The mere thought made her want to weep.
There was a terrible, tight, pain inside her. A child’s voice crying out in a high, thin, keening wail. Other voices, screaming, high-pitched. Men and horses. Desperate. Frantic. The sounds of mindless, abject terror all creatures made when death came with a violent, agonizing hand.
She would have clapped her hands over her ears to drown the screams out, but Dilys held her fast.
“Tell me, Gabriella.”
She closed her eyes, flung back her head, strained back so that only the anchor of his hands holding hers to his chest kept her from falling. “I killed them. I killed them all.”
“Who,moa kiri?”
“A man and three boys. Back in Vera Sola.” Beneath his anchoring hands, her fingers curled into claws, dug into the solid flesh of his muscular chest. The visions from a thousand nightmares rose before her eyes. Eyes wild and terrified. Mouths open, screaming.
“Who were they, Gabriella?” His voice called her out of the past. Dragged her back to the gardens of Konumarr Palace. To him.
Her eyes snapped open. She stared up at Dilys. “The stable master and his three sons. Everyone thinks they died in the fire, but they didn’t. I killed them the same way I killed Lily’s father.”
If she thought he would flinch, she was disappointed. He remained steady as a rock. Calm and patient. Waiting for her. “Tell me,” he said, his voice as soft as the wings of those butterflies he’d given her that one morning but as relentless as the sea. And like that ocean, he could wear down even the strongest of stone. Day by day, hour by hour, he’d been pounding away at the granite walls she’d locked around her past, and now, with one final shudder of protest, they crumbled, and the answers he’d been digging after all these weeks spilled out like water pouring through the breached dam.
“I wasn’t allowed pets. None of us were. Papa said it was a bad idea. As it turns out, he was right.” She could feel the powerful heart in Dilys’s chest thumping against her palm. Slow, steady. “The stable boy’s dog had puppies. Spring snuck out to play with them, and I followed her. I was four. I fell in love the first moment I saw them.” She blinked up at him. “I’ve always felt everything so much more deeply than Falcon or my sisters. Mama always said I got that from her, but that I got my temper from Papa. It isn’t a very safe combination.”
Even as a very small child, anger made her chest burn, and her stomach hurt, and her hands clench in tight, hot fists. Anger made her throat go raw and tight as it boiled and spewed and bubbled inside her heart.
The feeling was terrible and uncomfortable. Summer was the sweet, sunny-natured princess. The others could rage and storm about—especially their youngest sister—but Summer never did. She didn’t like for people to be upset. It made her skin prickle and her bones ache. She wanted people to be happy. She was like Mama in that regard. The two of them thrived best in a calm, loving environment. They soaked up kindness the way a rose soaked up sunshine. It nourished their souls.
But when Summer got angry, she could actually feel fire roaring away inside her. Violent. Dangerous.
Mama knew about that fire, of course, the same way Mama knew everything about all her children.
“Look at me, Gabriella,” Mama would say in that gentle, implacable voice that brooked no disobedience, willful or otherwise. Most of the time Mama called Summer by her giftname, just as everyone else did, but when she used Summer’s birth name, it meant that whatever came next was meant to be heard and heeded. Sometimes what was meant to be heard and heeded were words of love and pride, precious drops of golden sunlight that soaked into Summer’s soul. “I love you, Gabriella, my darling girl.” “The gods blessed me, Gabriella, to give me such a sweet, caring daughter.” “You make me so proud, Gabriella.”
But sometimes, what was meant to be heard and heeded were words of instruction or gentle admonishments. As was the case whenever the angry fire blazed so hot in Summer’s heart that she thought she might explode.
“Look at me, Gabriella,” Mama would say at such times. “Look at me now, my darling. Let it go, Gabriella. Be calm. There’s my girl. There, now. You’re such a good girl.” Then, when the fire was safely banked, and the Rose-shaped birthmark on Summer’s right wrist no longer burned like a white-hot coal against her arm, Mama would enfold Summer in her arms, and the cool, sweet, nourishment of her love would surround Summer in a world of peace and calm and gentleness, and everything would be set to rights.
Only Mama hadn’t been there that day in the stables, and Summer—protected, pampered, surrounded by love—had never known grief or horror, or the consuming fury that would erupt when she lost what she loved.
“What happened to the puppies you loved, Gabriella?”
She blinked up at Dilys a little hazily, her thoughts still mired in memory. “They died, of course. But you knew that.”
“Tey, moa leia.I suspected so.” The fingers clasped over hers were stroking lightly, soft, gentle, undemanding caresses. “Talk to me, Gabriella. Tell me what happened.” His voice was as calm as a still mountain lake. Somehow, that made the words easier to say.
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But they were puppies and they shouldn’t have been in the stables. Papa had bought a new stallion. Very expensive. Very high strung. And the puppies got out of their stall. The stable master and his eldest son were bringing the stallion in, trying to calm him... but the puppies must have startled him.”
To this day, she didn’t like stallions. She couldn’t be near them. She rode, of course, but only on gentle mares or placid geldings. And she hadn’t stepped foot in a stable since.
“Mama and Papa and the rest of us were just coming back from an outing when it started. I heard the screams and the barking and went running into the stables before anyone could stop me. Several of the puppies were already dead by the time I got there. The stallion was out of control, rearing, stomping everything in sight, and so were half the other horses in the stables. The mother dog was savaging him, trying to protect her puppies. Who could blame her? The stable master and his sons were trying to calm the stallion, but the puppies were everywhere, barking, getting underfoot, making things worse. Everything happened all at once. The mother dog got hold of the stallion’s foreleg and the horse went down. The older boy kicked one of the puppies so hard I heard her spine snap. And then I snapped, too.”
Gods, the fire and the fury that had roared up inside her. The shaking, howling scream of rage that had erupted from her thin, four-year-old chest.
“The one he kicked. She was the one I loved most. I was going to smuggle her into my rooms and keep her. And they killed her. So I killed them.”
She looked at Dilys and remembered what she’d felt like after that rage had come pouring out her. After the stable master and his three sons and the wild-eyed, terrified, injured stallion had fallen, writhing, to the floor as every bone and organ in their bodies had exploded inside their flesh, leaving flaccid, bloody bags of skin. She’d stared at them, the living beings she’d killed, and for the first time in her life, she hadn’t feltanything.She’d felt hollow, as if her insides had been scooped out, leaving her an empty, paper-thin shell.
“I don’t know what started the fire. Maybe that was me, too. Or maybe a lantern got kicked over. Or maybe it was Papa after he saw what I’d done. In any case, he and Mama let everyone believe the fire was what killed them.”
“As well they should have. You were just a child, Gabriella. You were not to blame.”
