Page 73 of Kingdom of Flames & Flowers
“Find her. That’s your job tonight.” His hand landed heavily on her shoulders, and she nodded. He turned and disappeared back into the crowd. The moment he was gone, the happy smile vanished, leaving only tired defeat behind. Leilani closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then spun around to face the crowd, her dazzling smile back in place.
I didn’t know what to make of it at all.
“It’s the same for all of us.”
I flinched violently as Azalea materialized next to me, having snuck up on me while I was watching Leilani. “Gods above, Azalea, I—”
My mouth shut at the dead expression in her eyes. Her face and makeup were perfect, but something was very wrong.
“Do … do you have a betrothed as well?” I asked lamely, then remembered she’d already said that, hadn’t she?
She stared numbly at me, then nodded once.
“Right. Well, uh …” The hidden piece of paper in my bosom poked at me sharply, and I grabbed at it. “Here!” I thrust it at her, hoping a change in conversation was exactly what we needed. “This is the paper I was telling you about. What does it say?”
A bit of her old self sparked when I showed her the torn paper. She gasped in horror. “Mari, where did you get this? Is this from the archives? Did you rip it out?”
I gestured with my hands that she should keep her voice down, glancing around to make sure no one had spotted us. “It’s important, Azalea. It’s about the mud quarter, and something terrible that happened long ago. It might lead to defeating the dragon!” I knew that would get her. “Please, what does it say?”
Azalea bent over the parchment, squinting. “Ledgers for who brought in what… mining records, I guess.”
My shoulders drooped. That’s what Zariah had said.
“But that … Wait. That makes little sense,” she continued. “Look here.” I followed to where she pointed, about halfway down the sheet. “They listed the amounts next to each numbered individual, and then it lists a date for ‘shipment’ and that they’ve all come from … Hoveria. So it can’t be referring to the jewels. The jewels come from here.” Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.
I wasn’t confused though. In fact, it all made a horrifying amount of sense.
“What? What is it?” Azalea shook my hand, realizing I’d figured it out.
“It’s not a ledger of how much each person dug up,” I managed, feeling faint. “It’s how much each person cost; they sold them from their home to be slaves here in the jewel mines. I, and everyone else in the mud quarter, are descended from slaves. That’s why we have dark hair. That’s why we live so differently than you. And Zariah lied to me about it.
Azalea blinked at me. “Slaves? But that—”
“Makes complete sense,” I argued, anger and realization fueling my outburst. “It explains why people from the mud quarter look so different. The shape of our faces, our noses, our dark hair.… It explains why we starve and live in squalor, praying for the good fortune to come here. Gods, I’m anidiot.”
Azalea looked stricken. “I don’t—don’t jump to conclusions.”
Of course I would jump to conclusions! I knew Zariah was hiding the truth from me; he’d brushed my questions about the parchment under the rug. We had been slaves, and he lied about it!
“I … I need to go.”
“Mari, wait! There’s something I have to tell you!”
It would have to wait. I snatched the parchment back, holding it limply in my hand and not bothering to hide it. My feet took me automatically toward the queen, who was looking over the entire ballroom from her throne on the raised dais at the end of the hall.
She saw me coming. She saw the parchment in my hand and the look on my face.
And she fucking smiled.
That bitch knew.
She’d handed me the tools to read because she wanted me to know the truth. But why?
“Sit down,” she commanded, pointing to a small stool directly on her left. I went down instantly, not knowing what else to do.
“It’s true then,” I accused her.
“You don’t know the half, sweetheart,” she purred at me, eyes still on the crowd below us.
