Page 113 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

“I don’t need to be looked after,” Kila protests.

“You will, if Ivrael comes back and orders you frozen to death.”

“But he’s not going to do that, is he? I’m just the guarantee that you’ll behave, right?”

“Absolutely, yes, of course.” But my words are more certain than I am.

When I finally get Adefina alone, I whisper, “Don’t let Ivrael kill her. If for any reason you hear that I’m not coming back, take Kila and run.”

Adefina agrees readily enough, which worries me—does she have so little faith in me? Then again, she’s not wrong. I have no idea if I’m going to be able to save my sister, but I can at least make contingency plans for my friend.

Back outside in the courtyard, Ivrael is waitingwith two footmen.

“Why are they coming?” I ask.

Ivrael glances at me and raises one eyebrow.

I really hate it when I’m not the only one who can do that trick.

“Let me guess,” I said, my voice in as dry a tone as I can muster. “It’s to make sure I don’t try anything funny.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up, and it occurs to me for the first time that if he ever truly smiled, the effect would be devastating. “Although it may surprise you to hear this, not everything I do is about you.”

My mind flashes back to the conversation I’d heard him having with the firelord the night before. “Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter.

But he’s already turned back to the footmen and gives no indication he hears me. I stand there shifting from foot to foot, awkwardly waiting for him to finish telling them what to do before turning back to me. With a critical glance at my clothing—as if he’s only just noticed almost a full year later that I am still wearing the same outfit I had on when he bought me—Ivrael says, “Did you bring a bag?”

“A bag? Like a suitcase?” With an incredulous stare, I shake my head. “What would I put in it?”

Ivrael looks confused for a heartbeat. “I assumed the maids would help you find something suitable.”

I snort. “It might’ve been nice for you to let someone know that. Or—you know—not have kidnapped me in the first place?”

“Your guardian?—”

“Had no right to sell me in the first place.” The longer he actually speaks directly to me, the angrier I get, now that he’s given me the opening to say what I’ve been thinking.

Ivrael’s mouth tightens. “And yet he did sell you. Which only proves that he should never have had control of you in the first place.”

“Like you’re any better.” Everything that’s happened to me in the last year, from being turned into some kind of weird cook’s assistant and fill-in maid to being attacked by bloodsucking undead Caix to watching people burn to death just the night before—all of it crowds into the forefront of my mind as if it’s trying to tumble out of mymouth, but it all hangs there like a giant multi-car pile-up on the freeway between my memory and my ability to speak. In the end, all that comes out are the sputtered words, “You absolute prick.”

I turn and stalk away, feeling Ivrael’s gaze on my back.

When I return to the courtyard, Ivrael and his two servants, Khrint and Tenyt—or rather, his guards, as I’m thinking of them now—are waiting for me.

Impatiently, the duke waves his hands in the air and speaks words in that language I don’t understand, calling up four of the ice horses this time. I could almost believe that the one closest to me is the same one I rode here from the Trasqo Market the first time, an impression that’s only heightened when it bends its head down toward me and rubs its cold nose against my shoulder. I scratch its forehead gently, and it blows a fine, icy mist out of its nostrils.

The ice horse’s cold breath reminds me of Kila’s tiny shivers, and I pray I’m not trading one sister’s safety for another’s.

Without a word, Ivrael boosts me onto the horse’s back. He and the other two men leap atop their own horses’ backs, and with a flick of his forefinger, Ivrael leads us up and over the courtyard wall.

As we soar into the air, I wonder which is the bigger lie—Ivrael’s promise to spare Kila, or my promise to return. I clench my teeth against the thought and turn my mind toward home, telling myself that finally, I’m going to get my sister.

I cannot wait to be back in my world.

The real world.

Home.

The word echoes in my mind as we rise higher into the sky, but somehow it doesn’t taste like freedom anymore. It tastes like ashes and broken promises.

While behind us, Starfrost Manor grows ever smaller, taking with it all my certainties about villains and heroes…

And whichone I’m becoming.