Page 29 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)

“Yes,” her father added. “Since you were a little girl. Talking to plants never helped your cause.”

“None of us would be here without you,” Idan said. “And I think it’s safe to say that despite all of us having our differences, we’ve really benefited from this,” he added, gesturing to all of them.

Her father’s eyes narrowed with the faintest hint of distaste, and Clea was uncertain why.

No one in Loda liked open flattery, but her father seldom expressed clear disregard for other royalty in public.

Silence settled back over the room. For the first time in a long time, she’d arrested the entire room, and she realized that every other time had been a moment like this, where her ideas had been wild and broad.

She learned something then about herself, that though she was passive and compliant in many things, in the core of her passions, when she had a sense of what needed to be done, she declared it with everything in her body.

Maybe she’d never been as naive as she thought.

Maybe naivety had never been the driving force of her decisions.

She’d befriended Ryson and then thought herself a fool, learning to love him only out of foolishness, but it wasn’t that.

It had never been that. She’d learned so much in the past two years, and though she was wary of her bond with him, she didn’t regret it.

She didn’t regret any of it. Her journey, her secrets, the risks she’d taken. She wasn’t naive.

She was bold.

“I am not the rising queen anymore. There is now another heir,” she said.

“But no one outside of this room knows that.” She then shared the idea and realized too its insanity, its risk, and at the same time, its inevitability.

“Send me. I think I have to be the one who goes. I’m meant to be the offering. It all makes sense now.”

The room stirred, and before anyone could speak or object, almost mechanically, she looked up at the room and said, “I healed an Insednian.”

Several members in the room straightened. Yvan leaned away from the wall, her arms falling to her sides.

“What?” Dae questioned as if he’d misheard her.

She was surprised at the lack of fear she felt.

Looking into all their eyes, she realized that without the mantle of needing to be their light, she was no longer afraid to be their darkness.

In fact, she now realized that she’d perhaps never been afraid of having them discard her.

She’d felt separated from them from the very start, different from what they needed.

“An Insednian helped me cross the forest and destroy the Deadlock Medallion,” she said, and as if the truth had to be said now, more than ever, she didn’t hold back.

“He had apparently been an Insednian of some renown. I didn’t know what he was at first,” she added, casting her gaze to her father, who knew his role in that.

She looked back at the rest of the room. “He was injured almost fatally. I healed him.”

“Why?” Dae asked, the most vocal while others seemed to look on in complete silence and reserve. Any other Lodain warrior would have died before healing a Venennin, much less an Insendian.

Clea looked over at him. “I didn’t—” She paused. “No,” she corrected herself, preparing to claim that she didn’t know and now choking on the word, realizing that she’d perhaps been convinced of her own naivety for far too long when she was much stronger than that, and always had been.

“Because I wanted to. I knew,” she said, looking down at the table and the scattered pieces on the board before leaning back.

“I knew all along. Every choice I made, I knew. Maybe not the facts, but I knew what I was choosing.” She looked up at all of them.

“We saved each other. I wouldn’t have made it back to Loda without him.

It’s the very reason I have his heart and he has mine,” she declared, allowing the revelation to sweep across the room, but not giving anyone time to respond.

“And that’s why it has to be me. They are indebted to me, and I have an Insednian weapon.

I sent it to Ruedom in secret to be analyzed. ”

Her father gave Idan a scolding look as if he were perhaps to blame for everything, and Idan leaned away from the table sheepishly.

She looked at everyone. “I will go retrieve it, and then this will be my mission,” she said.

“It may very well be the mission I was meant for, why all of this now makes sense. This is the next step for me. Only a healer could have ended up in the position I am in now. What was once my flaw is our opportunity to win.”

The truths settled across the room, and she rose slowly to her feet.

She looked at each of them in the eyes, noting the mixture of emotions that even they seemed intent to still rifle through.

She watched each and every one of them grapple with the betrayal of her secrecy, and the offering of her penance.

“Well?” she pushed, waiting on their judgment.

“I knew Veilin in Virday who had healed Venennin,” Yvan said, an innocent and perhaps futile defense.

Clea caught her eyes and offered a quiet nod, though she knew the opinion of a Virdain woman might not hold much weight here.

The others looked at her father, and they waited on both sides of the table. He regarded her heavily, and she was surprised to see a measure of pain in his eyes, not anger.

“I think it is time the Lodain High Council discuss this matter privately,” he announced, dismissing Yvan, Dae, and Idan from the room.

Clea was the last to go, straightening where she stood at the table.

Her father gave her a firm nod, and she backed away, entering the hallway before the doors closed behind her.