The Girl Who Dared to Think by Bella Forrest (best novels of all time TXT) 📗

My father’s long, heavy silence caused me to fall silent. “Oh, child,” he said, and he actually took a step closer. I could smell his breath, spearmint with a hint of metal. “Why would you even bring it up?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense—I swear, his number was a one when we saw him, but it jumped up eight ranks. Is such a thing possible?”

“No,” my father said flatly. “No one has increased their ranking so fast like that before. You must have been mistaken.”

“But I wasn’t,” I insisted, meeting my father’s gaze head on. “Gerome even saw it. He was a nine. I just don’t understand why Scipio would raise him up to a nine, but drop me down to a three? I think there must be something wrong with Scipio—some sort of problem with his—”

My father slapped my cheek, hard—but he’d hit me harder before, when my questions became too dissident for his tastes. I blinked back the shock of tears at the pain that suddenly blossomed on the side of my face and began to throb, as if still radiating ripples from the impact site. I clutched at it and looked at him, at his angry gaze.

“Yours is not to question the will of Scipio,” he snarled. “Yours is to do your work, and do it well. With your two hands you—”

“Mete out justice and bring order to the Tower,” I said, forcing my words out through clenched teeth and aching jaw, knowing he expected me to speak the Knight’s Oath with him, word for word. Always a sign that I had really screwed up. The words were practically ingrained into my brain; I could probably recite it in my sleep at this point. “We shield the Tower from those who would do it harm. We hold the line between order and chaos. We lay down our lives in service to the Tower.”

My father nodded at me approvingly and took a step back. I looked at my mother, and found her eyes hard and gleaming. She agreed with what my father had done. And I’d done even more damage to my standing, in their eyes, with my story. Unfortunately for me, that was how things always seemed to go whenever I tried to talk to my parents. Only this time, it hurt all the more, because now they were willing to kill who I was in order to get a more capable daughter.

“Squire Liana, by my power as a Knight Commander of the Citadel, you are to seek Medica treatment tomorrow. There will be no arguments, no exceptions, and no complaints. You will serve the Tower.” My mother’s words held the ring of finality to them.

I scowled at the floor. I hated it when she did that. Took off the mask of mother and put on the mask of commander, like they were utterly interchangeable. I met her gaze and lowered my hand from my cheek, trying not to wince at the sting. Managing a curt nod, I turned and made for the front door, needing to be anywhere but there.

“I want to hear you say it, Liana.”

I froze at the steel in her voice. “I will go to the Medica tomorrow,” I managed, barely able to force enough air through my vocal cords to produce a sound. I squared my shoulders and continued toward the door.

And just like that, she was trying to be my mother again.

“Liana, where do you think you are going?” she asked, and I heard her step up behind me. I instinctively took a step away, closer to the door.

“Out,” I said. “I need to think. Settle my mind before tomorrow.”

I heard my father begin to speak, but my mother cut him off. “Let her go. Tomorrow these little tantrums will be over and done with once and for all.”

I didn’t wait to be excused. I shoved open the door and rushed out into the hallway beyond.

As soon as the door automatically locked, I leaned my back against it and turned my head toward the narrow ceiling, exhaling slowly and fighting back the urge to cry. I didn’t know what I had been expecting; they rarely cared about anything I had to say. Why had I ever thought that story about Grey Farmless would give me an out? Neither of them could ever hear anything past what they wanted to hear. They had never really let me make my point. Or maybe I had—and I’d just screwed it up.

Feeling absolutely dejected, I made my way down the hall, needing to continue my journey and get as far away as possible. My parents lived in the lower levels of the Citadel, where the other high-ranking Knight Commanders lived. We had lived on this level for the past ten years, although Alex’s room had been given to our neighbors after he had been accepted into the Core—the walls of his room were reprogrammed so that the door on our side was sealed to us, but open to them. I liked these quarters better than our old ones; it meant that I was closer to the wide lash openings that led directly to the outside of the Citadel—exactly where I wanted to be.

I turned right and then left again, following the wide halls and keeping my head down so as not to draw any attention to myself. The walls of the Citadel were all exposed dark steel, carved with intricate designs during the cooling process so that they looked like they had been stacked, like rudimentary brickwork. I came to a stop at the lashway—a cut-out section of wall leading to the outside walls of the Citadel. I could see the gleaming black-and-blue walls of the Core through the twisting arches and gargoyles that ran around the Citadel. There was a soft sound as I took a step to the edge, and the light around the door turned from white to red, pulsating in warning.

“You