Page 55 of Avaritia
“I can help you get her back, though,” Rainy said earnestly. “I was right. I’m so fast in the human realm—”
“Enough,” I said firmly. “I know what it is to be young and want to prove yourself, Rainy. I know it better than most. But you are not invincible. Sometimes, the best course of action is to listen to those who know better, even if we don’t like what they have to say. To at least consider our options before we take them. Return to the palace. Stay there with Mother. Do not do anything rash. Am I understood?”
I wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten here in the first place. Mother clearly wasn’t doing a good job at keeping an eye on her wayward daughter.
“I could break you out—”
“Don’t even finish that sentence,” I clipped. Rainy was a resourceful child; I had full confidence that if anyone could break me out of the Pit, it was her. But I wasn’t going to run from the consequences of my actions. I would face up to them, no matter how dire. For Verity’s sake.
“What are you doing here?” Damen asked from farther down the corridor, making Rainy jump. “You should really have been escorted by a guard or something.”
“I was just leaving,” Rainy said hastily, shooting me a last lingering look before scampering off, leaving Damen and Allerick standing in her place in front of the guards.
“Any news?” I asked, not stirring from the bed. This was a new development. Usually, Damen came alone to provide updates.
“No,” Damen answered. “Astrid paid a contact to try get into the hospital as Verity’s friend to visit, but she is well guarded by Hunters. There was no way for them to get past.”
I nodded silently, suspecting as much.
“You need to feed,” Allerick said quietly, observing me from the other side of the bars. I thought once that this was where my brothers would enjoy seeing me most, but neither of them appeared to be deriving any joy from it.
“I’m not touching a single drop of power that doesn’t come from Verity.”
“Your dedication is admirable, but you’re no good to Verity if you’re dead,” Damen pointed out.
“Damen, could you leave us for a moment?” Allerick asked. There was a long pause before I heard Damen’s footsteps heading back down the hall. After some fussing with the lock, Allerick let himself into my cell, crossing the room to sit at the end of the bed, next to my legs.
Truly, I mustn’t have been any kind of threat for him to come in here.
For a long while, we sat in suffocating silence, and I wondered what Allerick was even doing here. We’d interacted very little over the course of our lives—that dinner party that felt like a different lifetime ago was probably the most we’d ever spoken.
“I fear I haven’t been a good brother to you all these years,” Allerick eventually said, studiously avoiding looking at me.
I snorted. “We share a father, but we’re not brothers.”
The resentment I felt at Allerick and Damen’s close relationship rose dangerously close to the surface before I ruthlessly suppressed it once more. It was foolish to feel jealousy over that. There were ten years between Allerick and me, and I’d been intentionally raised in isolation, away from my siblings. The only blame that could be assigned was toward our father, who was many years dead now.
“I give myself grace for my actions in my youth,” Allerick continued. “But when I came of age, and more pertinently, when I came to the throne, there was no excuse for my actions. I suppose I thought that because you were older than me that you didn’t need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“You did, though,” Allerick sighed. “You needed friends. You needed family. The court—the realm—followed my lead. Had I worked harder to reconcile the change of position between us, they would have done the same. You would not have been so neglected.”
“I only need Verity,” I hissed, desperately trying to staunch the hidden wound his words had opened.
“You certainly need her too,” Allerick agreed evenly. “I can see that now. She’s your Ophelia.”
I didn’t have a response for that. I hadn’t expected him to be so… understanding. We’d never found common ground before, but he looked like a male who understood what it was to have his life turned inside out by love.
“Why is it that you’re here?” I asked, weary down to my bones.
“The Councilors do not believe I can be impartial in your case,” Allerick sighed. “They have taken the lead on everything related to it—including ordering a search on your home.”
“Okay.” I had nothing to hide. There were plenty of documents stating what I would do if I were king, but I’d never written down any treasonous intent to take the position for myself.
“They discovered the notes in your study. Your suggestions to better integrate the ex-Hunters who relocate to the shadow realm.” Allerick paused for a moment. “They were very good. Far more comprehensive than anything I’d come up with.”
I appreciated how the words sounded like they were dragged from the very depths of his being.