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However, that was not the case, for Tessa had been pulling the strings all along. The former queen had wanted Kallie to believe the worst.

“Leave me,” Kallie ordered.

As the door shut and Phaia disappeared behind it, Kallie grabbed the whiskey decanter and swallowed three large gulps.

She was a bigger fool than she thought.

Chapter20

KALLIE

After sleepingoff the whiskey and being poked and prodded by the royal Frenzian seamstress, Kallie made her way to the library. She recalled Phaia mentioning that Rian often visited it, so she thought it was worth a shot. However, Rian was not in the library that day.

Nor was he there the second day.

Or the third.

Or the fifth.

Each time she visited, Kallie stayed as long as she could. At first, she stayed in the hopes of seeing Rian, but she quickly grew fond of the library. It was the one room in the entire stone castle that was filled with life and warmth. During the day, sunlight poured down from the large skylights covering the library’s ceiling, casting a warm light on the assortment of books littering the shelves. When the sun slipped away at dusk, candles encased in glass lit the room. Above, darkness blanketed the sky. A few stars shone bright, but most were hidden behind the ever-present thick clouds. Even the moon struggled to shine through the Frenzian fog, only able to cast a fuzzy halo of light through the mist.

Most of all, though, Kallie enjoyed the company of the books. More and more, she could barely look at Myra without a pang of guilt spiking within her stomach. The fictional characters, at least, did not look at Kallie with pity. Nor did they judge her like the lords and ladies who wandered the grounds did. The characters in the books were too consumed with their own tragedies to care about hers.

She reminded herself that she was there to see Rian. But even she found that hard to believe when the king had yet to grace the library with his presence.

Still, the retreat to the library quickly became a part of her routine.

After a day of having quiet meals in her quarters and walking the grounds with the handmaidens and a pair of guards, Kallie would escape to the library, where she would lose herself in the books. Only after the flames went out, the candle wax melted, and the darkness settled in did Kallie throw off the dark wool blanket and get up from the brown leather couch to return to her room.

Sometimes, the words on the page consumed her mind until she fell asleep, her dreams only recreations of the stories she read. Other nights, she wasn’t so lucky. On those nights, no matter how many chapters she read, her wayward thoughts came spiraling back to the surface. The stress of manipulating a king she could not get close to. The inability to forget the faces that haunted her nightmares, the ones in the portrait beneath her pillow that she didn’t have the strength to throw away.

Her hope of making any progress toward her task was diminishing as the days passed and the wedding approached.

Still, she latched onto the strand of hope that hummed in her body.

* * *

One morning,Kallie awoke before dawn after dreaming of the faceless man at the springs. She did not want to think about the man or whatever possible reason there could be for him to appear in her dreams. Therefore, sweating and restless, Kallie slipped out of her room before the herd of handmaidens barged into her room. Manipulating Sansil as she left, she made the familiar journey to the library.

At this hour, the halls were nearly empty; most of the staff were still asleep. Unguarded and unfollowed, Kallie let her shoulders drop. For once, there were no whispering voices, no questions about her mental state or health, and no silent, judgmental stares.

Yet what should have been a peaceful stroll turned into an angry march down the hall.

The former queen wasn’t even doing anything, yet she was winning, beating Kallie at her own game.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Kallie had not seen Rian in over a week. Even her requests for dinner had been denied. Did they think one dinner with the king would sedate her? Was Tessa the reason Kallie hadn’t happened upon him? Had she known when Kallie would go searching for him?

Before she knew it, she was storming through the library doors. As her vision adjusted to the darkness, she halted, catching the door before it slammed shut.

A faint glow flickered in the farthest corner of the room. No one was ever here.

Her heart thumped.

She grabbed a nearby candle and struck a match, lighting the wick. She took a moment to search a nearby bookshelf, which housed a few of her favorite authors. Her fingers trailed along the spines of the books running across the shelves. With a small grin, Kallie plucked the book with the gold foil on the worn black spine she had started the day before off the shelf. She flipped through the pages, scanning for where she had stopped.

Then she weaved through the tall shelves, slowly making her way toward the illuminated corner. Her footsteps were light on the dark oak floors.

With the last bookshelf at her back, she paused as she turned a page. The old paper coarse between her fingers. A loose strand of hair fell in front of her face, and with a finger, Kallie brushed the loose hair away from her face. When she looked up, she jolted back a step, book pressed flat against her heart, eyelashes fluttering. “Oh! I didn’t know anyone else was in here.”