“I’m not asking for your blessing because I know you’ll never give it to me, but I wanted you to know.”
I yearn for her to stroke my arm and tell me to follow my heart. Speak a sweet lie like when I was a child, and she’d try to protect me from the harsh reality of life. But Nonna hasn’t lied to me in years.
Nonna sighs. “Goccolina, the prince will never marry you, however many trips you and he take together.”
I gasp as though she’s staked me with those obsidian spikes. “You know nothing of Dante and how different he is to Marco!”
Nonna’s mouth smooshes into a thin line.
“You’re so jaded, Nonna. So . . . so . . .” My eyes prickle with heat that distorts the sight of her stern face. “I hate you.”
She doesn’t flinch. Either she doesn’t care or she doesn’t think I truly mean it.
“I’ll prove you wrong.” I start toward my door but backtrack, shove my mattress up and grab the gold coin. “Here. Make sure the marquess gets this.”
“Where did you—”
“It was given to me.”
“By whom? Whose money did you take?”
“I didn’t take it. It wasgiven.”
“By whom?”
“By a man who doesn’t believe me a fool for loving a prince and who doesn’t believe I will amount to nothing because I came from nothing.”
A breeze blows a lock of my hair into my burning eyes. I wrangle it back.
May the winds carry you safely home.
Suddenly, I think it was Mamma’s way of telling me that this decrepit blue house is no longer my home. That I must spread my wings like the crow and soar toward my true home—Isolacuori—by way of Rax and Monteluce.
Leave. Fallon.
I look toward the now deserted blackened shore and the jeweled greenness beyond.I’m going, Mamma.I’ll leave tonight and gather those five crows.
Oh the look Nonna will wear when she spots me sitting on the Lucin throne.
Empowered by the image of myself in a crown, I stalk out of my cage and away from the woman who’s kept me trapped within it for the last twenty-two years.
Thirty-Seven
Although I consider setting sail for Rax immediately, I head to the tavern first. Like the king said, I’m responsible and I won’t leave the Amari family in a bind just because my grandmother has wounded my pride.
Besides, I want to collect my pay, so I have coin to trade during my journey through the Lucin wilds, and inform my best friend that I’m taking off, so she doesn’t worry.
When I reachBottom of the Jug, the tavern is bursting with diners, and both sisters look as though they’ve blasted themselves with their air-magic. Their hair stands on end, and their collarbones are glossed in sweat.
“Finally!” Syb blusters past me with a platter of drinks that she deposits on a table. “Where in the three kingdoms have you been?”
Guilt worms itself behind my breastbone at the idea of leaving them.
They’ll replace me.
I’m replaceable.
That little voice, which has spurred me to act impetuously in the past, spurs me to stick to my plan. It isn’t like I can go home. Not after the way I stormed out.
