A House Divided by Nicole Ciacchella (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📕

"One," the dark-haired woman said. She strutted from one person to the next, making a circuit of the meeting's attendees. Every one of them stiffened at her approach. "One of our House members doesn't want to be a good little boy and tow the line. He's asking questions. Uncomfortable questions."

"Get on with it, Farla," the other man growled. "How close is he?"

"Rather closer than anyone else has been," she said. "I can't help but admire his tenacity, to be honest."

"You sound smug for someone who was so worried about our miner friends a moment ago," the light-haired woman noted.

"That's because I, like my good friend Daerwyn here, know how to deal with the members of my House who run amok," she said.

"It's come to that?" Elder Borean asked, sounding weary.

"Like your man Stowley, I'm afraid the boy is starting to connect too many of the dots, wondering how the poor royals—"

"Enough," the light-haired woman said, moving aggressively toward the dark-haired one. "We get your point. Take care of it, as Elder Borean and Daerwyn did."

Cianne's blood ran cold, and she felt so faint she had to clutch the beam, her lungs burning as the force compressed her chest. A violent shiver tore through her, and she clamped her mouth shut to prevent her teeth from chattering. The floor of the warehouse seemed to rush toward her and then away, toward her and away again.

"Mustn't forget dear Moiria," Farla, the dark-haired woman, said. "But, then, I suppose she has you to turn to, doesn't she, Daerwyn? So sad when one can't keep one's spouse in line."

Rage swept through Cianne, mingling with the fear until her pulse pounded with such force she felt her head might burst. She wanted to scream, wanted to tear every beam from the rafters and collapse the building in on its occupants, even if it meant she would be crushed along with them.

"…can't afford to allow ourselves to be divided," Elder Borean was saying, his voice sharp. He sounded as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Screwing her eyes closed, Cianne pressed her face to the beam, a splinter biting into her cheek. She forced her eyes open again, forced herself to watch and listen. "We've held ourselves together for twenty years. We can't stop now."

"Oh, wouldn't the other Houses love that? Wouldn't the nobles?" the other man said.

"Never let yourselves forget that any one of the players would gladly throw another to the wolves, allow them to take the fall," Daerwyn added in a low voice.

"Find that leverage," Farla said to the fair-haired woman. "Despite what the rest of you may believe, we cannot make coin appear out of thin air. We have a great deal of it, yes, but there's only so much to go around."

With that, the meeting dispersed, the attendees heading out one at a time, using both the north and south entrances. Still clinging to her beam, Cianne didn't move a muscle. She couldn't have even if she had tried. She was paralyzed, her limbs locked into place even as the warehouse seemed to whirl around her. The meeting attendees took their lanterns with them, plunging the building into darkness, and she allowed her tears to fall while she waited for her eyes to adjust.

Peeling herself from the beam at last, Cianne's knees shook as she rose into a crouch. She dashed at her face with her hand, forcing herself to breathe.

I must get to Kila's, she told herself. I have to get there undetected and tell him what I heard.

Moving was arduous, but she made herself do it anyway. She couldn't risk something happening to her, couldn't risk the information she'd gone to such lengths to obtain dying with her. Of all the horrible things she had imagined, she had never once entertained the thought that it could be something of this magnitude. How could she have? How could she ever have dreamed that her father had killed her mother, and was involved in the slaughter of the entire royal family?

Chapter 30

Alarm shot through Kila when Cianne staggered into his lodgings, bringing a metallic taste to his mouth.

"Cianne, what is it? Are you hurt?"

Despite his urgent tone, she didn't seem to hear him. She stared blindly ahead, as if she were looking straight through him, leaving him sick with fear.

"Are you wounded?" he asked again. When she still didn't respond, he grabbed her and began moving her limbs around, searching for an injury that didn't exist. From the way she was behaving he had feared she was suffering from shock brought on by pain and blood loss, but then he realized that though her face was colorless, no trail of blood streaked his floor. Her shock must have been caused by something she had learned.

"What is it?" he asked, guiding her into a chair, touching her face with gentle hands. "What is it? What's happened? What can I do?"

He was so distracted, so distraught by her catatonia, that he didn't notice they had company until someone seized him. Pinning his wrists behind him, his captor pressed a blade to his throat.

"What were you doing at that warehouse?" a familiar voice growled in his ear.

"Cianne," he choked, straining to reach for her even though he knew it was futile. A woman he'd never seen before had her arm around Cianne's shoulders, a blade held to her throat as well. "Don't harm her. Please, I beg you, don't harm her. She's not well."

The woman holding Cianne flicked her eyes toward Kila's captor, who tightened her grip on him.

"What were you doing at that warehouse?" his captor repeated.

At last the voice pricked the bubble of panic surrounding him, and he tried to no avail to turn his head so he could look at her face.

"Chief Flim?" he asked, his voice ringing with disbelief.

"I won't ask you again."

If Kila thought he'd been worried before, he had known nothing. His fear was so palpable he felt as if it could crush him. He had been so certain no one had seen him, that he had made it back to his lodgings without anyone following him. Staying far from the warehouse, he had walked in a wide circle around it, studying the streets, searching for any clue he could find. He hadn't seen a thing that had given him pause, and that worried him more than anything.

"Do you think I'll answer that?" he asked harshly. "You may as well slit my throat now, spill my blood all over this floor."

"Flim," the other woman said, her voice high and thin.

"What?" the chief barked.

"This is Cianne Wyland."

"What? They know. House Staerleigh knows," the chief said, and now she was the one who sounded terrified.

To Kila's surprise, Cianne snapped out of her stupor. While her captor was distracted, she bent back her assailant's finger, causing the woman to cry out and drop her dagger.

"Don't move!" Flim ordered, the words cracking through the room, even though she spoke in a low voice. "I will kill him."

"Not if I kill you first," Cianne said in a rasping voice that sounded nothing like her own.

"Stop," Cianne's assailant gasped, cradling her injured hand against her chest, her face white. "You don't understand. She's Annalith's daughter."

"Why are you talking about my mother?" Cianne asked, so viciously her assailant flinched away.

"I'm not letting him go until I know why they were at that warehouse," Chief Flim said. She hadn't let her guard down in the slightest, and Kila wasn't about to test her. The pieces were all jumbled, and he couldn't make sense of anything that was happening, not why the chief and this other woman were in his lodgings, not why Cianne was acting as though she'd lost contact with reality, and least of all why the other woman was bringing Cianne's long-dead mother into the discussion.

Well, I suppose I'd best talk, then. See if I can't figure out what's going on and use it to find a way to get us out of this mess.

"We've been looking into House Staerleigh for weeks," Kila said, trying to catch Cianne's eye. It was no use as she was staring wild-eyed at her assailant.

"Why?" Flim asked.

"Because we suspected they had something to do with Toran Stowley's death."

The blade eased away from his throat a bit. Not enough to convince him it was safe to move, but enough that cold steel no longer bit at his neck, which made him feel considerably better.

"I thought we had an agreement."

"Oh, well, forgive me for worrying about trusting you," Kila said, his tone dripping sarcasm. His adrenaline was pumping. "Clearly that was a mistake on my part."

Letting out an irked noise, Flim eased up a little more but still didn't release him. Kila deduced she worried it might not be the wisest course of action, considering that Cianne's murderous glare was now directed at Flim.

"Cianne's not involved. I would have known," the other assailant said, her eyes creased at the corners in pain.

"Would you? What if she's being recruited?" Flim asked.

With a bitter bark of a laugh, Cianne said, "Considering my own father has been lying to me about everything for the last decade, he must be using the subtlest of all recruitment tactics. You've been lying too, apparently." She rounded on the other woman, who cringed.

"Cianne, who is that?" Kila asked.

"Vivie. My maid."

"I thought you were suspicious of the House members," Kila said to the chief.

"As you know, trust is a fragile thing," she snapped.

"Stop. We all need to stop," Vivie said. Keeping wary eyes on Cianne, she pulled herself up off the floor, her uninjured hand held out in a placating gesture.

"I want to know why you brought up my mother," Cianne said, and it was obvious she intended to be anything but placated.

"Because your mother is alive."

"Vivie!" Flim snapped.

Cianne blanched and swayed on her feet. Vivie used her good hand to prod Cianne back into her chair.

"We're not working with the House," Kila said. Gaping holes still prevented him from seeing the full picture, but he was beginning to put the pieces together.

"How can my mother be alive? Where is she?" Cianne demanded, directing a fierce glare at Vivie.

"I'll tell you everything, I promise. But first we need to know what you were doing tonight. It's important, Cianne. I wouldn't make you wait otherwise, I hope you know that," Vivie said, her voice strained.

"No. First you tell me where my mother is. You tell me who you are and what you're doing," Cianne said. "I won't tell you a thing I heard until I know that."

A silent argument passed between Vivie and Flim, and then Flim released Kila with a frustrated grunt.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Flim said, pointing at Vivie with her dagger.

"Your mother is safe. That's all I can tell you," Vivie said.

Cianne opened her mouth, her face thunderous, but Flim cut her off. "No, she literally can't tell you. Neither of us can. Annalith is always on the move, and we never know where she is at any given time." At Cianne's searing glare, Flim added, "For her own protection."

"She had to flee, Cianne. Your father, Moiria Stowley, the Elders, they found out that your mother had uncovered information about their activities, and she had to disappear. They were going to kill her."

"Kill her?" Kila asked in disbelief. "What are you on about? Cianne, listen to me. They show up here, hold us at daggerpoint, and claim that your mother