Page 69 of Oracle of Ruin

I know now she isn’t talking about something as superficial as her red hair or emerald eyes. Her beauty is something that runs in her blood that she hates so much, something in the broken bits that refuse to shatter completely.

All those gentle touches between the two of them have never been simply flirting or something as fleeting as love. Amír treads the line of wandering too far from the hope, and Kya tethers her to something worth living another day for.

Curling up on my side with my knees tucked into my chest, I turn my face towards hers. Her dark waves spill over the pillow and pool around her face, a dark and lovely frame for her pretty face. When I first saw her, I thought she was one of the prettiest people I had ever seen. That analysis still stands to this day. She claims Amír is beautiful, but I don’t think anyone can hold a candle to her.

Silently, I reach a finger out and poke her cheek. “Are you sure you’re real?”

“Yes, Vera. I think I can confirm that,” she deadpans.

I blow a raspberry and snuggle in closer to the worn-in mattress. I rest my head on her pillow now, brushing our foreheads together. “Derrín was right.”

“Hmm?”

“You really are Amír’s bitch.”

One hand snatches the pillow out from under my head while the other cradles my face away from the awaiting dagger. Her elbow pushes the weapon aside and off the bed so she can use both hands to bring the pillow down upon my face. My shrieks are muffled by the only slightly molded fabric, but the assassin doesn’t relent. She knows exactly how long she can smother me before I lose consciousness. She presses down right until that second before releasing her vice grip.

I come up laughing between gasping breaths, eyeing her with mocking contempt. “You and your girlfriend need to work on your anger issues.”

“She’s angry because she is kind,” she murmurs with the smallest of smiles. “There’s nothing quite like female rage.”

I mock a gagging sound. “Stop with this wise and poetic shit. You make me feel like an idiot.”

“Well…”

“Goodnight!”

Kya’s lilting voice chases me to dreams as my head hits the pillow and deep sleep envelopes me.

Chapter29

Verosa

In the next few weeks, Torin goes to meet with the rebels more frequently, and Rowan or Blaine go with him on occasion. They haven’t allowed me to go yet, which isn’t too much a surprise, given that the majority—if not all of them—still want me dead. So I’ve been left to my own devices for the most part, pacing the halls and reading, but mostly I spend my time with Emilie. When I go out on patrols, I do my best to find things for her to do. Last week, it was some colored charcoals and a pad of paper, and a few nights ago, Kya brought back some grains that we’ve been able to grind into flour.

Emilie loads a pan Derrín made into the oven, an oddly shaped cake sitting in the center. It has taken most of the morning to make, but the older woman smiles so softly that the trouble is worth it.

“Oh, and when your father brought out the flowers, your mom was immediately covered in hives. He panicked so badly that he tipped the boat and they both went into the water.”

Emilie has taken the extra time we have together to tell me stories about myrealparents and their lives before me. She’s hesitant to say anything about what happened after my birth. Obviously, it is not a happy story, and I don’t pry, but a part of me wants to know anyway. Maybe a bit of a darker part wants to know how hurt they were, and to dream of what it was like to have someone care about me so much that it pained them. I’ve never known that love before now, but I try to tuck that thought away.

“I don’t understand. He’s so…” I pinch my face together as I try to think of the right word to describe my father. Myfather. “Warm. I don’t know how he killed anybody.” I pick up a glass of water and move to bring it to where Emilie sits. Finneas killed my mother’s suitor for the right to marry her. He was the last person to use that ritual before Blaine tried months ago for my hand.

Emilie brushes my comment off with a small wave, a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Oh, he’s killed many people. He was a soldier in the king’s army, one of the first when Ophelus took the throne, actually. It is how we met.”

I drop the cup to the floor, swearing as water splatters over my legs. Emilie laughs, a beautiful sound. The resemblance of the woman she was before Ophelus is starting to shine through again, now that all of us are here. It is almost sick how it took the world ending for it to begin again, and I can only imagine how lovely she was if this is what Rowan considers a shell.

“Hewhat? And youwhat?”

“Oh yes, every noble had to do a tour of duty at first. He was just one of the better ones, and brought me along to the celebratory ball at Aiko’s insistence. Your mother claimed that if he was to parade around with the other guards all night, she would need me for the company. At some point, the two of them snuck away and I met Ophelus on a balcony. I didn’t know who he was, as I came from Adil, that poor town even less developed than it was a few months ago.” She stands and takes the cup from my hand, refilling it and coming back with a second one that she passes to me. She runs her finger over the lip, smiling fondly.

She often smiles while talking about meeting Ophelus, and I do my best to hide the way my stomach turns and my hands tremble. The man she loved and the man who raised me for slaughter are two different people, one of them not even a person at all anymore. I do my best to remind myself of that, but there are times when panic climbs my throat and latches around my heart. A ripple forms in the cup of water I am holding.

“Do you know what name they were going to give me?” I ask suddenly, clearing my throat.

Emilie stills, her eyes drifting to the floor. “Astria. After the seventh sun.”

“Astria.”Miraclein the old tongue. “Do you think… Do you think they would want me to go by that when I meet them again?”

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