Page 110 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
A low, slow breath. “This is yours, isn’t it?” I revealed the astrolabe.
His eyes widened in recognition.
The dagger’s leather-wrapped hilt creaked in my grip.
“Where did you find that?” His eyebrows peaked together as he shook his head.
When I didn’t answer, he looked up at me, and I cocked my head to remind him my question came first.
“It isn’t mine, no. I gave it to Zinnia the night she…” He swallowed. “When I asked her to stay with me, to try for a real relationship rather than only seeing each other for a few nights a year.”
Pieces slid together in my mind, like the shards of a vase I was trying to rebuild. She always disappeared after shows while we were in Elfhame. I’d assumed it was for private performances. The love letter that had been with her belongings—it could’ve been from him.
I lifted my chin, muscles coiling in readiness. “And she said no, so you killed her.”
His eyes widened, shooting from the astrolabe to me. “What? No, I… She said…” Half a step closer he came, setting my nerves on a knife-edge. He downed the whisky and bared his teeth like it cut through his own nerves. “No. She said she needed to think and talk to her sister about it, because it wasn’t her decision alone. I confess, I might’ve scared her off a little with the shock—I don’t think she was expecting me to ask. She hurried out, and I wish…”
He screwed his eyes shut, an odd move for a man who was about to commit murder, but maybe this was how he planned to lull me. I shifted my stance, ready to lunge for him or roll back onto the table.
“Sun and Stars, I wish I hadn’t let her go. If I’d just kept her with me…” He hung his head. “But I didn’t. I wanted to give her the space she needed. Then the next morning, I heard…” His voice grew thick with grief, like mine had when I’d spoken to Sepher. “I didn’t kill Zinnia. I… I loved her.”
47
The words cut through me like claws or teeth or Sepher’s sword at my neck.
The world narrowed to the image of his bowed head, the fall of his pale hair, the sorrowful beauty of his grief.
I didn’t kill Zinnia.
I couldn’t…
I couldn’tanything. This wasn’t possible.
Liar, the rage in me hissed.
But… just as Sepher couldn’t lie about not killing her, neither could Cadan.
Where my muscles had coiled, now that energy fizzed and sparked, making me shake. “Get out,” I whispered.
His gaze shot up to mine, then to the dagger in my hand.
“Get out!”
Eyes wide, he stumbled back a few steps, then turned and ran.
My lungs seared with each terrible breath. Each breath that went on and on and on, because I wasn’t dead, because I hadn’t trapped my sister’s killer, I hadn’t got revenge, I hadn’t…
I’d failed again.
The astrolabe wasn’t even the killer’s—it had beenhers. Briefly. Just for that night. But hers.
If Cadan wasn’t the one, who fucking was?Who?
I sank against the table, vision blurring with stupid tears of frustration.
“Zita?” Sepher’s voice.
“It wasn’t—”
