Jade Fire Gold(53)

I love you.

Air rushes into my lungs and I blink back to the present.

I remember.

I remember.

My childhood flares and extinguishes. Memories of jumbled-up conversations, images of my parents, the places I used to hide in our family home, me running as a child, away from everyone . . .

What I did to my nanny.

I scramble up, terrified by what I remember—and what I don’t.

But one thing is clear: only my father knows what really happened.

I pace around my father’s study, waiting for the attendant to wake him. The once wet trails on my cheeks dry as something else takes over my fear and confusion.

Rage.

I remember. Not everything. But enough.

I’m shaking so badly that I lean onto the cabinet with my father’s prized scrolls to keep from collapsing. My father has been keeping secrets from me. Secrets about myself, about my childhood. About my mother.

He has been lying to me.

The cabinet creaks, and I remember the secret alcove it hides. What if? I push and the wall panel shifts. I thought this narrow room bare before, but maybe I was wrong. I grab a lamp from the table and shine it in the room. The light scatters on something.

A lever.

I push it down and another false wall slides away. Shelves of ancient-looking scrolls line the walls of this new room. A rack stands at the corner, orange robes hanging on it.

I stagger back into the wall.

Diyeh robes.

Why are they here? Why?

I stare at them, the bright orange burning my eyes. There’s a red sash running through the fabric of these robes. What does it mean?

“Ahn-er? Is something wrong, my dear?” my father calls out as he enters his study.

It’s too late to hide my discovery. I walk out of my father’s secret room, clutching the Diyeh robes in my hand and fling them at him.

“Are you a priest?” My voice is cold. Stripped of emotion.

His eyes flash dangerously. “Have you been spying on me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I have my reasons. My safety, for one. The head of the Diyeh priesthood lives in constant fear of assassination.”

The head priest. Ten Hells. My father is the head priest of the Diyeh. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

He studies me shrewdly. “Why does it matter if I’m a priest?”

“Why does it matter?” My voice starts to tremble. “You made me do all those things. The bird—I was a child!”

Too furious to control myself, I begin to cry. Memories spin out of control in my head. Flashes of all the cruel things I did—that I was made to do. My nanny’s shocked face when I showed her the flowers I killed with magic. How I almost killed her by accident.

The real reason why my father sent her away.

“You lied to me,” I whisper, wiping my tears fiercely. “You lied about everything.”

All he can say is, “You remember. How?”

“The empress gave me a tincture.”

“The empress.”

I don’t understand the implication in his tone, but it doesn’t matter. “Did you send the priests after Mother and me?”

“I wasn’t the head priest then. The order did not come from me.”

“What happened to Mother? What did they do to her?”

“You should ask what it is she did to you. She stole your destiny and made you weak.” The disdain in his voice is clear. “It was an honor that our daughter was chosen, but your mother, she didn’t understand who you are, what you can be.”

“She tried to save me from you—”

“She took an oath to serve the Empire, but she betrayed it—your mother was nothing but a traitor!” he thunders.

I leap forward and tear off his mask. Half of his face is covered in old burns. Scars ridge down his forehead to his chin, twisting at his lips. Scars left by my mother.

It looks like his face is melting.

I collapse onto the floor. With an anguished cry I hurl the silver mask across the room.

My father picks it up, his laughter chilling me to the bone.

“Now you see me as I truly am. Now you see what your mother did to me. If only you knew who she was. Your mother was not an innocent—she betrayed her family for the priesthood. She was one of us. How many did she sacrifice? How many did she kill before she stopped?” My father grabs my hand, raven eyes lingering on my mother’s jade ring. I see a flash of something complicated before they turn cold again. “And she stopped only because her own child was revealed to be the Life Stealer. Do not imagine her a martyr.”

“You’re lying again.”

“Am I?”

It can’t be true. It can’t be. The misshapen, monstrously human puppets from my dream dance in my mind, my mother’s laughter turning sour in my ears. My father must be lying. He’s a liar. He always lies.

I stare up at his ruined face. “You’re a monster.”

“So are you.”

My voice cracks. “No, I’m not. I won’t be one.”

“You cannot escape your fate, daughter. The gods have chosen you for a reason.”

“Why do you want the sword? What are you planning?”

“I told you. To save my country and to get rid of the desert.”