Shadowfever
Page 113
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Barrons said nothing.
You should have left me to die where you found me, you bastard, she said bitterly. All you did was give me a life that made me want things I couldnt have.
I would have told her it wasnt like that at all. Barrons didnt feel that way about me, or about anyone, but before I could say a word, Fiona threw herself at the mirror.
I braced myself for her to slam into me.
I was that sure I wasnt the Unseelie King.
I was ready for the stench of her to assault my nostrils, her mutilated body to slam into mine. I would deflect her toward the bed, where I would stab her and put us all out of her misery, once and for all.
Fiona fell over dead the instant she touched the mirror.
Hello, Ms. Concubine, Barrons mocked.
Oh, if he only knew.
But Christian didnt tell him before we left, and neither did I.
33
CONS: Why Im not the king
1. I was a baby twenty-three years ago. I saw pictures of me, and I remember growing up. (Unless someone planted false memories.)
2. I dont even like the concubine. (Unless I fell out of love with her a long time ago.)
3. I dont feel like Im split into multiple human parts, and Ive never been attracted to women. (Unless Im repressing.)
4. I hate Fae, and especially Unseelie. (Am I overcompensating?)
5. If I were the king, wouldnt the Unseelie Princes have known me and not raped me? Wouldnt somebody recognize me or something?
6. Where have I been for six or seven hundred thousand years? And how could I not know about it? (Okay, so maybe somebody forced me to drink from the cauldron.)
PROS: things that make it look like I could be
1. I knew what the White Mansion looked like inside. I also knew every step I walked in the Unseelie prison. Same with knowing that Cruce had wings. I have a ton of knowledge I cant explain having. (Maybe somebody planted memories. If they can plant false ones, why not real ones?)
2. Ive been dreaming of the concubine all my life and, even though she was unconscious, she managed to summon me. (Maybe she was manipulating me in the Dreaming like she did the Keltars.)
3. I can conjure runes that are supposedly part of what was used to reinforce the Unseelie prison walls. (Not sure which column this goes in. Why would the king have helped?) (Maybe its part of my sidhe-seer gifts.)
4. The Book hunts me and plays with me like a cat worrying a mouse. (Cant think of a way out of this one. Theres obviously something different about me.)
5. KVruck poked at me mentally, then said, Ah, there you are. (WTF????)
6. I can go through the mirror that only the king and concubine can go through, and the queen is the concubine. Barrons cant. Fiona couldnt.
7. When I was in the White Mansion, I could see the concubine but not the king, which makes perfect sense if it was the kings memories I was living, because when youre remembering something, you dontsee yourself in the memory, you see who else was there and what happened around you.
I dropped my pen and snapped my journal shut. Daddy could have used those last two PROs to get me life without parole.
I needed to perform more experiments with the Silver. That was all there was to it. Once I proved someone else could go through, I could quit driving myself nuts.
Right, I muttered. More experiments. Sound like someone else we know? Like maybe an obsessed king that had experimented an entire race of monsters into being. There was no getting around a brutal fact: If my tests failed, my test subjects would die. Was I so desperate to exonerate myself that I was willing to become a murderer? Sure, Id killed a lot in the past few months, but in the heat of the fight, not premeditated, and Fiona had wanted to die.
A pure human would be the best test.
I could probably find someone hanging out at Chesters who was in love with dying. Or too drunk to
Was I losing my humanity? Or had I always been a little short to begin with?
I clutched my head and groaned.
Suddenly every muscle in my body tensed as if standing up in greeting, even though I didnt move. Barrons. I dropped my hands and raised my head.
Ms. Lane. He took a chair across from me with such eerie grace that I wondered how Id ever believed he was human. He poured himself into the brocade wing chair, like water over stone, before settling into sleek muscle. He moved as if he knew where everything in the room was, in precise measurements. He didnt walk, stalk, or prowl; he glided with flawless awareness of all other atoms in relation to his. It made it easy for him to conceal himself behind inanimate objects and to assume a similar structure or something.
Have you always moved like that in front of me and I just never noticed? Was I oblivious?
No and yes. You were oblivious. Head up that tight pink ass. But I never moved this way in front of you. His look dripped sexual innuendo. I might have moved this way a time or two behind you.
Not hiding anything from me anymore?
I wouldnt go that far.
What does someone like you conceal?
Wouldnt you like to know? His glittering eyes raked me with a hard once-over.
It had been nearly a week since wed killed Fiona in the Silvers, and my wardrobe was giving me more fits than ever. I was wearing distressed black leather pants with a tattooed gray grunge element and my favorite baby-doll pink tee that said Im a JUICY girl across the front and had chiffon cap sleeves. Id tied a Goth scarf around my blond curls and had on a pair of Alinas dangling heart earrings. My fingernails had grown out and Id done a French manicure on my hands, and but Id painted my toenails black. The dichotomy didnt end there. I had on a black lace thong and a pink-and-white-striped cotton bra. I was having issues.
You should have left me to die where you found me, you bastard, she said bitterly. All you did was give me a life that made me want things I couldnt have.
I would have told her it wasnt like that at all. Barrons didnt feel that way about me, or about anyone, but before I could say a word, Fiona threw herself at the mirror.
I braced myself for her to slam into me.
I was that sure I wasnt the Unseelie King.
I was ready for the stench of her to assault my nostrils, her mutilated body to slam into mine. I would deflect her toward the bed, where I would stab her and put us all out of her misery, once and for all.
Fiona fell over dead the instant she touched the mirror.
Hello, Ms. Concubine, Barrons mocked.
Oh, if he only knew.
But Christian didnt tell him before we left, and neither did I.
33
CONS: Why Im not the king
1. I was a baby twenty-three years ago. I saw pictures of me, and I remember growing up. (Unless someone planted false memories.)
2. I dont even like the concubine. (Unless I fell out of love with her a long time ago.)
3. I dont feel like Im split into multiple human parts, and Ive never been attracted to women. (Unless Im repressing.)
4. I hate Fae, and especially Unseelie. (Am I overcompensating?)
5. If I were the king, wouldnt the Unseelie Princes have known me and not raped me? Wouldnt somebody recognize me or something?
6. Where have I been for six or seven hundred thousand years? And how could I not know about it? (Okay, so maybe somebody forced me to drink from the cauldron.)
PROS: things that make it look like I could be
1. I knew what the White Mansion looked like inside. I also knew every step I walked in the Unseelie prison. Same with knowing that Cruce had wings. I have a ton of knowledge I cant explain having. (Maybe somebody planted memories. If they can plant false ones, why not real ones?)
2. Ive been dreaming of the concubine all my life and, even though she was unconscious, she managed to summon me. (Maybe she was manipulating me in the Dreaming like she did the Keltars.)
3. I can conjure runes that are supposedly part of what was used to reinforce the Unseelie prison walls. (Not sure which column this goes in. Why would the king have helped?) (Maybe its part of my sidhe-seer gifts.)
4. The Book hunts me and plays with me like a cat worrying a mouse. (Cant think of a way out of this one. Theres obviously something different about me.)
5. KVruck poked at me mentally, then said, Ah, there you are. (WTF????)
6. I can go through the mirror that only the king and concubine can go through, and the queen is the concubine. Barrons cant. Fiona couldnt.
7. When I was in the White Mansion, I could see the concubine but not the king, which makes perfect sense if it was the kings memories I was living, because when youre remembering something, you dontsee yourself in the memory, you see who else was there and what happened around you.
I dropped my pen and snapped my journal shut. Daddy could have used those last two PROs to get me life without parole.
I needed to perform more experiments with the Silver. That was all there was to it. Once I proved someone else could go through, I could quit driving myself nuts.
Right, I muttered. More experiments. Sound like someone else we know? Like maybe an obsessed king that had experimented an entire race of monsters into being. There was no getting around a brutal fact: If my tests failed, my test subjects would die. Was I so desperate to exonerate myself that I was willing to become a murderer? Sure, Id killed a lot in the past few months, but in the heat of the fight, not premeditated, and Fiona had wanted to die.
A pure human would be the best test.
I could probably find someone hanging out at Chesters who was in love with dying. Or too drunk to
Was I losing my humanity? Or had I always been a little short to begin with?
I clutched my head and groaned.
Suddenly every muscle in my body tensed as if standing up in greeting, even though I didnt move. Barrons. I dropped my hands and raised my head.
Ms. Lane. He took a chair across from me with such eerie grace that I wondered how Id ever believed he was human. He poured himself into the brocade wing chair, like water over stone, before settling into sleek muscle. He moved as if he knew where everything in the room was, in precise measurements. He didnt walk, stalk, or prowl; he glided with flawless awareness of all other atoms in relation to his. It made it easy for him to conceal himself behind inanimate objects and to assume a similar structure or something.
Have you always moved like that in front of me and I just never noticed? Was I oblivious?
No and yes. You were oblivious. Head up that tight pink ass. But I never moved this way in front of you. His look dripped sexual innuendo. I might have moved this way a time or two behind you.
Not hiding anything from me anymore?
I wouldnt go that far.
What does someone like you conceal?
Wouldnt you like to know? His glittering eyes raked me with a hard once-over.
It had been nearly a week since wed killed Fiona in the Silvers, and my wardrobe was giving me more fits than ever. I was wearing distressed black leather pants with a tattooed gray grunge element and my favorite baby-doll pink tee that said Im a JUICY girl across the front and had chiffon cap sleeves. Id tied a Goth scarf around my blond curls and had on a pair of Alinas dangling heart earrings. My fingernails had grown out and Id done a French manicure on my hands, and but Id painted my toenails black. The dichotomy didnt end there. I had on a black lace thong and a pink-and-white-striped cotton bra. I was having issues.
