Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(79)

So instead of leaning into his touch or returning his confession with one of my own, I pushed every ounce of emotion into the coil inside me. It twisted and tightened, so taut now that if I so much as breathed wrong, it would snap and I’d shatter, torn apart from the inside.

“Emilie?” Zan asked.

“My name is not Emilie,” I said emotionlessly, not daring to look at him. “My name is Aurelia.”

“What?” He stepped back, as stunned as if I’d slapped him.

“Emilie is the name of a girl I knew in Renalt. And the Aurelia you know . . . her name is actually Lisette. We’ve been friends since we were small. I used to read your letters to her and we’d laugh at them. Made it something of a game. Whatever responses you got back from them, they were all from her. She thought it was great fun. We both did.”

“I don’t understand.” Zan leaned heavily against the battlements.

“I never wanted to come to Achleva,” I said, pinning my lies to a plausible truth. “I resented being wed, without my consent, to a man rumored to be afflicted with such a wide variety of infirmities. So I came up with a plan to make it so I didn’t have to.” I could hear Zan’s breathing become more painful and labored, and I almost lost my nerve. To keep from faltering, I plunged forward. “I offered to pay Lisette to take my place. I arranged everything. She wasn’t too keen at first, but the amount I offered was substantial, and the prospect of becoming a queen was quite appealing as well.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Zan demanded. “Why now?”

“Things didn’t go quite as I planned,” I continued. “I didn’t count on the Tribunal’s takeover. That made things a little more difficult. I didn’t expect to have to bring my little brother along, either. He believes that I’m an Achlevan spy and that he’s helping Lisette uncover my treachery, poor thing.”

“Was any of it real?”

“I have grown . . . fond . . . of you. And I thought, when we talked this afternoon, that maybe I could make it work after all . . . but then I followed you into the hall and hid. I heard everything that was said there, and I . . . I just can’t.” I thrust his mother’s ring back into his hands. “You and your father are the only Achlevan royals left, which means the instant you marry someone—?anyone—?she becomes a target to bring down the wall. It’s a risk I can’t afford.” I thought of the rings Aren showed me. “In fact, you should just never marry at all. If you die without blood heirs, the wall will stand forever.” And you will live a long, full life.

“You think I should die alone?” Zan was so astounded, he almost sounded amused. Then his expression changed. “No.” He came to me suddenly, putting both hands on my face, eyes feverish. “Emilie, Aurelia . . . whoever you are . . . I love you. And despite everything you’ve told me, I think you love me, too. Please, please say you do.”

Oh, Empyrea! I cast the most fervid prayer of my life into the heavens. Help me!

I said, “I can’t.” I put my hands over his and pulled them gently down from my cheeks. “Nathaniel is camping tonight just off the southwest road toward Ingram. I think it would be wise for you to meet up with him. Maybe you can stay in Ingram for a while until you—?”

My fingers grazed something at his wrist. I yanked up his sleeve, revealing a leather cuff. My firebird charm was sewn into the band like a talisman, exactly as Aren had shown me.

My breath caught. “Take it off.”

“What? No—?”

“Take it off!” I snarled as I tried to wrench it off myself, fingers curled into claws.

He snapped his arm back, scrutinizing my face with disbelief and something akin to grief as the impact of my revelations finally landed. The Emilie he cared about didn’t even exist.

Wordlessly, he retrieved a piece of paper from his pocket and thrust it into my hands before he turned and was gone.

I waited until he was out of sight and then opened it carefully, heart in my throat.

It was a sketch of a girl absorbed in a spell book, one hand propped under her chin, the other turning a page. The drawing was in Zan’s dark, expressive strokes, and details were spare, but there was a sweetness to the curve of her neck, the delicate turn of her wrist. This was not the towering, terrifying witch of his other drawing. The subject here was just a normal girl in a quiet moment, as seen through the eyes of someone who loved her.

I sank to the stones and buried my head in my arms, my devastation complete.



* * *



I put one foot in front of the other. It was all I could do. I’d burned down my hut and my connection to Zan. Kate was dead and Nathaniel was gone and the last deaths required to bring down the wall were stayed, hopefully forever. There was nothing left for me in Achleva. I had only one objective now: retrieve my brother. Once he was safe, I would be able to return with single-minded focus to destroying the Tribunal. If I had to face my own oblivion to do it . . . well, all the better.

I went to the castle the usual way, past my smoldering hut and down the passage to the tower, where the water was still ankle-deep from all the rain. I had to put my hands against the walls to keep from falling in a few places, cringing at the slimy film now covering them. After climbing up from the alcove opening, I was surprised to find someone standing a little farther down on the rocky shore, staring out toward King’s Gate. It was too late to try to conceal my passing; the figure turned at the sound of my footfalls.