Page 141 of The Shadows Between Us
Hestia has written to me, asking me if she might visit. She also sent a wedding invitation.
I don’t know if I can stand the sight of my friends and their happiness right now.
What I need is to feel in control. Perhaps I’ll purchase my own estate. Order my own servants about. That should make me happy.
I ring for a maid to help me dress and fix my hair. Then I let myself into Rhoda’s study, where I sit before a desk. I’ll inquire after any land for sale. Or perhaps I’ll see if Vasco’s estate is up for grabs. He lost it along with his title when he was sentenced.
After some time, a letter arrives from my sister. She pleads Father’s case, telling me how desperately he wishes me to come home. She apologizes for being away from me so long.
If only I’d been with you to set an example. Perhaps you might not be alone and without any prospects. Would you like to come stay with me and theduke for a time? Of course, you can’t carry on as you have while you’re here.
You were so young when Mother died, and as your older sister I should have taken better care of you. Father and I certainly don’t blame you for turning into a trollop. How else were you to entertain yourself while I was at parties and balls?
“I’m not a trollop,” I announce to the empty room. “I’m a sexually empowered woman, and there is nothing wrong with that.”
How dare she try to argue morality with me. Through aletter. And how could Father go to her to convince me to come home? He only wants a bride-price for me. Without me, he’s left figuring out how to save his estate alone.
Good, I think. It’s his problem to deal with. Not mine. He never should have tried to use me. I’m worth so much more than that. I wish he would have treated me so.
I turn back to the letter I’m composing, when the handle at the door catches.
“I’d prefer not to be disturbed with any more correspondences,” I say without looking up to the servant. For good measure, I tear my sister’s note to pieces before tossing the paper to the floor for someone else to clean up.
“Will you permit a visitor, then?”
I stand abruptly, turning at the sound of the voice that has come to be sweeter to me than music.
“I’m afraid I bullied the servants into letting me enter without being announced,” Kallias says. “I worried you’d order them to send me away before I had a chance to see you.”
He has a few yellow bruises on his face that are still fading. Thoughhis eye and lip are no longer swollen, a few lines of scabs cover his cheeks and brow. But he’s alive and well.
“You didn’t heal yourself. With your shadows. I’ll leave. Then you can—”
“I wish to heal from these the long way. I’ve earned the pain that comes with them.”
Silence fills Rhoda’s study. When I can’t take it anymore, I ask him, “Did you change your mind?”
He looks somewhat puzzled by the question. “Yes, of course.”
I nod and let my eyes trail along the floor. “How is it to happen, then?”
He’s silent for a moment. “I thought we’d take the carriage.”
“And then?”
The quiet stretches out so long that I look up. “Well?” I snap. “How am I to die? Am I to be hanged? Drawn and quartered? Are you going to push me off a cliff? Strangle me with your bare hands? What’s it to be, Kallias?” And then, remembering what he said before, I amend, “I mean, what’s it to be,Your Majesty?” Perhaps if I’m civil now it will be a quick death.
A look of horror crosses his features before he removes the space between us. He falls to his knees before me, taking my hands in his bare ones. His thumb brushes over the ring on my finger. His ring. Which I hadn’t brought myself to remove yet. He stares at it for a moment before saying, “You’ve misunderstood. When I said I changed my mind, I meant about sending you away. About destroying our life together.”
I go so still; I think my heart might stop beating.
“You could have let me die,” he says. “You could have let Leandros—I mean, Xanthos—kill me and then ruled as queen with him. But you didn’t. You killed him. You killed for me.
“But I knew before then. I was hurt, yes, but I was going to come back for you right before Xanthos approached me. I was in my mother’s sitting room, because I tried to imagine a future where that room wouldn’t be yours, and I couldn’t.”
He rises then, keeping my hands clasped in his. “I was scared. I was so scared to trust anyone, and I hurt you as a result. I said things I shouldn’t have. And I’m so unbelievably sorry, Alessandra.”
Before I can get in a word, he’s jerking his hands away and struggling to reach for something in the pocket of his jacket.
