Vincent replied to her with a straight face, with both hands behind his back. Seeing this, Jessica realised that he still hasn't gotten over the way she acted the other day.“What’s wrong? Are you mad at me?” She asked, pretending not to know what she did.“No Jessica, why would I be mad at you?” He replied, maintaining the look on his straight face.“Come on Vin, it’s not like that”“You see….Something came up and I was in a very bad mood that day”“I didn’t mean all that, you know I still love y….Enough! Vincent interrupted her before she could end her sentence.“Look Vincent” She said as she slowly took his arm and looked straight into his eyes.“Do you mind if we talk about this over a drink….or two?”“I do not wish to drink with…..We both owe each other explanations” Her convincing voice left him no other choice but to agree.He wanted to know what stupid excuse she had already cooked up to serve him.She led him to the lounge and walked over to the bartender to get drinks for
Vincent spent the last few days of their vacation on the cruise ship in guilt.He had pleaded with Jessica over and over again never to let Jane know what had transpired between them and she reluctantly agreed.Vincent wanted to explain it to Jane himself, but the fear of losing her to a slight misunderstanding prohibited him. Surprisingly, she never spoke to Jane and she also never bothered Vincent again.But he couldn’t help but feel guilty whenever Jane was around him.And each time he came across Jessica, all the blood in his body dried up as he began to boil with so much anger and clench his fists tightly.He regretted ever meeting her at the party that day.He regretted ever inviting her on this cruise ship vacation.She was crazy, deranged and out of her mind.How could he have been so stupid?Was he so blind that he couldn’t read between the lines the entire time?How was he compelled to even sit down and have a drink with the enemy?Vincent couldn't stop asking himself these
“Tell her I’ll be down soon”Miss. Marie turned back to to show that she heard his request ”Yes Sir”Vincent quickly went to freshen up and put on good clothes.He came downstairs eager to meet Jane.He walked into the sitting area to meet a female figure that backed him, staring at one of the portraits on the wall and running her fingers through an animal sculpture that stood in the hall.“You didn’t tell me you were coming over,” Vincent said with a smile as he slowly walked over to where she stood.“Wasn’t necessary” Vincent’s eyes widened in shock as he immediately recognized this familiar voice that spoke back.“What are you doing here?” Vincent asked impatiently as he slowly started to get furious.“What are you doing in my house!”Jessica calmly turned back to look at a raging Vincent.“Calm down,” She replied in a soft voice.Her words made him even more angry.She had so much guts to even show up at his place with not a single hint of shame on her face.“Relax, I come with b
Vincent was completely confused, he had no idea how to handle the situation.He started pacing back and forth in the room, scratching the back of his head.The deed had already been done and there was no use putting blames on anyone.Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.Vincent froze, having an idea of who he thought it might be.“Oh no, wrong timing!”Seeing the look on Vincent’s face, Jessica immediately realised who was at the door.“Won’t you get the door?”Having to watch Vincent express shock and disbelief for a while now, Jessica rolled her eyes in disdain.She stood up to open the door and immediately replaced the look on her face with a smile when she saw who she was expecting.“Jane…” Jessica squealed in a high pitched voice as she attempted to hug Jane who reluctantly returned her hug in confusion.“What is she doing here?” Jane questioned herself as she slowly trailed b
Vincent spent the rest of the evening wallowing in misery.He was in a very bad mood and he felt so terrible.He tried calling Jane’s phone number multiple times, but her phone was switched off.He decided to go to her house and talk to her the next day.The next day, very early in the morning Vincent set off for Ms. Anna’’s residence.He turned down Samuel’s offer of driving him, instead he drove himself.The minute he arrived, he didn’t bother driving into the building.He alighted the car and hurriedly walked in.He knocked on the main entrance for a while until it was answered by Ms. Anna who welcomed him in with a void expression on her face Unlike the way she usually did in the past, ushering him in with a smile.Noticing this, Vincent realised that Jane must’ve already told her mother what transpired the previous day.She asked him to sit, which he did while she went to get him
Vincent headed home right after he finished the glass of wine he poured for himself.The only thing he had on his mind at that moment was how to uncover the truth.He so badly wanted to confront Jessica but he knew that if he did, it could ruin everything.She would get alarmed and would quickly attempt to cover up her tracks.That evening when Vincent got home he paced continuously around his room.After pondering on the issue for a while, he realised that the only way to get any form of clue or proof was to get a hold of Jessica’s phone. Vincent knew Jessica well enough to know that she was always with both her phones, she never let go of them and she never let them out of her sight or grip either.Getting Jessica’s phone from her seemed like an almost impossible task, but he was willing to do anything to free himself from her shackles and at any cost.He had to get his hands on that phone as soon as possible.While Vincent was still pacing in his room, he heard a knock on the door
They maintained the loud silence in the room for a while until Vincent walked back to his seat looking unbothered “Fine then". Now he was certain about which phone contained the information he needed but he still hads to check them both. He went off to bring them a drink and two glasses On his way back to the main parlour, Vincent felt something vibrate in the left pocket of his shorts. It was his phone. When he got back to the main parlour, he dropped the wine and glasses on the table in the middle of the room. Vincent brought his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. It was a notification from a messaging app, he tapped it to see a P*F that Jessica had just sent him. He opened it and studied its contents carefully. According to the test results, Jessica was actually pregnant but were these results even real? Vincent wondered to himself because he knew Jessica very well and there was absolutely nothing that she couldn't go out of her way to do. “How am I sure
Vincent had successfully gotten himself stuck in this sticky situation.What could her password possibly be?When she wakes up, she would eventually realise that she had been drugged and he would be at a very big disadvantage if he is unable to achieve his aim.A thought came to his mind and he decided to try the closest thing to a four digit pin password.He entered her birth year but he was immediately notified that the pin was not correct.Seeing how close she was to her father, Vincent decided to try his birth year, but he got the same message.A notification that the pin was incorrect.Vincent wanted to go through her handbag but that was completely off the charts, he saw such a violation.Just as he was about to try another pin, a message popped up on the screen, notifying him that he had one more attempt to make.At this point, the worst that could happen was that the phone could go into anti theft mode and wipe off everything on the drive.Vincent was very certain that it was
Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr