As I neared the staircase, I turned to the right and saw a pathway between crates that led to a door. I walked under the rounded archway and turned the handle, the wood groaning as I pushed it open. I took one step inside and stopped, the eather coiling and twisting tightly.
Roses.
I could smell the faint trace of Isbeth’s perfume.
Something like this can’t be okay.
Jaw clenching, I walked in. The torches lit on my command. I passed the plush crimson chaise I could still see Isbeth lying upon in a lazy yet elegant sprawl, and the equally lush chair I sat in, my legs dangling until, as the years passed, I could finally reach the floor. My gaze fell upon the gilded stool and ruby-adorned vanity, a sapphire-encrusted brush on its surface. I picked it up.
Strands of dark hair were tangled between the bristles.
Something like this can’t be okay.
I replaced it and lifted my gaze to the glass case behind the vanity and what I sought within.
It wasn’t the empty shelf where the Blood King’s crown once sat. Nor the shelf where the Blood Queen’s crown had rested. It was what sat between them. Skirting the vanity, I stopped in front of the glass.
It sat cushioned on crimson velvet, its irregular sides and pointy edges glinting a luminous silver.
The Star diamond.
Something like this can’t be okay.
I reached for the small knob on the door and found it locked. The key… Isbeth or one of the Handmaidens always carried it with them. It had probably been on her when she took her last breath.
The thick glass shattered, falling to the floor with a tinkling sound in a waterfall of glittering shards as I placed my palm against the surface. I reached inside, halting with my fingers an inch from the diamond. Part of me didn’t want to touch what I couldn’t help but think of as a tomb now.
Pressing my lips together, I wrapped my fingers around it. Turning from the case, I sat on the armchair’s edge and extended my fingers. The diamond was the size of my palm and sort of shaped like a star. I turned it to the side. Kind of. I stared at it.
I still didn’t feel anything.
I didn’t know what I’d expected. A charge of energy? A flash of something? Because if her soul was also mine, and it had been in this diamond, wouldn’t I feel something?
It just felt like a diamond, sort of shaped like a star. It didn’t feel special. But…
But hadn’t I been drawn to it as a child? I often stared at it as Isbeth brushed her hair before holding court or tinkered with the countless jewels. I remembered wondering what was so unique about it.
A few years before she sent me to Masadonia, Isbeth had taken it out of its case, knelt beside me, and said, “The most beautiful things in all the kingdom often have jagged and uneven lines…”
I knew then that she spoke of my scars. And when she said that beauty was often broken, barbed, and always unexpected, I believed she had also been talking about me.
But now I wondered if she’d been referring to herself.
Because she was even more broken and barbed than I thought if she could do all she’d done. And no part of me believed she’d had no idea what had been held in this diamond.
Callum must have told her. And with that knowledge, she was able to understand the prophecy.
Disgust and anger churned as I ran my thumb over the diamond’s uneven side. How could Callum allow what had been done to his sister to happen over and over? I had no answer for that. It was the same when I thought of Isbeth. I supposed they had allowed desperation and grief to twist them into something unrecognizable.
How could I share their blood?
That thought made me think of Millicent. Had she known about this? She knew about the prophecy, but did she know aboutthis? I shook my head. Even if she did, what would it change? It didn’t mean she supported it. She was, after all, just like me: a pawn moved across a board built long before we were born. She had been designed to be the First Daughter…
Because it had been written in the prophecy.
As I sat there in the silent Vault, it struck me that Isbeth had likely only had Millicent because she needed a second daughter.
A harsh, short laugh left me. Gods. It was so obvious, yet we’d assumed that what Isbeth had planned had gone awry with Millicent. That she hadn’t been able to Ascend due to Casteelbeing so weak and tried again with me. In reality, she just needed two daughters born of the first mortal.
