Shoving the memories back into the vault of my mind, I looked back over at my mother. She stared into the portal with dead eyes, a smile frozen on her lips.
“Stop her,” illusory Sin shouted. “Grab the child!”
Guards raced toward the Walker, but they were too slow.
She scooped up a small bundle of cloth at her feet then disappeared through the rift, sealing it behind her. I recognized it—that gray blanket. I had clung to it so many nights as a child while I dreamed about what my mother would be like.
Tears streamed down my face for a second time in less than an hour, and I choked back another sob as the illusion of Sin returned to my mother’s still body. I didn’t even recognize him as he knelt down beside her. There was not even a hint of the male I loved.
I had been played for a fool.
“Take her body,” the illusory Sin commanded his guards as he ran a hand reverently over my mother’s pale face. “He will want to know why we failed in our mission.”
The illusion faded away, and the last thing I saw was Sin marching off into the dark forest.
Chapter fifty
I didn’t bother looking at Sin. There was nothing he could do or say that would ever make this okay. He chased down my mother who had to take her own life to escape him then lied about it. All my love for him vanished the moment I watched her take her final breath.
He was just the puppet, though. Even I could recognize that.
I wanted the master pulling the strings.
I yanked free of my father’s grasp and whirled around, letting him see every ounce of rage that burned behind my eyes.
“What did you do?!” I screamed in his face then shoved him backward. “What did she overhear that sent her fleeing from the palace in the middle of the night? What could have been so bad that she would kill herself rather than see me brought back to you?”
My fire came roaring up from the place it slumbered inside me and burst forth, wreathing my hands in flames. The flickering shadows that whipped across my father’s face underscored the stark terror painted there.
“Tell me!” I screamed as I advanced on him, my flames pulsing brighter with each jagged breath.
I didn’t control the fire.
I was the fire.
And my father was about to learn that firsthand.
“Rain, you need to stop!” Sin called from behind me.
Stop? I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to make every single one of them pay.
I whirled around, thrust my hand out, and a fireball larger than my head rocketed toward Sin.
He dove to the side but not fast enough. The flaming orb splashed across his hip, spinning him off balance and slamming him into the parapet. I didn't even wince as his head cracked against the stone and he fell still.
Good. I didn’t need any more interruptions.
Turning back around, I faced the male trembling against the castle wall.
“Raynella?” he asked in a tiny, horrified voice.
“My. Name. Is. RAIN!”
Wings of fire exploded from my back, unfurling and stretching out behind me, their furious blaze driving away all the shadows and their secrets within. My rage fueled the flames, and they grew and spread until I didn't have just wings, but an entire cascading river of fire over my skin that engulfed me completely. I was a phoenix, born from the ashes of my pathetic life to never again bow at the whims of others.
The crescia silk flashed away to become nothing more than embers on the wind. I built a new dress from my flames, letting them curve and coil around my body until I had a gown of living fire that highlighted the harsh beauty of my new ramentum.
Stalking toward my father, I let him see everything I had hid from him—my magic, my fire—but especially the anger that burned inside me that I had to suppress my entire life.
