Page 6 of The Crown's Shadow

The five people in the portrait were her flesh and blood. Her family. So yes, a small part of her would always care for them, but that did not mean she had lost sight of the mission. All Kallie wanted was the truth. For her whole life, she had thought something was missing. For years, unexplained nightmares haunted her sleep. She loved her father, for he had taught her all she knew. But what was she supposed to do now when she had discovered that her father was the cause of some of those dreams? That the nightmares held some truth?

Kallie didn’t have the answer.

A dull ache buzzed in her head. She pressed her palms on either side of her head, squeezing it as she took slow, deep breaths.

Birth father or not, King Domitius was the man who had raised her and cared for her all these years.

It did not matter that he did not share her blood.

It did not matter that he had lied to her. Her father had lied to her toprotecther.

Why would he have trained her and provided her with an abundance of opportunities—opportunities she would not have been granted if she had been raised among her brothers—if he did not care about her? Domitius had given her a path and the tools she needed to achieve the power she craved. He, unlike her mother, had come for her. He hadfoughtfor her, unlike the people who shared her blood. Unlike her supposedfamily, he had not let a peace treaty restrict him. When a hole had been ripped into their carefully crafted plan, Domitius had done what he needed to do. Not only had he focused on what was important, butwhowas important: his daughter.

Domitius had come for Kallie because she was what mattered to him at the end of the day. Esmeray, on the other hand, had done none of that. When Kallie was taken as a child, Esmeray had stayed on her island.

Blood, Kallie realized, only dictated the color of your eyes, the texture of your hair, and the skin you bore. Not your values or priorities. Not your loyalty.

Domitius was right: she washisdaughter.

She was not needed in Pontia, but Kallie was needed here. Her father needed herhere.To solidify the alliance, to take the throne.

Her time with the Pontians did not soften her. If anything, it had made Kallie want the power that this arranged marriage promised that much more.

She was not angry at him. Domitius was not the one who had driven a blade through her brother’s heart. He was not the one who had his men pile on top of Fynn, brutalize him, and rip him to shreds. He did not throw Fynn’s body overboard. No, Sebastian was to blame for those wrongs.Sebastianwas the one who had attacked him, the one who had given the orders to throw Fynn overboard when his body hadn’t even grown cold yet.Sebastian, the man without a sense of humanity coursing through his bones, had done all that.

Anger rose within her, coating her blood and devouring her flesh. Her body shook against the door. Her retinas burned.

It did not matter if Sebastian was the king’s brother. He would not be forgiven.

When she exhaled, Kallie released everything she had refused to feel since leaving Pontia. Anger, it seemed, was not the only emotion threatening to consume her.

Since boarding the ship, she had shoved her sorrows down and pushed away her traitorous thoughts to the wayside. After the last several months, it was practically second nature.

Kallie knew she had simply done what she had been assigned to do. However, somewhere deeper and further back in the shadows of her mind, past her loyalty for her kingdom and father, grief consumed her. Even though she knew she shouldn’t because of her commitment to her father, she wept for the family she had given up.

For the first time in a week, Kallie let herself mourn, and the tears were a torrent—a flood she had prevented from falling for too many days.

She knew she had no right to mourn. Fynn may have been her family, but she had betrayed him. She had betrayed all of them.

She knew it had to be done, for there was no other way to prove herself to her father, to prove to him that she was worthy of a crown. That she could be trusted when distance separated them. That was all she had wanted. She would have done anything to earn her father’s respect.

Before.

Before she had known who the Pontians were. Before she had known they were her family by blood. Before she had discovered that she had been granted the ability to manipulate minds not by the whims of a god, which is what she had once believed, but because it ran in her veins. Her ability was more than some blessing or gift granted by chance. It waswhoshe was. A manipulator.

Kallie didn’t know how to be anyone else. She didn’t know if she could.

She might have been Pontian by blood, but she wasn’t one of them. Not even close.

She was a fraud.

For weeks, she had masqueraded as someone who had believed everything the Pontians had told her. To them, she was a victim, someone lost to the darkness.

Slipping on a mask was nothing new. She had manipulated hundreds of people before. But this time, she had fallen too deep into her role. At some point, Kallie, the girl who had vowed against love, had learned to care for someone other than her father and handmaiden. She had learned to care for people who didn’t even belong to her kingdom. The enemy.

Now, Kallie wasn’t sure where she belonged.

At the beginning of the voyage south, Kallie had allowed Domitius’ approval to consume her mind. On that first night, pride had lit Domitius’ face as he clinked glasses with Sebastian during the first meal on the way back. He had cheered the soldiers for their successful rescue of the stolen bride. With Kallie’s safe return, he was one step closer to uniting the seven kingdoms. Kallie should have been thrilled to be a part of it, yet a sour taste had coated her tongue.