His pupils pop, control evident in his stifled sneer. “I’m quite curious where your essence came from. I can only guess it has to do with this.” He pulls my necklace from his pocket and dangles it in front of me.
I try to grab the chain, and he pulls it away, laughing.
My mother comes to and staggers toward us. “That’s mine. Malachite gave it tome.”
“Did you realize you were wearing the death stone of his lover around your neck? Do you still think he actually loved you?” Zandrite jeers.
“He did! If it weren’t for this mistake”—she points at me—“he’d still be with me today. He picked up and left the day she showed up.”
“I couldn’t help being born!” I yell.
She dismisses me with a flick of her hair, revealing a purple welt on her neck from Zandrite’s fist. “You don’t understand what it was like to lose him. Especially with all it takes to be the Centress—the secrets onlyIknow, the sacrifices I make, the lives I destroy for the sake of Sonnet. I needed him. I tried to get him to come back. I sent you to Caldera to be raised far from us. But he never came back. And that was my mistake. I should have killed you while you couldn’t fight back.”
Fire blazes through my veins. “You wish you’d killed me as a baby?”
Her black eyes become molten. I prepare for them to ooze down her cheeks any second. Not a trace of emotion shows on her face. She smooths her dress over her hips and thighs then lifts her chin. “I wish I never had you.”
Chapter 30
EVER
Iput a hand to my cheek, feeling my skin. Then to my heart, feeling the beat. I blink. No tears. I swallow. No lump. How am I supposed to respond to a mother that regrets my existence?
A harsh breath leaves me, as if some tough part of me wanted to laugh. I nod slowly, accepting. “Me too. I wish you weren’t my mother.”
But I’ve come too far to run from reality. I belong here. I matter.
Iwant me.
Even if no one else does.
“Well.” Zandrite laughs dryly. “How ironic. It seems your death is the only thing that matters in your life. I might as well get on with it.”
I snap.
On with the riot. All the festering darkness I’ve held at bay boils to the surface. Rage explodes from my pores. Every violent thought, every death I found alluring, every scream of agony that struck chords of beauty—I embrace them.
I don’t feel my feet push off the ground. Or my hands slam into her chest. I’m hardly present when I climb on top of her tall body and reach for her throat.
Then everything jolts to life when my hands wrap around her neck. Her skin is warm and soft beneath my death grip. But I don’t hear the scream I expect at my touch. “You don’t feel it?” I stammer.
“I do,” she says with perfect control. “And I told you, pain is meaningless to me.”
Right. New plan. I wiggle my thumbs around in search of the right spot, watching for the moment I take her breath away. That finally spursa reaction. She claws at my back, pulls my hair. Her hips thrash, trying to throw me off her.
I take her assault as if I know what I’m doing. But all I really know is that I can’t let go. I squeeze her throat, pinching high and low, left and right. How do people make this look so easy?
She scratches my face, draws blood from my arms, inflicts pain on anything within reach. I lift her neck and slam her head down. Again. And again. “Who am I?!” I scream.
She sputters and groans.
I bash her head once more when she tries to roll away. “Who the fuck am I?”
My thumbs slip into the perfect position. Her eyes bulge in shock, darting back and forth with a panic so real it’s exquisite. Her mouth opens in search of air.
“That’s right,” I croon, leaning closer. “I’m the daughter you wish you never had.”
Somewhere between mind and body, between heart and soul, magic shifts. The flow of energy rearranges inside me, swirling like my thoughts until it finds its place, its balance.
