(The Next Morning: after the night she ran away from her introduction)
IVY'S POV
I curled deeper into the heavy silk sheets, pulling them over my head like a child hiding from monsters. But the monsters were real, and they lived in this fortress.
Guilt clawed at my chest until I could barely breathe.
Those guards… they were dead because of me. Because someone had attacked me and I couldn't tell Nicholas the truth.
Their screams still echoed in my skull, the way their bodies jerked and convulsed, the smell of burnt flesh. I had caused that. My silence had killed them.
Tears burned my eyes. I'm sorry… I'm so sorry but I would never risk seraphina's life..it would have been her dying if I told nicholas she was the one who did this ..
*****
Today was the day. My father and the Velistra would come to negotiate. They would try to take me back home.
