Is Meriam saying that Justus is in on . . . oneverything? My eyeballs strain toward the male, who watches Meriam’s finger glide across my skin like a ship on water, before rolling back toward her.
“Everyone in that temple was so certain that your mother had lost her child for her abdomen had flattened, and she’d bled profusely. No one but me noticed that she’d slipped you into another’s womb.”
She closes her eyes and a tear—anactualtear—skips down her pale cheek.
“We were locked up in separate cells. Your mother went mad in that dungeon. Her cries would echo against the stone walls day and night. It was agonizing. I begged J. to allow me to sedate her, but he still didn’t entirely trust me and refused to lodge us in the same room. I heard from the other guards that he would hook healing crystals into her ears and change them once their magic wore off. It was a small kindness, but one I never forgot. Just like that woolen throw. Like most Faeries, J. was misguided and misinformed, but deep down, in his heart of hearts, he was a good man.”
I snort, and it sounds like I’m gagging on air.
“He stayed loyal to the Faerie Crown because he was worried about being replaced by someone who would terrorize those who weren’t pure-blooded and murder them on land instead of tossing them into Mareluce.”
Drowning is not a better fate, Meriam.
She smiles. “Your grandfather—”
Not my grandfather.
“—made people walk the plank to give them a chance at a better life in Shabbe.”
I cock an eyebrow, and yes, the arc of brown hair over my eye is plenty able to wiggle, unlike my useless lips.
“I may have disclosed that serpents swam every Faerie victim to our shores.”
I cannot reconcile the man she’s describing with the intimidating general I grew up with. Are we even speaking of the same person?
“That man is the reason your mother survived. The day you were born, Z. sensed it and clawed at her shackles until she’d ripped off her nails, and then she screamed bloody murder until her pleas finally carried over M.’s Yuletide revel to J.’s ears. She’d exhausted herself so deeply that he carried her limp body into my cell.”
As though to commit its shape to memory, she traces the sharp outline of my jaw. Though her finger is covered in blood, I’m . . . I’m not disgusted.
“That night, I did the only thing I could think of to end my daughter’s suffering.” Another tear courses down her cheek. It trips off her chin and beads on her solid gold lap. “To set her free.”
What did you do?The question whooshes up my tight throat but is reduced to cinders before it can even smack into my sealed lips. As it glides back down, I choke on the words, and then I choke on my scorching breaths. My chest burns with a fire that leaps from my skin into my veins before penetrating into my lungs, saturating them with what feels like flaming oil.
“Breathe, my darling. The burn will subside. Breathe. They cannot know that it’s working.” Voice ethereal like the fog that lifts off Mareluce in the winter, she adds, “Breathe, my girl.”
Tears pool in the corners of my eyes. I try to tilt my head up, but my neck is locked in place. Like a steel blade fed to a forge, fire ravages my spine, scorching each one of my vertebrae as though to liquify them for the hammer of pain about to come down. I grit my teeth, forcing back the screech threatening to tear up my throat.
“Steady.” Meriam lifts her fingers to my lips and drenches their seam in more blood just as the blow of her power comes. Or is it my power?
Whoever it belongs to, it’s vicious and unrelenting, striking my spine from tailbone to skull, propelling a scream up my throat, which bangs noiselessly against the backs of my gritted teeth.
“I can feel it. It’s almost done.” She dances her bloodied fingertips across my cheeks, smearing the tracks of my agony. “Almost done.”
I try to clench my fists but she must’ve cast a spell over more than my lips because my phalanxes do not bend. When the pyre billowing beneath my skin gloves my heart, more tears spill from my eyes.
I want to plunge into the gulfs of the Glacin sea.
I want to drive a dagger into my skin to release the blistering pressure.
I want to peel away my flesh before Meriam’s spell reduces my insides to ash.
I want . . .
The pain stops.
The fire withdraws.
The burn becomes a subtle tingle that galvanizes my blood. I peek down at my bared chest festooned with as many markings as a wildling, expecting my skin to shine, but beneath the eddies of Meriam’s blood, I’m wheat-colored, as usual.
