Marina had listened to her grand plan, exasperated by the repetition. It was over. Naia and Solaris had already dissolved their potential marriage, and Naia had a child with another. The curse could not be broken.
Mira was too far gone to listen to reason back then, and her desperation only grew.
Marina withheld her disappointment, and said, “I apologize for my delay, Mother, but I have been busy.”
“In figuring out how to freeme!” Mother seethed. “Tell me, Marina, what have you come up with?”
Marina observed this foreign version of her mother, overtly emotional and trembling. “How long until Finnian’s hex activates?”
“The episodes repeat every thirty minutes. You have five.”
Marina lifted her chin, the sides of her throat squeezing with the words: “Father is dead.”
Mother lightly gasped.
A brief sighting of pain flitted over her face in the subtle draw of her brow, the melting of her icy soul.
As quickly as it came, it vanished.
Marina assumed that the triplets would've already relayed the information. Apparently, that was not the case.
Spineless imbeciles.
“How?” Mother asked, voice plucked of emotion. So perfectly practiced. Marina saw right through it. There was love, albeit buried below her mausoleum of bitterness, but it existed, in some shape.
“I killed him.” The confession was ripped from Marina like a barb from her throat. She held her indifferent demeanor well, though, sickened by the reflection of her mother as she realized where she’d learned the talent.
Mother’s expression perked, hopeful. “Did you use all the blood on him?”
Marina did well not to think too vividly, avoiding the crisp, horrifying details of the memory.
“No, but I do not have it.” Her lips felt heavy, like they were cast with lead. “I believe Cassian and Finnian are in possession of what remains.”
“You must get it!” Her voice raised in a hopeful pitch. “Do what you can at all costs!” She brought her face closer to the space between the bars, her pale gaze widening. “Do you hear me, Marina? Kill them all.”
I am nothing more to her than a means to an end.
The murmur that lingered in the back of Marina’s mind throughout her life was louder now. A truth that she knew, if she were ever to accept, would collapse the purpose she built her life upon.
Father’s death, his final words, the gouging of her regrets, they all lifted the veil she’d chosen to hide behind, no longer able to ignore what lay in front of her.
“I have my own plan,” she said.
“My darling, of course you do.” Mother’s shoulders lowered with relief, and her demeanor softened. “Go on. Tell me what you intend to do to those who have wronged us.”
Marina internally prepared herself for what was to come, staring at Mother for a long beat.
This was the tragic frustration of having parents who did not deal with their own burdens. If only they had truly loved one another—loved what they had built together—Marina’s life would’ve been different, and she would not be standing there, forced to choose between one or the other. Because in the end, choosing to uphold Father’s vow would be a betrayal to Mother.
Marina let out a breath, loosening the rigid muscles in her shoulders. “My plan does not involve saving you, Mother. Your fate depends on the triplets. Not me.”
Mother’s milky gaze became opaque. The hope that blazed in her eyes moments prior began shrinking, like a dying mass of stars.
The air between them stiffened.
Failure pinched in Marina’s chest, and she slightly cringed, warring with the part of her that demanded shefix it.
“There is no way for me to save you from the web of your own destructive choices,” Marina continued. “You are cursed to Kaimana forever and there is nothing that I?—”
