Page 91 of Wicked Thieves
Seeing the look of confusion on her face, Henry sighed. “Did you not hear a single word I told you before? That the only one who can put an end to Samca’s—theWeaver’s—cursewould be her blood. In other words, her child. Or children, by the looks of it.”
Enid convulsed on the ground, and Anelize made to crawl back toward her, but Henry angled his bloodied dagger toward her. Leveling her with a hateful glare.
“If you wish to prolong your life and Enid’s a bit longer, you will stay put.”
Anelize said through gritted teeth, “What you’re saying is impossible. Our father was?—”
“Your father was a sad excuse for a Vedran. After the war, he wished to be seen as a weakling residing in the port district as a healer, of all things. His shame was his undoing.” Henry scoffed. “He left us all to go on and live a life amongst those rodents, and it was his cowardice that kept him from being slaughtered alongside all the rest of his people. And yet, somehow, he had two children by the time we all scurried our way out of the forest to find shelter after the massacre. I always wondered how it was that he had you two when there was no mother to be seen. When I asked, he said that she died during the birth of your sister, but I never found a tombstone with her name in the cemetery. I tried to find it, merely out of curiosity. Deep down, I knew something was not quite right.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Anelize demanded, her blood pouring between her fingers, gathering in a pool on the ground. She was losing too much blood, too quickly. Her vision starting to blur.
None of this made sense. Henry had been her father’s closest friend. He’d been the one to tell her about her father’s execution taking place, had tried his best to shield her from the pain and loss. He and Zara had always tried to care for them.
Henry impatiently said, “Because, sweet Anya, your fatherwas nothing more than a coward. I always knew he kept things from me, even when we were children. He thought I never knew that he had developed a liking to Samca when we were young. He was the only one who did not see her for what she truly was—a snake in the grass plotting against her own people by siding with the king. They were madly in love, so much so that she convinced him to leave the forest to discover what laid before him in the city. That they may start a life there together once King Amaranth granted us all amnesty to live on freely after the war. So long as she granted him the book.
“During the massacres, Samca was nowhere to be found, proclaimed dead by the king’s men after they stole the book. That very well may be true but then imagine my shock and utter revulsion when I saw two little girls running about their father’s shop. One bearing nearly the same likeness of Samca.”
“That proves nothing. These are all theories.”
Henry reached down and gripped the collar of her shirt. Anelize groaned in pain as he forced her to look into his hateful eyes.
“It proved nothing until he told me one night, the night before he was killed by the Watchmen, drunk on ale and his own pathetic sorrows, how he’d loved Samca enough to give her a child—children. And how he would do anything to protect them from being used by the king to break this curse on the book and us as a result. Do you want to know what he said to me when I insisted we hand you girls over to the king to put an end to all of our suffering and need to hide in the shadows?”
Anelize shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks, unable to recognize the man before her anymore.
Henry’s laugh was cold as he jostled her. “He threatened tokill me and my family if I opened my mouth about what he’d told me in confidence. As if it would only affect him. The selfish bastard had the gall to order me to keep his confession to myself. I knew he would pose as a problem for me, my family, and the rebels if I didn’t do something. So, the next day when he went out to market, I took matters into our own hands.”
Dread sluiced through her and bile rose up her throat.
“It was you? You reported him…”
“He was a complication, and I needed to ensure I would be able to use you girls when the time was right. Getting rid of your father was by far the easiest thing. Your aunt was another obstacle, but she was too foolish to deduce you possessed Samca’s blood, so I let her be until the time was right. The only problem was being able to get the book. Imagine my surprise when there was a little rat amongst the Watchmen already, practically raised by them, yet too overcome by his own guilt to truly turn his back on us.”
Aeric.
“Yes, it took time, but I eventually learned how to coax him to our side. Earn his trust. I half expected him to betray us at any given moment, but he has agood heart,so my wife loved to remind me,” Henry mocked.
Anelize felt the need to purge her stomach as she feared the answer that would come, but needing to know.
“Did…did Aeric know about this?”
Henry laughed, the sound sending a chill down her spine.
“The boy thinks himself all-knowing and noble, yet he knows nothing. All this time, I’ve been pulling the strings behind his so-called meticulous planning to overthrow the king and destroy the book when it was I who fed him all those ideas. Through my encouragement and kindness, it was quiteeasy obtaining his trust. The twins as well. Give anyone the right amount of love, and they’ll do anything you ask of them. It is quite effective. Though, the prince was a complication I hadn’t accounted for when Aeric brought him to us. That is all over with now.”
“What did you do to him?”
Henry shrugged. “What needed to be done. Putting an end to the Amaranth bloodline is a necessity. The boy was too weak to truly rule either way. I did him a service by putting an end to his suffering.”
Anelize thought she might be sick. Castian was…dead? No. It couldn’t be.
“When everything slid into place, I was certain the book would be in our hands at any moment. I had the means to get it without losing all of my men. I had Samca’s children, lying in wait. It was I who paid Magda to report your sister after she complained about your little spat the night before. I thought it almost too easy. That was my first mistake, I will admit.”
Henry raised his hand and motioned for Gabriel to hand over the dagger he’d used on Enid. When he did so, he eyed the ruby red blood on his dagger, droplets dripping off the side.
“The plan was in motion. Once we found our way into the castle upon the night of the Senin, we would have brought your sister here to pour her blood onto the book and break this curse.” Henry’s face twisted with disgust as he looked to her. “But then you came along and ruined all our plans. You have always stirred trouble the same way your mother did. That was when it made me think. What if one was not enough? Unsurprisingly, you needed no convincing to come to the castle to save your sister.”
Anelize felt her vision grow blurry.
