Mostly I try to ignore her, but my first instinct is to respond with something equally as cruel. Luckily I can’t say anything to her. Not with the girls and Roman present. Malia catches my eye for a moment and smiles, then goes back to unpacking her things.
“He’s got no chance with me anyway, Aaric and you know it. I’m marrying Keenan, monster or not.”
“Hey,” Roman dips his head out from under the top bunk where he’s hunched down. “You wanna go look for the bar?”
If the real Amara were here she’d scold me for supporting Roman’s drinking habit. She’d disapprove knowing full well he’s only partaking in so much alcohol because he’s nursing a broken heart, but it’s going to give me exactly the opportunity I need to confront him about his feelings for her.
“Let’s go.” I say. Malia’s eyes find mine briefly as I lead Roman out of our bunk.
Roman and I have to make our way through a few different cars before we find one with a bar. There are sitting areas with a piano to listen to music, fancy dining rooms, basic dining rooms. It’s more luxurious than some inns we’ve seen on our journey.
Finally we find a room with a bar, mostly empty save for a few patrons scattered around the seating area. Roman and I sit at the bar, preferring the company of the bartender to the entitled riders around us.
Roman orders us both something with a bite and for a time we are content to drink in silence. I let the silence hang between us until one of us is brave enough to approach subjects we would rather leave buried.
“That’s Amara’s.” I eye the necklace hanging from Roman’s neck.
He automatically cups the little charm dangling from the chain, a fragile-looking snowflake. It’s a simple piece of jewelry I’d only seen her wear a handful of times a few weeks after the disaster ball back in Limacore. “It is.” Roman is like me, loathe to share any sort of hidden feelings, but also like me, he can’t hide it when it comes to Amara. “I gave it to her. We ah, we were together that first snowfall we had during that banquet we had just after you all arrived. I gave her this, hoping that once she completed her task for my father and she was gone that she’d remember me.” His green eyes lift to find mine and I hate myself for what I’m about to say.
“You have to let her go, Roman.” The words sound hollow, coming from me. I could never follow my own advice. I could never let her go, no matter how much danger holding on will put me in. I could never let her go, so why should I ask him to? How can I? But the differences here—apart from the obvious—are simple. I’m her brother. It is my duty to protect her always. But he can let go, and try to move on.
His confusion is understandable. He doesn’t know what I mean and what’s more, the words hurt him. He doesn’t understand that this isn’t about her. It’s about him. “Look, I know I am by far not your first choice for your sister, but I thought we were at least past that.”
“This isn’t for her. It’s for you. Roman, say we find her. We rescue her before this impending wedding, what comes after that, huh? Do you think she’ll go back to Limacore, back to your father? After the horrors we’ve seen, after what I’m sure she’ll have seen by then, neither one of us is going to be able to just go back to our old lives. Our people are being slaughtered, forced into hiding and after all of this is over, once we find her, because of who your father is, we’ll never be on the same side of it. I denied it for a long time, but there is a war on Serpentarians going on and when it’s over we need to be able to say we chose the right side. Do you understand what I’m saying? You and Amara will never be on the same side again. There is no future for the two of you.” And reluctantly, painfully, I add, “Just like there’s no future for me and Haven either.” I turn back to my drink, stirring the straw around in it. “We just have to accept it, Rome. With all that aside we may not get to her before that wedding happens.”
Roman is not a cruel man by nature. In fact, if it really was up to me, I might choose him for her, because he is good, in his bones he is good.
So the words that fall out of his mouth next shock even me.
“If you knew who your best friend really was and what he’d done you’d be fighting a lot harder to get to her before that happens.”
“Excuse me?”
The note of challenge in my voice must level him somehow because whatever secret he was about to betray, he thinks better of it. “Never mind.” He slips off the stool and takes his drink with him, trying to put as much distance between himself and me as possible.
But it’s too late for that. Much too late.
I chase him down, stopping him inside the dining room. “No. What is it, Roman? What don’t I know about my own best friend?” This secret, it must be a big one because whatever Keenan did to my sister, it was a secret she harbored for a whole year before unleashing it on a prince we didn’t even trust then.
I think he’s going to try and deny me again, but he burns under my gaze, along with all the onlookers who’ve now got more than they bargained for. Dinner and a show. “Keenan tried to rape your sister, Aaric.” The four letter word burns in his mouth and burns in my ears.
I heave forward, because of a passing waiter and because I suddenly feel deathly ill. “What?” I manage to choke out, but I pray he won’t say the words again. If he does I just might vomit right here.
Roman downs the rest of his drink and sets it down hard on a nearby table. The couple sitting at it don’t say a word. Only look on with pity, for Roman, for the girl they don’t know, but automatically feel terrible for. “I’m sorry, Aaric.” What he’s apologizing for, I don’t know. For Keenan’s actions, maybe. For being the one to have to tell me this, definitely. Maybe even for not telling me sooner.
“Who told you this?” My voice drips with an array of emotions I cannot pinpoint. Fear, anger, denial, disgust.
“Amara told me.”
“Amara, Amara told you?” If it were Felix or Kol or maybe even one of the girls trying to tell me this I might deny it were true, but coming from Roman I know it’s true. He wouldn’t lie and neither would Amara. Not of someone she loved for sixteen long years. Until some fateful fight turned her cold and distant. It’s true, and the urge to vomit grows.
“It was the night she was pushed off the cliff by the old woman, right before the Zodiac ball. She told me that her and Keenan were drugged. She said that whatever was in the drug, it turned him violent. And he tried…but he stopped when he realized what was happening.”
“Stop, stop, stop.” I raise a hand to stop him. My knees buckle underneath me and I stumble into the chair nearest me, at a table with an older couple seated across from each other. I try to gather my thoughts, gain some perspective, and among so many questions there’s only one I ask. “Who else knew about this?”
“She said she only ever told one other person.” But judging by the way he says it I can tell he doesn’t want to release the name. Which tells me something else.
Whoever it is, they’re here with us.
That narrows it down considerably. Felix, Bay, or Niykee.
“Who did she tell, Roman?” I demand.
“You already told him this much, honey. You might as well tell him the rest.” Says the old woman at the table I’m sitting at.
“Yeah, clearly this bastard isn’t here to get his ass handed to him. Give him someone to hit.” The husband of the old woman adds.
“It was Bay. Bay was the only other one who knew.” Roman admits sheepishly.
My money was on Niykee.
Before Roman can stop me I’m on my feet, gunning for the bunks. I race through the cars until I reach our block. Bay and Felix aren’t in their bunk next door, but in ours. My hands are faster than my own mind and they fly for my little brother’s throat. To my brother’s credit his brown eyes are confused for only a moment. We never fight so in his mind there is only one fight that would bring me to such violence.
Bay’s back catches the corner between window and bunk bed. His face catches my fist and both
girls cry out my name in surprised confusion. “How could you keep this from me, huh?” I grit out. “How could you let me let him near her after what he did?”
“Amara never wanted you to know, Aaric. She begged me to keep it between us. I couldn’t betray her trust the same day Keenan did. I’m sorry.”
“What is going on?” Niykee jumps down from her bunk and pushes me back roughly by the shoulder.
My breath comes back in heaves as the adrenaline fades and the painfully familiar sting of betrayal sets in. “Keenan tried to rape Amara a year ago. That’s what their falling out was about. That’s why she couldn’t even be alone with him. Bay was the only one who knew and he didn’t tell us.”
“Bay,” Niykee’s voice is motherly and reprimanding at the same time. Under different circumstances she might have thrown a few punches herself, but not when it comes to her brother. Like me, her sibling elicits a softness in her no one else seems to be able to.
“I promised her.” Bay shoots back, defensive. He knows keeping it a secret was wrong, but he also knows Amara can be much scarier than me. “I promised her.”
“When did this happen?” Felix demands.
“It was right before Keenan left. They were at a party, they were drinking and someone drugged them. But Keenan stopped himself before it could get very far.” Bay explains.
“Why does it sound like you’re defending him?” I hiss out.
“I’m not.”
“Roman was right.” It sickens me to say the words. Not because it’s coming from Roman, but because it’s about the man I called my best friend. “Keenan has betrayed us.” In more ways than one. “When I get my hands on him he’s as good as dead.”
—CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR—
AMARA
ICE
The Vakrovian air chills my bones, but I’m glad to be back.
Five words I never thought I’d say.
I’ve missed Haven, Missy and Finn, not to mention having a guard I can trust shadowing me.
When we return to Vakrov I am anxious to find Haven and tell her all I’ve learned. It’s late, well into the night when we arrive, but Daxon waits for me at my door with a smile and a hug for me. Then he takes me by Haven’s chambers where we leave a message for her guard to have her meet us down in the library.
When Haven meets us in the back at one of the reading tables I’m surprised when she throws her arms around me, embracing me so tight my back cracks.
“I missed you too.” I laugh, but my smile fades when I pull back from her to see tears in her eyes. “Haven, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I—I wasn’t sure if you were gonna be with him when you came back.” Her voice is small and fearful, and it breaks my heart.
“Hey,” I brush a tear away from her glowing golden eye and give her a reassuring smile. “I told you, we leave together or we don’t leave at all. Now come sit. I have so much to tell you.”
I sit them both down at the table and then launch into everything I’ve learned in the time I’d been gone. I tell them about the queen and her proposal and Keenan and the prophecy. I tell them every last detail and hope Haven isn’t angry I’ve passed up a chance to get us out of here.
It occurs to me that as a princess of Limacore, as a king’s daughter, she might have reservations about the deal I made, about the crown I’ve agreed to wear, but I tell her anyway because I trust Haven. That trust proves warranted when I hear what she has to say next.
“Is this what you want, Amara? To be queen?”
“Honestly? I don’t know, but what I do know is if Theon Beleros wants me for my power he’ll certainly want Kara’s baby for his. Or hers. I don’t really know. I also know that if I do this there might be a way to end this war peacefully, without all the bloodshed.”
Haven absorbs that in silence for a time and I watch the wheels turning in her head. Finally, she says, “Whatever you want to do, Amara, I’ll back you. You came back for me when not many would have.”
Her willingness to support my potential reign reminds me of something she said to me what feels like eons ago. “You told me once that you didn’t agree with the way your father treated my people.”
“And I meant it.”
“I didn’t believe you then. But I believe you now.”
“She negotiated your freedom with the queen of Zakaria.” Daxon says. “What will you do when they break us out of here?”
Haven looks back at Daxon in surprise and confusion. I’m willing to bet she’s never been given a choice in her life. “I—I don’t know.”
She must hate her father. He sent her here to marry this man known as the king killer. A man who kidnapped his goddaughter and has, to our knowledge, made no moves to try and rescue me. Going back home is probably the last thing she wants to do.
“Once we get to Zakaria I’ll make sure the queen takes you anywhere you want to go.” I promise her. No matter the leverage a princess of Limacore could give us, I won’t hold her against her will. I won’t cage her like I’ve been caged.
“Thank you, Amara.” She reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers, but yanks it back like I’ve burned her. “Shit, Amara. Your hand is ice-cold.”
“It’s cold in here.” I say, grasping my arm where I have goosebumps.
Daxon reaches over and touches my hand. “Amara, it’s not cold in here. It’s actually kind of hot.”
“No, it’s not. I have goosebumps.”
“Yes, it is, Amara.”
“Well then maybe I’m getting sick.”
“Zodiacs don’t get sick, Amara.” Daxon shakes his head.
“What? Zodiacs get sick.” I try to laugh it off, but the way the two of them are looking at me, so deadly serious I know they’re not joking. “Zodiacs don’t get sick?”
“No. We’re not human, Mar. Our immune systems are a lot stronger than theirs.” Haven explains. “You never noticed you never got sick as a child? Even without your powers you wouldn’t have gotten sick, ever.”
“I—I guess we didn’t.” Thinking about it now, they’re right. Aaric and I were never sick growing up. Not even a cold. “I’ll sleep it off. I’ll be fine.”
I wake in the middle of the night to an ice-cold chill in the room.
My eyes adjust to the room’s darkness, searching to see if the balcony doors are closed. They appear to be sealed shut. I tug the blankets around me to get warm, but nothing seems to be working.
I dose in and out of sleep for some time, but the cold does not cease. When I wake again it’s daylight out, even though the room is dark, the curtains pulled closed over the balcony doors and windows.
“Amara,” A soft, soothing voice whispers in my ear. A voice I know all too well, a voice that can’t be here.
But I turn over in my bed, coming face to face with green eyes. “Roman?” I breathe.
“You broke your promise.”
“I did?”
“You promised me a dance, gorgeous.” A smile breaks out across his face, which always makes me smile. He holds a hand out to me. The very thought, no matter how imaginary, of being close to him again makes my heart want to jump out of my chest.
I slip my hand in his and when I stand up we’re gone, transported into a ballroom covered in silver and purple. I’m back in the pretty purple ballgown I’d been wearing the night of the Zodiac Ball, him in his tux.
“What’s happening, Roman?” I ask, eyes darting around the familiar room. “Am I dreaming?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Roman,” I scold him, but his response is twirling me out and then back in again. He twists me into the folds of his arms and our eyes lock together like two pieces of a broken vase, whole again. “I miss you.” I let the words fall where they may, too afraid to say them aloud in the waking world. I miss the crowned prince. I miss his wisdom and his grace, his way of seeing what I want before I do. I miss him.
“I miss you too.” His hand falls to the small of my back and with slight pressur
e he pulls my body up against his. For the moment I rest my head on his shoulder and let him guide me.
That’s when I glance around the ballroom to see some subtle differences. Like the walls. The corners are adorned with ice. Razor sharp icicles hang from the ledges of the windows. On the tables the goblets are filled with liquid that has turned to ice as well.
My eyes fly to Roman. “Why is the room so cold, Roman?” I look down to see my skin has turned blue. “Why am I so cold?”
“Stay with me, gorgeous. Stay, please.”
“Roman, what’s going on?” I cry. Suddenly he starts to flicker in and out, like an apparition. “Roman? Roman?”
“Amara?” I hear another voice calling my name.
“Roman?”
Keenan’s image morphs together before my eyes and I know I’m awake. I can see the hurt in his eyes. “No, Amara, it’s me. It’s Keenan.”
“Keenan? I’m so cold.”
“I know, sweetheart. Come on. I’m gonna take you to the infirmary.”
The difference between his body temperature and mine is undeniable. His skin is warm to the touch while mine looks as pale and colorless as I had in my dream.
“What’s happening to her?” I hear Finn’s voice somewhere behind me.
“We’re gonna find out, Finn, I promise.” Haven assures him.
Skylan is waiting when we arrive at the infirmary. I haven’t seen him in quite some time since Bastian hasn’t required me to give blood in a while, but the second he sees us coming he calls the doctor.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Atwood. What seems to be the problem?” the doctor asks, stepping in front of the nurse’s desk. He’s an older man, maybe in his forties, with thin brown hair and equally brown eyes.
“She’s freezing.” Keenan says, sounding panicked. “Her skin is ice cold and we don’t know what’s wrong. She’s been inside and it’s—it’s the middle of August. I don’t understand.”
“Don’t worry, Your Highness. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Dr. Atwood assures Keenan while Skylan rushes over with a stretcher.
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