Page 69 of The Never List
Oh, you have no idea,I think as anger rises beneath my skin. Even now, I can feel every facet of the air in this room, can sense how much there is and how easy it would be to steal and command as my own. One thought, and I could have Baydel choking for a breath that is no longer available to him.
I quash the idea, knowing his powers infinitely outweigh mine. I felt them that first night and have zero desire to feel them again—no matter how satisfying it would be to watch his pallid skin turn purple for even a few precious seconds.
The table falls into simpler conversation as Jullian asks what Kal showed me this past month. We’re halfway through a delicious vanilla-and-berry concoction when the doors swing open.
“I’m sorry to interrupt dessert,” an enforcer says as he sprints to Baydel’s side, his facial expression looking like he doesn’t care in the slightest that he interrupted dessert. In fact, he looks as if he wasinstructedto be here at this exact moment.
My eyes wander to the back of the room, where the kings’ elite enforcers stand at attention near the bank ofwindows that allow glimpses of the royal city. The men don’t budge at the sudden intrusion.
“You wanted to be informed when this information came through.” The enforcer hands Baydel a scroll with a black wax seal. He takes it, dismissing the guard without even athank you.
“Something important?” Kal asks, casually pushing away his dessert and shifting his thigh toward me under the table.
Adrenaline spikes in my blood, my senses feeding off Kal’s position. Are we going to have to run? Fight? Is this another test for my potential mate status?
Baydel swipes his finger beneath the wax seal, breaking it before skimming the thin black writing on the scroll we can’t see. “Quite,” he says. “I had our researchers do some digging into your potential. Figured you’d want to know more about the woman you’ve been doting on, as do we all.”
My skin tightens, and I go deadly still.
On the outside, I don the mask of the thoughtless girl with a smile on her face. On the inside?
I’m spiraling.
This is it.
I’m finished.
I can’t stop myself from looking at the ring resting on my right hand. Kal gave this to me as a symbol of him choosing me. Maybe he’ll see past the truth; maybe he won’t condemn me for lying.
History begs to differ—an entire generation of demis condemned after a bloody war, their ancestors paying for their rebellion long after their bodies had turned to dust. Generations of Ashlanders being the bane of Lumathyst’sexistence yet vital to their wealth.
My hopes are dashed as quickly as they rise. I heard Kal and the Legends speaking about the Ashlanders the other day. There is no escaping what’s to come.
21
Rylee
Baydel scans the scroll containing my background—and my doom. “Rylee Gray,” he says. I hate the way his voice screeches over my name. “Parents caught not paying their taxes three quarters in a row, so they were sent on a Never List mission.”
What? No, they’d been caught across borders…
“Deceased,” he continues to read, halting my thoughts.
Pain cuts through my panic. I’d assumed they were dead, but there’d been that small fraction of hope that they had somehow found a way to live in Erithmore when there hadn’t been a thick black mark through their names on the Never List.
“One sibling,” he continues, and my heart stalls.
Erin.
“Volunteered for a Never List mission. Active,” he finishes, and I’m holding that smile in place so hard it hurts.
Volunteered?
Active on a Never List mission? There were no records when I searched on the night of the Choosing, but maybe there’s another list? One I missed. Andvolunteered? There’s no way she would’ve done that. And the painting in the Ruby Aire… How could she have done that if she is ona mission?
The facts behind my parents’ names on the list are wrong. Could this be, too?
“Well,” Baydel continues. “Let’s hope your sister is faring better with her ambitions than you are with your food-obsessed ones.”
