“Do you see now?” Asha asks, her tone bitter. “They will use those you love against you without a second thought.”
“But Jasce wouldn’t. He could not have done this.” The very thought of Jasce using my family against me sears through me like a white-hot blade, cutting deep into the tender places I’ve tried so hard to protect.
“Of course he would. And he did.” Her words are like a slap, stinging and cruel.
Jude stiffens, but he doesn’t speak.
“You’re wrong,” I say, clinging to the hope that there has been some mistake, that Jasce isn’t capable of such cruelty.
“This is what they do,” she says, each word a barbed arrow aimed straight at my heart. “They take and take until there’s nothing left but ash and bone.”
I stare down at the note again, trying to make sense of it. The last time I saw Emerin, she was walking through that portal with Arian. Surely, she’s in Bakva right now. She has to be.
“Ash.” I summon every ounce of courage within me and meet her gaze, my eyes pleading with the same intensity as my words. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t attack Sharhavva. Just go back home.Please.”
“I will go home when I have your husband’s head on a pike.”
Coldness washes over me, as if she had picked me up and slammed me into a river of ice. The chill seeps into my bones, my blood, my heart.
“Asha.” I stumble back a step, my legs threatening to give out beneath me.
“Go,” she says, her tone devoid of any warmth or sympathy. “Crawl back to him.”
Jude takes hold of my arm and leads me from the tent. I follow him numbly, placing one foot in front of the other.
Nothing I said or did made a difference. My words, my pleas, my desperate attempts to reason with her—all of it was in vain.
And now thousands will die.
* * *
Jasce looksup from his desk strewn with maps and scrolls as I enter his study next to Jude. His eyes widen in surprise at the sight of me.
“Annora.” He rises so quickly his chair overturns behind him. “What happened?”
I thrust the note toward him. “Tell me this isn’t true.”
He takes the letter from me and scans the words, his brow furrowing with each passing second. “This wasn’t by my command. I would never use your family, Annora.”
I lock my shaky hands together. “If you didn’t take Emerin, then who did?”
“I don’t know.” Determination fortifies Jasce’s words as he continues. “But I will find out.”
Is Emerin missing because Jasce brought her here to heal me? The thought gnaws at my mind, twisting my insides into knots. Or is someone just playing a cruel trick on me, trying to sow seeds of doubt about Jasce’s intentions?
Jasce turns to Jude. “Has Arian returned?”
“I haven’t seen her,” Jude says.
Frustration sparks in Jasce’s eyes as he rakes a hand through his hair. “Fuck! I knew I should have sent Reeve with her, but Arian was so adamant she could handle taking Emerin back to Bakva on her own.”
“You know how Arian is,” Jude says. “She’s always flitting about from one place to the next. She could be anywhere right now.”
A sinking feeling settles in my gut like a stone. Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. Emerin’s disappearance, Arian’s absence...it’s too much of a coincidence.
My stomach twists painfully as I remember Asha’s cruel words.“House of Silver is dead to you.”
No!
