Page 114 of Stolen
“I loved him!” she shrieks, her voice fraying at the edges of sanity. “I waited. I endured. Year after year, I stood in silence, groomed like a prize mare by my father to one day stand at his side. And what did he do? He took lovers, meaningless consorts—while I rotted behind cold stone walls!”
“You were hurt,” I acknowledge, my voice steady even as my pulse thunders. “But you can’t force someone to want you. You just can’t.”
“He didn’t have to love me!” she snaps, the words like broken glass. “He only had to choose me! That was always the plan! I was his. And Idris promised—he promised me?—”
The name stills my breath. “Idris?” I echo, already dreading the answer.
“Oh yes,” she hisses, eyes gleaming with manic triumph. “He came to me in dreams. Whispered sweet poison. Promised glory and vengeance and Alaric’s heart on a platter. And I—I gave him everything. My will. My soul.” Her hand flies to the locket at her throat, the cursed thing pulsing faintly with a sickly light. “My oath is bound to this locket. I let him in.” The last words, she speaks them in a whisper that chills me.
“You—You’re in league with Idris?” I breathe, cold horror settling in my bones.
“I almost had him,” she spits. “I would have had him. Until you came. With your soft curves and your helpless little mortal eyes. He started to care for you. Gods, hesawyou.”
She’s pacing now, steps erratic, breath ragged with hatred and something deeper.
Madness. Delusion. Both.
“I thought if I helped Idris—if I betrayed the Eyrie just enough, revealed the cracks in Alaric’s guard, let the SoulTakers bleed into the north—then I could ride in as savior. Grant him my lands. He would owe me. He’d finally see what a queen I could be. He’d beg me to stand beside him. And together, we’d rule.”
My heart twists. Not just for Alaric, not just for me, but for what this woman was willing to become in the name of obsession.
“You’re crazy,” I whisper. “You talk about love, but everything you’ve done proves you never knew what love is. Alaric would die for his people. And you—” my voice cracks as I look at the sleeping children, innocent bodies lying inches from death, “you’re threatening them to steal a crown that isn’t yours.”
Her eyes flash.
“He was mine!” she howls. “Until you came. A mortal. A nobody!”
Shade shifts behind me, silent and watchful.
Her fingers flex around her staff, ready. I nod once, just enough to signal her—hold. Not yet.
Dauphiné draws herself up, regal even now, though madness ripples beneath her skin like a second soul.
“If I cannot have Alaric,” she snarls, “then I will have what power remains. I will have the crown. Fetch it, human. Or I will spill these brats’ peasant blood all overLord Alaric’sbeloved stones.”
Her voice is low and serpentine, sticky with rage and venom. Over the children’s heads, the blades tremble—hovering—waiting to fall.
And for the first time, I realize she’s willing to do it.
I feel the zareth hum violently inside me.
And Alaric’s terror flares across our bond like a thunderclap.
He’s coming. But I may not have time to wait.
Not if I want to save them.
Dauphiné gestures, and the knives above the children tremble downward, glinting in the soft glow of the enchanted sconces.
My stomach flips, fury and fear roiling inside me like a storm.
I need to buy some time.
“You betrayed him,” I say softly. “You showed the SoulTakers how to get past his guard, endangered the entire Eyrie, all to feed your obsession.”
“I sacrificed for love!” she cries.
“No. You sacrificed for power. Love doesn’t look like this.”
