Page 80 of The Stolen Throne
He huffs to cover what sounded like a chuckle. “Like you’re not exactly the same.”
True. I’ve already been thinking the same thing since the first word I read. “I have no idea what you’re speaking of. I am a blessing of positive thoughts and…” I can’t think of anything funny to add. My brain is too fuzzy with all the reading.
“Wishful thinking,” he supplies in a dry voice.
“Exactly.”
He shakes his head. “Right, well…don’t take too long.”
I stare after him as he leaves. Small moments like that one, when it’s like we both forget the distance for a second and are just us… I’m starting to live for those little moments. With a shake of my head, mostly at myself but a lot at Reven, too, I drop my focus back to the book I’m scanning. I’ll hurry up and finish this and get down there.
“Always the martyr.”
I glance back up to find Pella standing in the doorway, scowl tucked in place. “Reven sent me back for you.”
My eyebrows fly up. Has the man not figured out that Pella and I aren’t exactly soul sisters? What’s he trying for—cruel and unusual punishment? I get why he wouldn’t send Cain, but Horus or Tziah or Vos—hells, even Hakan would be a better choice than the girl leaning in the doorway, glaring at me right now.
Knowing I’ll be opening a can of rotten worms with my words, I sigh. “Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t—” She cuts herself off, head going back as though reconsidering. “Cain,” she says finally.
I frown my confusion. “What about him? I’m not good enough for him or something?”
“No.” She picks up a smaller book, leafing through it, then sets it back down before moving deeper into the room. “My brother is the only person who ever cared about me.”
I’m pretty sure her personality plays a role in that. “What does that have to do with me?”
She pins me with a look of stark resentment that has me leaning back. “He cares about you more.” She chucks the words at me, bald and angry, and…
Aw hells, I get it now.
I can’t believe I’m about to say what I am. I clear my throat because the words are sticking. “His caring for me doesn’t take anything away from how much he loves you. Even I know he adores you, Pella. You’re his baby sister.”
Or he wouldn’t put up with her bullshit. For once, I stop myself from tacking on that last bit.
“Yeah, well…” She shrugs. “Tell that to five-year-old me. Cain was my hero.”
Then I showed up one day and took that from her. Is that how she sees it? Knowing how important Cain was to me at almost the same age, when he found me knocking on death’s door in the desert the first time I ran away from Omma, I have an idea of what that did to her. Maybe more than anyone else would. “Well…damn.”
Her brows wing upward.
I huff a bit. “I’d rather not have to think of you as anything more than the girl who tormented me a hundred different ways when all I wanted was to fit in somewhere.”
Her hands go to her hips. “You’re a princess. You have a place.”
Wrong, and everyone in this small circle—including Hakan, who has been filled in—knows my secrets and lies.
“I’m a hidden, pretend princess who is good for two things and two things only.” I hold up a hand, ticking them off on my fingers. “As a decoy to die for my sister, or as her double to take her place if I screw up and she’s the one killed.”
Quite a fate to hang over a child’s head. I was told my purpose from the second I was old enough to speak.
“My family’s preference was obviously the first scenario. Everyone in the palace knew me as Tabra. A handful of people in Enora knew me as Meren, but they didn’t know much more than that I was poor and lived with Omma. I wasn’t really allowed to interact with anyone. Schooling with other kids was a no. Friends were definitely a no. Until Cain.”
She stands there, listening. Just listening. No sneer. No scoff.
“You’re not the only one who was…an afterthought.”
I stare.
