The first time was the day her father had purchased false identity cards and told them they were changing their names and their religion. Ryn’s mother had protested—she’d loved their Adriel names, and she’d loved the Adriel God. She insisted there were still places in Per-Siana where Adriels could go without being persecuted. But Ryn’s father didn’t want that; he wantedto be like everybody else—like theWeylinpeople. Like those who ruled the kingdom and served the seven primary Celestial Divinities. Like the royal family, and the famous warriors, and the renowned magicians. It was an alluring lifestyle, but it was one Ryn’s mother had never wanted.

After all his arguments for why he needed a better life than the beautiful, simple one Ryn’s mother had built, Ryn didn’t miss her father after he left.

She was, perhaps, the reason he left. She did ask him to find her a type of rose that didn’t exist, after all. He was simply too dull to realize it, or maybe he knew and only pretended to take the task seriously the day he vanished. It made no difference to Ryn.

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