Beauty and pain go hand in hand, my father always said. For an instant, I fantasize about making Raffaele feel the pain that he’s giving to me, forcing him to cower before me in agony. How satisfying that would be. My energy swells in anticipation. Then I recoil in horror at the spark of joy I felt at such a depraved act. He’s right about me. He’s always been right.
Raffaele tightens his lips. Tears no longer shine in his eyes. Maybe I imagined them all along. “You can stay the night here,” he says. “But in the morning, you and your sister need to leave. It is my job to protect the Daggers, and I no longer feel that we can be safe with you among us. I’m sorry.”
He’s casting me out. I’m no longer one of them.
Darkness swirls within me, washing at the shores of my consciousness. I see all the times I trained with Enzo, how he saved my life and took me in, how we kissed, the glow of his silhouette in the darkness, the way his hair would fall, loose and unruly, over his shoulders, his gentle expression. Then I see the stormy night when my father made a deal to sell me, the first time I called on my illusions in the middle of pouring rain, the real reason why Enzo chose to save me on my execution day, all the times I was hurt and abused, left behind and abandoned, the iron stake and the fire and the people chanting below, wishing me dead and gone, Teren’s pale eyes staring back at me, the Daggers, my training, Dante’s sneering face, Raffaele’s betrayal. The ambition churning in me reaches its peak, displacing my sorrow, fusing with my anger and hate and fear, my passion and curiosity. The whispers that lurk in the back of my mind now claw their way out into the open, their fingers long and bony, gleeful for the freedom I’m giving them. Are the Daggers any different from your father, who wanted to sell you to settle his debts? they hiss at me. From Teren, who wanted to use you to get to the Daggers? Even the training cavern, hidden underground, was not a far stretch from the Inquisition’s dungeons.
Perhaps I’d simply switched one dark prison cell for another. No one ever gives me their kindness without hoping for something in exchange.
Are they any different?
Are they all the same?
They all want to use you, use you, use you until they get what they want, and then they will toss you aside.
Everything Raffaele saw in me on my testing day is true. Together, my alignments with energy swirl inside me, shifting and powerful. I am shaking.
Raffaele feels the rising power in me, because a note of fear hovers over him. Still, he doesn’t move. He faces me with grim determination, refusing to back down. Don’t. Concentrate. Control it. The only way to clamp down on my energy is to erase my emotions, and so I fold them each away, one by one. My sorrow turns to anger, then to ice-cold fury. My soul curls in on itself in defense. I am gone. I am truly gone.
I am not sorry.
“You have no right to judge me,” I whisper, looking around at the others. “You belong to a society that thrives on murder. You’re no better.”
Raffaele only returns my look with his level gaze. He nods at the others to leave. Lucent starts to protest, then sighs and casts me one last glare before following Gemma and Michel out the door. Raffaele and I are the only ones left in the room. For a moment, however brief, the gentleness on his face fades away to reveal something hard and dark.
“Murder is a means to an end,” he finally says, tilting his head slightly at me. This time, the gesture looks more cunning than flirtatious. “Not an activity of pleasure.”
If you cast me out of the Dagger Society, then I will form my own. I am tired of losing. I am tired of being used, hurt, and tossed aside.
It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.
My turn.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say. My voice emerges flat and cold. The voice of someone new. “By not killing me now.”
“No,” Raffaele replies. “I’m not.”
He finally stands. His hand separates from mine. He walks toward the door with his signature grace, then stops right before it.
“Adelina,” he says, turning. The look in his eyes threatens to break me. “I loved him too.”
Then he leaves me, and I am truly alone.
I pledge myself to the Rose Society until the end of my days,
to use my eyes to see all that happens, my tongue to woo others to
our side, my ears to hear every secret, my hands to crush my enemies. I will do everything in my power to destroy all who stand in my way.
—The Rose Society Official Initiation Pledge, by Adelina Amouteru
Adelina Amouteru
Night has fallen, and it is quiet again. Out in the estate gardens, a few candles flicker in mourning for Enzo. I don’t know where the other Daggers are; perhaps they’ve long ago left this place. Perhaps they’ve fled to the Skylands, where Beldain might give them shelter. Tomorrow morning, things will be different—the uprising has been crushed, Giulietta will rule as the queen of Kenettra, and Teren will bring his wrath down on all malfettos. Enzo’s supporters have gone into hiding to lick their wounds. Violetta and I will flee Estenzia. Where we’ll go, I’m not sure. I’ll settle in another port capital, perhaps, one far from here. Maybe I’ll start my own society to strike back against Teren. Maybe we’ll run across other Young Elites. The Daggers can’t be the only ones.
I sit before the mirror of my vanity in my chamber, leaning weakly against my chair. My chest wound hurts every time I breathe. The knife tucked into my boot is my only remaining weapon, and now I take it out and set it on the vanity’s surface, its point facing me. Through the window, I can see the dark blue silhouettes of the estate gardens. Enzo walks down there, gliding through the grass surrounding the main fountains. His sapphire robes trail behind him. I know he’s not real, that it’s only another vision that I cannot control.