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EMBER POV
The air in the chamber was thick with the scent of ozone and cooling sweat. Evander hadn't put me down from the moment he carried me. We passed through the halls, his grip was so tight I felt the bruises from the guards lash stoking fresh fires across my back.
The moment the heavy oak door of his bedchamber slammed shut, the silence was deafening. He set me on the edge of the bed, but I scrambled back instantly, my fingers white-knuckled as I clutched the torn, ruined silk of his mother's dress against my chest. My skin was cold, shivering from the situation that happened in Cassian's room.
"Why did you leave?!" Evander asked, looking at me. He paced the length of the rug, his boots thudding against the stone, his hands clenching and unclenching. "I told you those halls were a death trap! Why don't you listen to me?"
"Because you're the one who put me in the trap!" I screamed back. My voice cracked, raw from the screaming I'd done in the courtyard. "You look at me and see a cure, Evander! You see a leash for your madness! You didn't save me from Silas in the woods just to let your brother hunt me in your own halls!"
He was quiet and maintained posture. I couldn't read his expression. He was just standing like a statue.
"Did you bring me here to let your brother kill me?" I asked in a harsh tone. I was done playing the good girl.
He stopped, turning his head so sharply I heard his neck crack. The silver in his eyes was swirling, the black veins of the madness beginning to map their way across his jaw. "All I did was accept your father's request, …..all I did was to clear the debt he owed me."
"My father wouldn't have had a debt to pay if you hadn't demanded a sacrifice!" I stood up, the ruined silk slipping through my fingers as I pointed a shaking hand at his chest. "If you hadn't accepted me in place of my brother, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be in this tomb, being mocked by your maids and cornered by your brother, You brought this on me!"
Evander stepped into my space, his shadow eclipsing the candlelight. He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling of iron and woodsmoke.
"It was your father who sold you, Ember. Not me." His voice was a low, dangerous vibration. "He had a choice to fight, or to offer Ronan or even something else. instead, he handed me a name and a girl he kept hidden in his kitchens like a shameful secret.
Don't blame the buyer for the cruelty of the seller."
"And what does that make you?" I hissed, my tears finally spilling over, hot and bitter. "A man who buys 'mistakes' from kitchen floors and expects them to cure his curse?"
I watch his face harden.
You ruined my life, Evander. You shouldn't have accepted me in place of Ronan."
He stared at me, his chest heaving. For a moment I felt like he was feeling remorse but then he turned to a wicked cold smile.
"Your life in that pack was a slow death, little light. At least here, you're the most important thing in the kingdom. Because without you, I am a monster. And if I am a monster….. then everyone dies!!
He turned on his heel, the heavy bolt of the door clicking into place as he walked out.