“So Jayme began selling us information,” Kora continued. “I hear Adela pays better than Solaris. I can’t say I’m surprised; her coffers are likely deeper.”
“My letters…” Vi looked slowly from Kora to Jayme. The world was blurring into gray under the squalling snow. Or maybe the world had been so gray and void of color all along. “You shared my letters?”
“It was easy enough. All I needed was to have a Solaris seal made, see to it that some official sealing wax fell into my hands. I had enough time in the palace and, like I told you once, us poor folk stick together.”
“Those…” She felt violated, exposed, drawn out for the world to see. Her thoughts—raw emotions—poured into words only for her brother’s, mother’s, or father’s eyes, cast out to the world. “Those weremine… How could you?”
“Like I said, easy enough.” There was no emotion there. Not one ounce of regret.
“That was how we knew the Emperor Solaris was finally leaving the protection of his Empire, the course he’d be charting, and the vessel he’d be on.”
“And now I’ll bring Adela his heir, and she will make me one of her crew,” Jayme said proudly. It was the pride that finally snapped something in Vi, the infuriating smugness that betrayed her frostbitten, blackened heart.
“How could you?” Her voice rose to a near scream. “You sold my father to them? That’s my father, Jayme!”
“A father for a father!” she screamed back, spittle flying. Her voice echoed over the water. “Your family took mine from me.”
“Daniel Taffl was a willing soldier!”
“My father gave more than a soldier gives. He loved your mother, and she turned her back on him. Had it not been for her, he would’ve left. But no, he stayed, and the Mad King got him.
“My father gave his life for your family and got nothing! He was destroyed Vi, cast aside, left to die. And did your family care?No, they didn’t even go looking after him.”
“Jax went looking!” Or so he’d said once. Vi thought he did. The details were blurring underneath the veil of sheer rage.
“Another dog of the crown!” Jayme’s scowl deepened. “Your mother couldn’t be bothered.”
“She thought he was dead until you showed up looking for work!”
“Yes, and then they knew he was alive. They gave me a job. Such generosity. My father gave a life and they gave mework. And did they do anything else for him?” Jayme challenged. Vi stilled; she didn’t have an answer. “No, they didn’t. They left their mess to rot, as though they weren’t responsible.”
Vi took a small step back, then a shuffle forward. She was pulled in every direction. Pity for Jayme, for her father, for the life they’d endured. Defense of her own family. Did the punishment Jayme was exacting fit the crimes perpetrated against her? One evil, begotten of the next, in a never-ending cycle.
She clutched her head and let out a scream.
“I think she’s gone mad.” Kora chuckled.
“If you had told me, I would’ve done everything I could.” Vi looked to her friend. “You and Ellene were the closest thing I had to family in the North; I loved you.”
“And I hated you,” Jayme responded without missing a beat. “You were a means to an end, preventing my lineage from forever being trapped under your family’s heel. I will not be grateful for your pity and scraps. I will not live without justice at the feet of the very people who saw my father harmed and cast him aside when he was no longer useful.
“My revenge started with your father, it continues with you, and it will end when I dance on your mother’s grave.”
Vi’s whole body trembled. A great and terrifying rage had reached a boiling point. Fissures erupted in her, power spilling out of them, feeding on a kind of hurt Vi had never known. Her heart had numbed, frozen over, and now shattered with an explosion.
With a cry of pure agony and heartbreak, Vi’s magic exploded from her. It encircled them in a ring of flame.
“Make her stop this,” Kora warned. “You said her magic wasn’t very good.”
“It’s not,” Jayme assured Kora.
The fools.
Vi lifted a finger, pointing it right at Kora. With a horrible detachment, she uttered, “Juth calt.”
To shatter.
She pushed her magic into Kora, through her. The woman took a sharp inhale of air, eyes going wide. Inside, Vi strung her magic through and around every rib. She wove her power into the sinews and fiber’s of Kora’s every inch.
