The Offering (8 page)

Eden would never admit as much, but I knew she'd enjoyed the childish endeavors. Zafir almost certainly would not. But he'd tolerate them all the same, because it was his duty to do so.

When I reached the top, my head poked through an opening in the rough-hewn floor, and I saw Angelina sitting cross-legged, staring at me. Her direct gaze made me aware of the fact that I hadn't snuck up on her at all, but rather that she'd been expecting me. Perhaps she'd known I'd been watching her all along.

It had always been hard to fool Angelina.

Her eyes never left me as I clambered the rest of the way inside, but she didn't flinch or try to move away from me, which I took as a good sign. We'd come to a truce, she and I, ever since I'd admitted to Sabara's existence inside me.

Angelina had already known, or suspected at least. She'd sensed the old queen's presence—her Essence still clinging to life within me—long before anyone else had realized it.

Maybe too she was aware that Sabara would be just as willing to take her as a host as me. Angelina's blood was just as royal as mine was.

She'd only have to say the words,
Sabara had uttered in my head time and time again, making it sound like mere sport—moving her Essence from body to body.

The words,
I thought. Those three simple words that would end Sabara's control over me once and for all. That would give me back my body.

“Take me instead.”

I'd already traded my life for Angelina's. And forcing anyone else to say the words was a potential death sentence, whoever she was. I was the first person to ever coexist with Sabara. The first royal to survive the transfer and to share a body with Sabara. Every other girl had simply . . . vanished, surrendering her body completely to Sabara's dark soul.

I couldn't do that to someone else.

I wouldn't do it.

“It's okay if I come up, isn't it?”

Angelina didn't answer, just blinked at me with those achingly beautiful blue eyes. But still she remained where she sat.

I came in anyway and settled down across from her, crossing my legs like she did. Looking around, I could see she spent a good deal of her time up here, and that it was roomier than it appeared from below.

The walls and the floors were unfinished mostly, but there was a small table, just about Angelina's size, and I couldn't help wondering how Eden had managed to sit at it. I imagined the tall woman scrunched up in one of the undersize chairs, with her legs bent and her back hunched over as Angelina chatted and clucked over her.

There were more ladders inside the fortress as well—boards, really—hammered into the enormous tree trunk in its center that led to another level, creating a small loft above us. Surrounded by more small chairs, there was a rug made from some sort of furry pelt. There were plates and cups, and drawings stuck to the walls, and the outline of a checkerboard that I recognized as a miniaturized court for playing Princes and
Pawns. This last item had been carved into the floorboards.

“Wow,” I breathed, more impressed than I should have been. I was suddenly envious of her hideaway and couldn't help wishing that
my
place were like this—hidden among the trees. Away from the palace walls.

Glancing her way again, I saw that her eyes were shining, and I saw her reach for something that was hidden behind her back. When her hand emerged, she was clutching Muffin, and she placed the threadbare rag doll tentatively on her lap. I felt a lump stick in my throat.

The last time I'd seen Muffin, the doll had been covered in blood that I'd thought surely had belonged to Angelina. Muffin looked no less tattered today than she had when I'd first given her to my sister, a hand-me-down from my own childhood.

I grinned at the both of them, wondering how in the world I was ever going to leave them. “I wasn't sure you even had her anymore,” I whispered.

Angelina eyed me doubtfully. “I'm never getting rid of her,” she stated matter-of-factly. “She's my best friend.”

Again I was so sorry for my sister. I wanted her to have
real
friends. Ones she could run and jump and laugh with, not just a beat-up rag doll she had to do all of the talking for.

“Angelina—” I started, but she interrupted me.

“You're leaving, aren't you?” Her blue eyes cut through me like no one else's, and not for the first time I had to ask myself just how far her powers of observation extended. Angelina had always had the ability to know who could and could not be trusted. It was how she'd known that Sabara had remained
inside me, that it was no longer just me anymore.

But this . . .

How could she know what I'd planned?

“Why would you say that?” I tried not to fidget, but her words made it difficult. Suddenly the floor felt too hard beneath me, the walls too close for comfort.

She cocked her head—it was such an Angelina thing to do, that simple gesture. So familiar that the lump in my throat grew larger. I'd missed her so much over the past months. I'd longed so many times to grab her up and squeeze her in my arms. To hold her and never let her go.

Yet here I was, trying to tell her farewell without revealing my plans.

“You . . .” She hesitated, pinching her tiny lips into a puckered flower as she concentrated, searching for the exact right words. “You just have that look. A good-bye look.” She frowned, her lower lip jutting out now. “I . . . don't like it, Charlie.”

A tiny gasp escaped my lips when I heard her utter my name. The last thing I wanted was to hurt my little sister. Not again. Not ever,
ever
again.

But here I was, preparing to lie to her too. To tell her that I had no intention of abandoning her.

I opened my mouth to do that very thing, to insist she was wrong, that I would never, ever leave her, but nothing came out. Instead I nodded.

“You can't tell,” I told her. “Not anyone.” I reached across and my hands closed over hers, my heart soaring when she didn't try to stop me. “But I have to go. I can't explain why, but
it's important, and it's a secret. Do you understand?”

She knew I was telling her the truth, and she nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “Am I going to have to be queen?”

I blinked once, and then more furiously, understanding full well the implication of her question. She was asking if I was coming back. She wanted to know if she'd be taking my place on the throne.

If she would ever see her sister again.

I tightened my hold on her hand, frowning as I bit my lip to keep from falling apart completely. “I don't know, Angelina. I'm going to try my very best to make it home. I'm taking Eden with me, and Eden's tough. She'll protect me. You know she will.” I wished I could promise her more, that I could guarantee the outcome. “But I promise you this, I will do whatever I have to do. No matter what. I'm going to do everything in my power to make it back to you.” I flinched at my own use of the word “power,” worrying that it would serve as a reminder to Angelina of what—
who 
—I was. That Sabara still resided within me.

Instead she considered my vow, and then nodded again, looking so much younger and so much more vulnerable than she had when I'd first climbed inside her tree house hideaway just a few minutes earlier. She crossed the space between us, and she and Muffin settled onto my lap. After a moment I felt her shudder, and then she asked, “Will you take care of her?”

The question took me by surprise. “Who? Eden?”

Angelina nodded, and I wondered if she was the one fighting tears now. I knew how close the two of them had grown
over the past few months, and I knew Angelina would miss her guardian.

I sighed and settled my chin on the top of her head, flyaway hairs tickling my lips and nose. “Of course I will. I'll do my very,
very
best to keep her safe.” But even as I said the words, I felt silly. Eden didn't need my protection.
I
was the one who needed
her
.

Angelina nodded again, accepting my word, and we sat there like that, in total silence for so long that the sky began to darken around us. I had just hours remaining before Eden and I would be gone. I inhaled the childhood scent of grass and dirt that seemed to cling to Angelina, and relished the feel of her warm body cocooned within the circle of mine. And even when my arms and legs cramped, I didn't move.

It wasn't until Zafir attempted to ascend the swaying rope ladder that either of us stirred.

Angelina glanced up at me from her spot in my lap. “Is he gonna be nice to me?”

A shiver ran down the length of my spine at the fact that she already knew he'd be taking Eden's place as her guard. But I smiled at the idea of Zafir trying to carry on a conversation with a five-year-old.

His head appeared through the opening and he glared at me. “Are you about finished, Your Majesty?”

Angelina untangled herself from me and crawled over to him, her gaze level with his. “Are you getting cranky, Zafir? Maybe you're hungry?”

His eyes widened as he stared back at Angelina, his expression changing from shock to confusion to . . . something else.
Something I almost swore was wry amusement. “No, Your Highness. I'm not hungry,” he intoned, more quietly for her benefit. “Just . . . impatient.”

Angelina turned back to me, her childlike concern taking over—as if she were fawning over a puppy or an injured bird. Her nose wrinkled as she tried to explain the situation to me. “We should get him a snack. He prob'ly needs a snack.”

I raised my brows at Zafir, trying not to giggle at the thought of this massive giant of a guard watching over my waif of a sister. Or rather, of her watching and fussing over him.

“Yes, Zafir. I think Angelina's right. I think a snack might do you good.”

“Charlie.” The sound of Brook saying my name sent prickles of foreboding over my skin. My emotions, after seeing Angelina, were far too close to the surface, and I worried that I might somehow give myself and my plans with Eden away if I had to face Brook now.

I stopped but didn't turn to her immediately. Instead I gave the new guard, a man who just hours earlier had been temporarily in charge of my sister, the signal to give us some privacy. He didn't leave us, but he pivoted away, affording us some confidentiality at least.

If it had been Zafir, I might not have even gotten that much. I had Angelina to thank for that, since she'd insisted on dragging Zafir to the kitchens to find him a biscuit or some sliced fruit, believing it was his empty stomach that made his scowl so ferocious.

I'd merely winked at him when he'd tried to protest, and had allowed him to be taken hostage by the five-year-old. They'd be fine together, the two of them, and I felt certain I'd made the right decision to entrust her to him.

“Look,” Brook breathed impatiently behind my back. “I get why you're mad at me,” she said, misreading my reason for not turning toward her. “And I—I probably deserve it. I've been . . .” She hesitated again, and I was taken off guard. It was unlike Brook to be so unsure of herself. The Brook I knew was confident and brazen, definitely not prone to stammering.

I craned my neck to see what had her all twisted up.

Her dark eyes were clouded, her delicate black brows furrowed into a tight bunch. “I've been confused. Ever since . . . well, since my father
died
.” She frowned even harder when she said the word “died,” as if he'd keeled over from natural causes. As if he hadn't been murdered by my hand. “It's not that I loved him, or even that I miss him, exactly. But . . .” Biting her lip, she paused, and I could read every bit of the confusion she'd just professed to.

I knew all this, of course. Brook's dad had been the reason she'd had no qualms about taking up with the resistance. He hadn't made her feel welcome at home, and Xander and his followers had given her a place to fit in. Taking up weapons had given her the opportunity to take out some of her aggression.

She scowled at me, and I waited for her to say something else. She opened her mouth, more than once, and closed it time and again, as if she were at a loss, as if she wanted to keep going but didn't know how.

After a few minutes Brook sighed, straightening her shoulders
and clearing her throat, and I realized our brief respite was over. “I have a message ready to go with word for the troops I have positioned near the border of Astonia. I can have them deployed and on their way to Queen Elena's palace within hours of receiving my command.” She didn't have to explain the geography again. She'd already spent hours with me and Max and countless ambassadors and generals pouring over the maps, and outlining where her forces were amassed and awaiting her order. I'd been so busy on the communications project that I hadn't realized how serious she'd been about preparing for war. The very idea that we were so close to setting things into motion terrified me. “All you have to do is give me the go-ahead.” Her dark eyes studied me closely, and I felt myself withering beneath the scrutiny.