My hand trembles so violently that I nearly drop the knife. Instead, my arm jerks up again, muscles acting while my mindwatches from far, far away. The motion is mechanical, precise, not truly mine—hand lunging, tracing the same terrible arc.
Slash.
The blade bites deeper this time.
More red. More ruin.
“Why won’t you just break it?!” My arm pulls back and strikes again. A third cut, tearing through shredded skin, distorting behind my blurred vision. “Break it!”
Vale drops to his knees, hands clutching his throat, only for his fingers to twitch uselessly at his cravat. Red pours down the silk. His breath gurgles wet, ugly, and wrong.
The knife clanks to the ground.
“No…” My legs give out from underneath me. Knees hit stone. “I have to break it.”
Vale sways before me, his weight nearly ripping me sideways as he cups my cheek. Warm. Slick. His bloodshot eyes lock onto mine before they flick upward. Above my brow.
The crown…
“We can break it!” I claw at my forehead. Fingers tangle in the cold metal, finding purchase around a point. With every ounce of strength left in my trembling body, I rip the crown free—tearing it away like a scab—and slam it down onto Vale’s head. “You and I. Just like you said.”
The greenhouse tilts.
And with it, the two of us. Vale collapses sideways to the ground, his palm on my cheek, dragging me with him. We hit the ground with athud, followed by theclankof metal on stone as the crown rolls out of my vision.
A wave of dizziness crashes over me. Color diffuses. Light shatters. Everything swims behind my tears, distorting how Vale twitches, thrashes, and gags.
And yet, he reaches for me. The motion disappears behind darkness that pushes in from all directions. But I feel it, the wayhis wet, slippery palm cups my face, thumb swiping over my cheek before he chokes out, “M’so…ree.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Elara
Daron was best with the eyes.
Always had been, his fingers sure, even when the rot chewed away at his nails, working the spoons under with a care that almost resembled love. He was steadier than Mother. Gentler than me.
Still, I try my best when I slide the metal under his pale lids where he rests on a bier, readying him for burial. A quilt lies over his body, thick and plain, hiding the marbling that has crawled farther than I wanted to admit.
We covered him carefully.
We cleaned him as best we could.
Mother’s sobs come from my right, raw and uncontrolled, the kind that makes people avert their eyes because there’s nothing to do with that kind of grief. “Oh…my son,” she keeps wailing, the words breaking apart in her throat. “Oh, saints, my baby.”
My fingers shake harder. A violent tremor that starts in my wrists, scraping down along my knuckles before it numbs my fingertips. I quickly break the last handle off.
When his lids sit plump and still, I ruffle his brown curls one last time. His scalp is cold. A cold that returns no warmth, no matter how long you touch it.
Then I look at the two guards and nod.
They move with solemn respect, hands going under the handles, lifting Daron as if he’s still fragile, still alive enough to hurt. People watch, gathered in a half-circle once more, a dark mirror of the vigil we held just weeks ago.
Same faces. Same graveyard.
Different agony.
