Eden Conquered by Joelle Charbonneau

Author:Joelle Charbonneau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2018-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

12

I will return.

The script on the note was shaky, but he knew the handwriting. He would know it anywhere. But it could not be real.

His throat tightened.

His leg buckled, and he fell onto cold stone.

He had seen his twin’s dead body. He had looked upon the disfigured face shredded by the claws of the Xhelozi. Blood and gore and bone framed by the almost white-blond hair—a color no woman in the court possessed save his sister, Carys.

Andreus read the words again.

He’d left her for dead.

He’d won.

But Carys was . . . alive?

Laughter bubbled up, echoing in the stairwell.

Someone had attacked him on the walls.

Council members were plotting against him, and he had no idea which ones.

He was beginning to suspect the woman he had loved had played him for a fool, and here he was—sitting and giggling.

The amusement faded.

At this moment, the note meant nothing. The throne was his, and it would not be wrested from him by those inside the walls or the Xhelozi beyond them. Even if Carys had somehow lived and escaped the castle, the withdrawal from the Tears of Midnight would have taken its toll on her body. She could not have gotten very far without help.

He thought of Trade Master Errik and Lord Garret. Neither of them had been seen since the night she disappeared. Maybe . . .

He shook his head. There was no way to know if this note was placed under the stone before or after that final Trial and, until there was proof otherwise, Carys was dead.

And yet, he had never felt her death.

When Carys broke her arm, Andreus swore he could feel an echo of her pain.

Carys always knew when he was having trouble breathing, even when no one else saw a hint of his secret.

After his sister’s betrayal during the Trials, he had been determined to cast her from his mind. But despite his anger, they were twins. Shouldn’t he have felt something when she died?

Shoving the complicated feelings aside, Andreus made his way to the battlements. The temperature had dropped since earlier in the evening when he had examined the lights on the walls. Graylem and the ladies stood just steps away, huddled in their cloaks. Andreus forced a smile and moved forward as the windmills rolled against the night sky.

Yesterday the mills had moved sluggishly. Today the creaking of the blades was slower still. The air felt stagnant. If he didn’t move fast, he could soon be fighting a war on two fronts—inside the Palace of Winds and on the Garden City walls. And right now, he was fighting it all on his own.

His swirling thoughts made it hard to focus on Demitria. He feigned interest in her admiration of the orb and his climb down the wall and subsequent race to retrieve the crown from the Tomb of Light. She pressed her body against his as she talked—something he would have been delighted to take advantage of just weeks ago. But when he pulled her close and kissed her and she caught fire in his arms, there was no rise of passion.

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