Chapter 155: 155-Secrets laid bare (2)
Zolani flipped through the air and landed neatly on her feet.
She straightened, dusting dirt and stone from her clothes as if being hurled through a wall were nothing more than an inconvenience and then she smirked.
"Is that all?" she asked. "Or are you saving the screaming for later?"
Her eyes gleamed. "Come on, Addessa. Who’s got your whiskers in a twist? Did mommy carve out a few more names on your hand?"
She laughed and the sound cut through the air like a blade. Addessa’s anger shot through the roof, dragging grief up with it. The old, raw ache she had spent so long turning into purpose.
The moment the hive-link opened, she learned everything. Zolani had reported her to her mother and was the reason for reopening her wounds. That alone was enough to ignite her fury.
But then came the other truth that Zolani had known was like fuel added to the fire. She had known for a long time that Maisa was an Everheart: the very family responsible for killing Addessa’s brother and plunging her life into a nightmare and she had kept it from her.
"You knew," Addessa said. The words trembled once before she forced them still.
Zolani’s smirk deepened. "Knew what?"
"What she was."
For the first time, amusement drained from Zolani’s face. "Addessa..." she acted like she sympathized but with her humanity off, her act wasn’t fooling anyone.
"You stood beside me." Addessa took one step forward. Cracks spread beneath her boots. "You watched me grieve. You watched me hunt them. You watched me tear myself apart."
"Let me explain... I have a very good reason," she didn’t have one and they all knew it because they had seen into her head.
"You knew," the words came out quieter this time and that was worse.
For one terrible instant, Addessa wondered whether she had been wrong to trust anyone at all, whether every hand reaching for her had only been guiding her toward another betrayal.
Zolani’s eyes flicked toward the fractures spreading through the stone. "Addessa, don’t do this," her eyes shook as she foresaw the storm Addessa was about to reign down on her.
"You let me trust you."
Heat gathered around Addessa’s hands. At first it was only a shimmer, a wavering distortion in the air. Then the dust at her feet began to smolder.
Zolani’s posture tightened. "I was trying to protect you," she started feeling for her water.
"No." Addessa’s gaze locked onto hers. Beneath the rage, something in her faltered; some last, desperate hope that Zolani might say the one thing that could make this hurt less. "You were protecting her."
The fire brightened.
Zolani took a cautious step back, but Addessa matched her, closing the distance until the heat pressed against Zolani’s skin.
"You don’t understand."
"I understand that you lied to me and kept me in the dark and used me. I understand that you would do anything to avenge your sister even if it means throwing me under the bus..."
"You wanted her ruined and started going soft," she moved her face away from the flame. "I was simply reminding that she’s a common enemy. If anything you should thank me."
"Oh?"
"And what if I told you about the truth?" Zolani snapped. "You would have marched into an Everheart stronghold alone and let your grief finish what they started?"
Addessa’s jaw tightened. "Don’t dress your betrayal up as mercy, Zolani."
Zolani’s bravado cracked. "I kept you alive."
"You kept me blind."
Flames curled between Addessa’s fingers, thin and hungry, licking at the air without making a sound. The silence around them deepened, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Zolani lifted her hands, ready to defend herself, but she didn’t strike. Not yet.
"Addessa," she said, no longer mocking. "Put it out."
Addessa tilted her head. Her eyes burned brighter than the fire gathering around her, though tears stung behind them and she refused to let them fall.
"You’re gonna regret existing, Zolani," she said, her voice strangely tired.
Zolani’s breath caught. Addessa saw the instant she understood that this was no longer a threat, no longer grief spilling over into anger. The flames were already reaching for her and then the flames erupted.
"Addessa, we can talk this..."
Addessa moved. The air snapped around her as she crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, appearing directly before Varitreya with barely an inch between them. Dust spiraled around her boots, tugged into the wake of her power.
Their eyes locked. For once, the warden seemed to forget that the woman before her was her princess—that they were master and servant, bound by rank, duty, and responsibility.
"I still haven’t evened the score with you for keeping the true heart book secret," Addessa said coldly. "So stay out of my way."
Varitreya’s expression hardened. She was angry too. All she had done was keep one book’s secret, yet they treated her as though she had committed treason. When her secret was nothing compared to theirs.
"Oh, really?" she snapped. "You want to talk about betrayal after spending weeks treating me like a weapon with a pulse?"
The ground bucked beneath them. Cracks raced through the packed earth from Varitreya’s feet, splitting stones and sending a tremor through the village.
Addessa’s stance shifted as the earth rolled under her, but she held her ground.
"What about all the games you’ve played with me?" Varitreya drove one hand toward the earth.
Her power surged outward in a violent wave. Walls shuddered. Roof tiles clattered loose. Dust burst from the road as the entire village lurched beneath them.
Addessa was thrown backward several feet, skidding through the dirt before catching herself with one hand. She rose at once, power gathering around her fingers.
Frustration burned in Varitreya’s eyes, long buried and finally breaking free.
"What?" she demanded. "Did you think it would stay a secret forever?"
She swept her arm sideways. A ridge of earth heaved up between them. Addessa vaulted over it as it collapsed behind her, landing hard enough to scatter pebbles across the road.
"Am I a toy you use whenever it suits your plans? Something you point at your enemies when you need blood spilled?" She questioned. "You dragged me into your mother’s agenda, you used me to hurt Maisa and advance your own plans. Don’t pretend I was ever more than a convenient blade to you, Addie."
Her carefully maintained mask cracked. For once, she stopped speaking like a princess forced to take the high road by the crown.
"Have you no will to keep living?" she demanded. "Is that why you keep throwing everyone else into danger?"
The air around Addessa compressed with a sharp, ringing pressure. Her power flared in answer, bending the dust into a tight spiral at her feet.
"I should be the one who’s upset!" Lumi finally shouted, snapping under the weight of everything that had happened. "You’re all so busy tearing each other apart that none of you noticed I am the one whose most hurt."
Lumi’s hands moved as she braced against the trembling ground, the air flickering across the cracks at her feet.
"Oh, shut up, nerd!" Varitreya, Addessa, and Zolani snapped in unison.
Lumi’s mouth fell open.
All four faced one another, armed and tense, their powers simmering beneath their skin as emotion overwhelmed the last of their restraint.
None was willing to back down.
The air tightened around them. Dust hung motionless. The village seemed to hold its breath beneath the pressure of four gathering forces. Earth, fire, air and water.
Varitreya slowly straightened, her gaze sweeping across the three women before settling into something cold and regal.
"I think it’s time you all remembered that I am royalty..."
The earth answered her as power erupted from beneath her, lifting broken stones into the air and driving them into a slow orbit around her body.
"...and I will be treated as such. I will not be ordered around, used, or blamed by people who remember my title only when they want something from me. You do not get to strip me of my authority, spend my life like currency, and then demand obedience when your schemes collapse."
Then she attacked. The stones shot outward as the ground split beneath her. The others moved at the exact same moment.
"Let Felor be your burial ground!"