Page 143 of The Fifth Life of Alicia
With one touch of her hand, everything ceased to exist except her.
I feared I was coming to rely on her too much. She awoke every protective instinct inside me, yet I was becoming all too accustomed to stepping back and letting her protect me in her own way.
Like she’d done with Torin and Lady Lillia before we set off on the hunt.
I’d never expected Allie to speak to Torin that way—fiancée or not, she wouldn’t hold the position of the second highest woman in the empire until we were officially married, and she knew that. Yet she hadn’t held back.
She’d made her position clear.
He’d lost.
She didn’t seem to care that he’d outright said he wanted her as his wife and so did the Empress. She’d told him where he stood with her in no uncertain terms, but I knew that didn’t mean they’d give up.
In fact, she’d probably just spurred them on.
Which made Lady Lillia’s interest in me problematic. I had no doubt that Torin had noticed, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he and Eudocia roped her into whatever they were currently scheming to get Allie on their side. I needed to avoid that at all costs.
I needed to avoidher.
This Lillia. Whoever the hell she was.
There was something about that woman that had bothered Allie ever since Baroness Kilgard had introduced her to us. No matter what Allie said to me, I wasn’t stupid, nor was I blind.
She’d been shaken at the mere sight of Lady Lillia.
I didn’t believe the story about knowing someone who looked like her. Allie was a terrible liar, and she’d been far too interested in how I felt about Lady Lillia for it to be a fleeting thought of hers.
What was it that upset her so much?
Was it as simple as she said, or did it have to do with her drunken mumblings? At that time, she’d been adamant that I would fall in love with Lillia and leave her, but the very idea of that was reprehensible.
Where had she even gotten that idea? She’d rambled on about a book, but none of it had made sense. I’d written it off as alcohol-induced rambling, but now, it bugged me in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.
Somehow, she knew Lillia de Armand. For some strange reason, she was adamant I would fall in love with that woman and, worse, lead Allie herself to her death.
Why?
How did she know her?
What made her think those things?
And what the hell did a book have to do with it?
The only thing that remotely pleased me about her drunken ramblings was her insistence that Alicia Vermillion would fall in love with me.
The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned.
If she fell in love with me, then perhaps she’d dismiss her ridiculous idea of delaying our marriage.
Was the reason for that—settling in in Stein—even the truth? Or had she lied? If her insistence that I’d fall for Lillia came from a place of premonition thanks to her ability to wield divine power, I couldn’t deny the possibility that she’d walked into this engagement having already set an end date for it.
What did Allie know that I didn’t?
I rode into the small clearing and dismounted, then grabbed my bow and loaded an arrow, aiming ahead. I pulled back the string and released it, and the arrow whooshed through the air, slamming into the tree trunk a mere half inch above Ezra’s head.
“What the—” He woke with a start and grabbed his head, throwing himself to the side. “What was that for, you bastard?”
“Is that how you speak to your superior?” I put my bow back and glared down at him. “That was only half an inch above your head, you know.”
