I stand and advance toward the footboard.
“If Salom hadn’t gone after Svyato, I could’ve gotten Mestyla to meet with you.” Ksenia is hunched on her seat, face tipped toward her lap. Moonlight catches on the dried tracks of blood, making them shine black. “All of this could’ve been avoided.”
Except the Cauldron foresaw my niece’s death, so she’s wrong. Since Ksenia is oblivious to the prophecy, I don’t deliberate the subject with her. The same way I don’t blame Salom for this outcome. If anyone is to blame, it’s me, the man who revoked Salom’s bargain and thus permitted him to get close to Svyato.
I snap my fingers, levering Ksenia off the sleigh and planting her pitilessly onto the path. And then I hop off the footboard and blow her toward the corpse. Silence hangs in the quiet air like fog, thick and suffocating, blighted only by the crunch of our boots.
“We’ve already checked for a pulse, Princess,” one of the soldiers informs Isla, who’s kneeling beside the body, two fingers wedged into the base of the woman’s pearlescent neck.
“Then you have no issue with the princess checking for herself, now, do you?” Vance’s rhetorical question makes the soldier palm the pommel of his sword.
He better not pull it out, for if he does, I will wedge it inside his chest myself. Through his mouth.
Vance rolls his neck, his shaved scalp catching the drips of residual moonlight. “Do you know how fast I once split a man from neck to groin?”
Since Vance has got the man handled, I turn my attention back to the lifeless woman at his feet.
As I trace the sharp edges of her body, I ask Isla, “Is it her? The female from the prophecy?”
“Yes.” My fiancée sits back on her heels, her gaze riveted to the dagger plunged in the girl’s chest.
To think I gifted her a matching one tonight…
I crouch and flip a strand of white hair off my niece’s cheek. My pulse grows quiet as I stare at the spitting image of Alyona. No wonder everyone believed my sister had resurrected. As I observe her, conflicting emotions war within me—loathing, regret, relief, grief.
Isla sighs. “I always wondered why I’d use a dagger to commit the crime.”
Because she wasn’t the one who’d commit it…
My gaze drifts to the ring that shines atop her slender finger. Did our ruse spur Mestyla to come after me, or would she have come had I not tied myself to a shifter?
“Youalways wondered?” Ksenia asks.
“Mestyla’s death was foretold by the Cauldron twenty-some years ago,” I explain, relishing how the information bleaches her complexion.
I skim a thumb over my breastbone that feels both rigid and tender. “I’m genuinely surprised that a person as well-informed as yourself hasn’t heard of the prophecy, sister.”
As I straighten from my crouch, I glance toward the sword my soldier is still grazing while glowering at the Serpent.
I contemplate tearing it from his scabbard and removing Mestyla’s head but settle on another manner of damnation. “Rossi, as long as there’s blood in a body, you can bring back the deceased, correct?”
Both Isla and Ksenia suck in air, both comprehending what I’m about to ask of the Serpent.
“Yes,” he replies calmly.
“I realize this would make her your responsibility, so naturally, this is your choice. But I would like to open my niece’s eyes, not just onto the world again, but onto the new version of Glace I’ve undertaken to create with Isla.”
“That’s a dreadful idea!” Ksenia bellows. “Not only does she want your necklace—your head—but she’ll also come after m?—”
I fling my hand up, again snapping her jaw shut. Hard enough to uproot more teeth? “I don’t care for your opinion, Ksen. Only Rossi’s and Isla’s.”
Isla climbs back to her feet, dusting the snow off her thin black dress. “You’d be giving her power.”
“Exactly!” Ksenia’s muffled exclamation makes my molars grit.
“Nevertheless, I like the idea,” my shifter princess says.
I do as well, but my reason is petty. I like the idea because my sister hates it.
