Page 151 of Storm of Shadows

“There’s something special about you, Briony Storm.”

She flinches and then she shakes her head again. “There isn’t.”

“Stop toying with her, and tell her,” Thorne growls.

“Tell me what?”

I stare into her emerald eyes. They swim with pain and anger and curiosity. All the things I’ve come to associate with her.

“I’ll tell you,” I whisper to her, “if you tell me what happened to you out there in the maze.”

Something did happen – I’m sure of it. Two hours she was gone. We searched for her everywhere. The only place she could have been was in that maze. And she comes back looking like this.

“Let’s go somewhere private to talk,” I say softly, reaching for her elbow.

She stares back at me, her gaze flicking ever so gently from side to side as if she’s attempting to peer deeper, see further, inside my soul, as if she’s weighing up whether she can trust me or not.

“No,” she says finally and something inside me cracks. And then before any of us knows it, she’s darting away and scurrying towards her tower.

“Should we go after her?” Dray asks.

I watch her wince as she leans against the heavy door and disappears inside. My chest feels tight and painful as if she took a knife and plunged it straight between my ribs.

She doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t trust any of us.

I almost laugh. Something hurt her in that maze – maybe even someone. It wasn’t us and yet she seems to think that we are the ones to fear.

Then, suddenly, I understand. The pain in my chest intensifies. She thinks we were responsible for whatever happened today.

But why? Why would she think that?

I screw up my face trying to make sense of it, trying to recall the argument last night, to go over what she told me, what she said. Her sister. Her sister’s death. All this mistrust, all this suspicion, this inability to be with us, stems back to that.

Why? Why the hell does she think her sister was murdered? It makes no sense at all.

“It’s time she knew,” Thorne says steely. He’s said more in the last two minutes than he has the last seven days.

I scrub my hand through my hair. My body and my magic still buzzes with the adrenaline of that trial. Sure, it wasn’t as challenging as I’d have liked. But it was still a lot of fun. That adrenaline was fading fast; the girl has reignited it.

How does she do this to me?

“I agree,” I say, “it’s time she knew.” I turn my back on the tower and stride away. “But not tonight.”

Tonight, I find out who the hell hurt her in that maze.

Then I’ll show her who was truly responsible.

And then I am going to make them pay for it.

Chapter Sixty-Six

Briony

I storm up the tower steps as fast as my legs carry me, my mind crashing around with a million thoughts.

I’ve always suspected there must be a reason the Princes chose me to be their thrall. It’s certainly not down to my ravishing good looks, dazzling personality or realm-beating abilities. There had to be another reason.

It seems I was right.