The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 504

Liora’s POV

We didn’t stop moving all day. The morning sun shifted from warm and bright to the hot golden of afternoon, followed by the deep, moody orange of a sunset that turned the sky brilliant shades.

Mia would have loved it.

I kept telling myself that she would have loved everything we saw. The sky. That one particular cloud shaped like a dragon, hanging against the horizon mid-afternoon. The stretches of empty, winding roads that seemed to lead nowhere, flanked by tall, thick pines and moss-covered boulders.

We weren’t entirely sure where we were going. We just knew we needed to keep moving, preferably as far from Bianca and the royal army as possible. Zane drove, his dirt-covered fingers gripping the steering wheel tightly, while I sat with my cheek pressed against the passenger side window.

Callum sat behind Zane, his head tilted back against the headrest.

He didn’t say anything the entire drive. None of us did, aside from what was necessary. But I could feel him looking at me, the words of whatever it was he had to tell me at the tip of his tongue.

Finally, Shirley was dangerously close to running out of gas along a dark expanse of road that ran parallel to a sheer cliff dropping into a ravine below. We just barely managed to find a gas station, dark and nearly empty save for the lone cashier sitting behind the till inside. It was pitch black outside by then, and the car clock read ten.

Zane pulled up next to a pump and rubbed his eyes, smearing dirt over his face.

“We should eat,” he said, glancing nervously at the station. “And stop to rest soon.”

I nodded, reaching for the door handle to get out, but Zane and Callum both stopped me with a curt, “No.”

Callum opened his door. “I’ll grab snacks. Stay here, Liora, where no one can recognize you.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I said.

“Not a risk worth taking,” Zane muttered as he got out.

I sat in the passenger seat with my arms folded, watching as Callum pulled his hood up and walked toward the station. I could see him inside, meandering through the aisles, filling his arms with drinks and snacks. The cashier had a bored expression as he rang Callum up, and by the time Zane was finished pumping, Callum had returned.

“Here.” Callum dropped a can of unsweetened iced tea, a cold bottle of water, and an enormous gas station cookie in my lap. “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” I muttered.

“Neither am I.” Callum opened his water. “But starving won’t help us any.”

He was right, as much as I hated to admit it. I popped open the lid of the tea and sipped it, then took a small bite of the cookie. It all tasted like ash in my mouth. It felt unfair to be sitting here, eating sweets, when my friend was buried in an unmarked grave.

All of it felt unfair.

We drove in silence for a little while longer, Callum taking over after the gas station. Finally, around midnight, he pulled off the road onto an old narrow service road that was densely packed with trees on either side. He pulled down a ways, then tucked the car in between a copse of trees and cut the lights.

We sat there in the quiet for a few minutes. The trees scratched at the roof of the car in the breeze, making me shiver.

Without asking, Callum shrugged off his jacket and held it out to me. I took it, not because I was cold, but because the smell of him was wafting off of it and I just… I needed that right now.

“We wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Callum pointed out.

I bit my lip, thinking. I recalled that scrying glass Bianca had had, likely given to her by Belinda; it showed Marcus, alive—at least at the time—surrounded by shiny black stone. Like obsidian.

There was only one place in all the kingdom that might have stone like that, and it wasn’t the palace or the royal dungeons. I’d never been inside the witch’s academy beyond those first few steps, but if anywhere might look like that on the inside, it would be there.

“I think he’s locked up in the academy,” I said, looking between Zane and Callum. “If we can find him, get him out, then he’ll be able to turn the royal military back to our side. They trust and respect him as Delta.”

Zane and Callum exchanged looks.

“Look,” I said, “I know it’s a crazy plan, but it’s our only shot right now. Unless you both want to let Bianca’s men hunt us down like dogs? Like they did to—”

I cut myself off, shaking my head, unable to say it out loud.

“We have to do something,” I said more softly. “That tournament was her plan to eliminate me. To eliminate all of us. The whole thing—she planned it from the start. And if we don’t stop her now, then she’ll kill me.” I pointed at Zane. “And you.” I pointed at Callum. “And maybe even you, now that she knows you won’t be obedient.”

Callum stared at my finger. Something passed over his face, something I couldn’t quite read. He licked his lips and met my gaze, and that same look he’d given me outside the car earlier was there again, only more intense now, more painful.

Guilt.

“Liora,” he said, staring at his lap. “There’s something you need to know; Bianca wasn’t the one who came up with the idea for the tournament.” He glanced up at me. “It was my idea.”