Allied (Ruined #3)(13)

Galo sat down beside Mateo. It was a good question. He’d still be working as a guard for a few more weeks, to make sure everything ran smoothly for the new captain, but after that, he had no idea. He wasn’t trained to do anything but guard the royal family, something he’d never particularly liked. And it turned out he wasn’t even good at it.

“Did you write to your father?” Mateo asked.

“Yes. I wrote to both my parents and told them I was resigning from the guard.” He glanced at Mateo, who just stared at him. They both knew he could have told them in person, but Galo had chickened out.

“You don’t have to prove anything, Galo,” Mateo said quietly. “No sensible person blames you for what happened to Cas. He’s still alive because you realized so quickly that he’d been poisoned.”

“I’m not looking to prove anything.” It came out like the lie it was. “Can we stop talking about it?”

Mateo quickly sat up and got to his feet, annoyance written all over his face. “I’m going to go back downstairs.”

Galo grabbed Mateo’s belt loop and pulled him closer, until his legs bumped against Galo’s knees. “I’m sorry. Don’t go.” He hooked his finger into the other belt loop. “I finally have a room of my own.” The tiny two-person rooms were his least favorite part of being a guard, especially since meeting Mateo. He used to have a strict no-dating policy, since it was near impossible to sustain a relationship in that environment. But then Mateo had come along and all his old rules had gone out the window.

Mateo moved a little closer, putting one of his hands on Galo’s neck. “I’m worried you’re going to leave,” he said quietly.

“Where would I go?”

“I don’t know. But if you’re not on the guard you don’t have to stay here and . . .” He shrugged, his eyes downcast.

Galo tilted his head up, brushing his lips against Mateo’s. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

Em sat on her porch, watching the sun come up over the trees. She’d woken earlier than usual and peeked into Olivia’s bedroom to find her sister still sleeping. Olivia looked young and innocent asleep, and it reminded Em of mornings at home, when she’d run into her sister’s room and jump on her bed to wake her up.

Em got to her feet and stepped off the porch. She walked slowly down the quiet road, the weight in her chest increasing with every step.

Olivia had come back from her trip to Fayburn happy and smug. Em hadn’t asked. She knew everyone was dead.

She had a meeting with the Ruined shortly, and she’d spent all day yesterday trying to figure out what she was going to say to them. They all knew she hadn’t been able to stop Olivia from going to Fayburn yesterday—that she hadn’t even tried.

“Em.”

She looked up with a start to find Ivanna standing in the grass in front of a small home. Her gray hair was braided and she was already fully dressed, despite the early hour.

“Are you headed to the meeting? It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” Ivanna asked.

“I was just taking a walk first.”

“Can I join you? I was just about to head out for a walk myself.”

“Sure.”

Ivanna fell into step beside Em, her breathing a little faster and heavier than Em’s. Em listened to it for several minutes in silence.

“Didn’t you use to take walks around the castle with my mother?” Em finally asked.

“Yes. I always get up before dawn, and so did she. We often met and walked through the castle and into town.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing too important. Your mother didn’t trust me.”

Em regarded her with surprise. “She didn’t?”

“Well, she trusted me as much as any Ruined, but no more than that. She had a small group that she truly trusted. With me, she usually talked about business or you and Olivia. Mostly you and Olivia.”

“Do I want to know what she said about me and Olivia?”

Ivanna tilted her head. “Are you under the impression your mother didn’t like you? That’s not true.”

“No,” Em said softly. “I know she loved me. But sometimes I think about her, and what she expected of me, and it’s too horrifying. I wonder if none of this had happened, if I would have ended up torturing people for her and Olivia, like she planned.”

“That wasn’t her only plan for you. I think she intended to use you to negotiate with Olso. She knew your strengths. I wouldn’t be surprised if things had played out a bit similarly—with a marriage arrangement with August.”

“She would have only let me marry him if we planned to kill him soon after the wedding.”

“Oh, for sure. But she would have gotten what she wanted first.”

Em didn’t know if she would have agreed to marry August for her mother. Maybe, if Cas had never been in the picture. Perhaps she would have married him and they would have conquered Lera together. What a disturbing thought.

“She would never understand, me betraying Olivia,” Em said.

“No,” Ivanna agreed.

Em kicked a rock with the toe of her shoe. “She told me something once. I think it was to make me feel better, about being useless. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”