“You have to let it go, Verena,” she said, sniffling softly. But I caught the pink in her nose, the damp glint in her lashes. I should’ve brought wine instead of pastries. “We can help them. Heal them.” Her eyes leveled on mine, honed thin. “Not avenge them.”
I blinked away my vindication, throat still thick with the words I wanted to spit. Quiet hung between us, not surrender, not even close. And when Gemma looked back down, I knew she assumed my fury had ebbed.
She was wrong.
“You and I both know who did this.” My jaw clenched when she looked back to me, letting her see the shiver rattling inside. “He’s doing this openly. To achild.” My head shook. “What’s he going to do to hisbride, Gem?”
The thought, Perseus’s poisoned hand clutching Elva’s arm, sent my rage careening. The room tilted, color drained.
Gemma’s body flared radiantly in the Viper’s sight while the rest of the world dissolved away.
Fingers rubbed my wrist, dragging across the scar. If I still had my serpent, Perseus’s veins would already be black tar, and Mina’s troubled eyes would be repaid in his blood.
A hiss threaded through me, a lash of mourning, of unforgiving anger. So fierce that my body jerked back, and I fell, tumbling into a pit inside of my own mind while it consumed me from the inside out.
Gemma blurred at the edges, retreating as though through water. Her eyes were shaped into terror as her face smeared into shadow. I reached for her with arms that weren’t there, with fingers that no longer belonged to me.
I became nothing. Empty. Stripped of breath, of self.
The curse moved unhurried above me, the way darkness inevitably crept in, and my heart skipped a beat, then caught another—not mine.
Still, I reached, desperate for the tether, the invisible cord binding me to the world. My hand closed around it in one frantic grasp, and I slammed back into my body.
The obscurity smiled before hiding back in the pitch. The chill it left behind was worse than the flame.
Gemma’s hands were already on me as I collapsed into the chair, stroking down my arms, coaxing warmth back into limbs gone cold.
“Was that the first time?” she asked.
I nodded, dazed, skin still carrying the imprint of what lived in there.
She sighed, pushing a rogue curl behind my ear only for it to spring free again. “Elva has Callum. She has Fritz.” Her hands moved to cup my face. “And she has you. That poor girl had no one,” she murmured. “No magic to shield her. That is why he chose her. He likes them weak, defenseless. Elva’smagic will come when she accepts the throne. The prince will not dare lay a hand on her. Not when she becomes who she’s meant to be.”
Gods, I had nearly forgotten. Elva’s wedding loomed only days away.Days.
I had promised her freedom. Promised I wouldn’t let her become a pawn.
She’d sworn to sacrifice herself for the kingdom and I’d sworn to stop her, two vows snarling against each other.
Somewhere in the whirlwind of dragon princes, sleepless nights, and the shards of myself breaking loose, I’d let the time slip through my fingers.
Weeks had become days. Barely enough to plan, barely enough to act. Barely...but still some.
Gemma would forgive me. Eventually. When the smoke cleared, she’d see it was worth it.
Everything I’d done for Elva, every sin, every bargain, was all worth it.
She said nothing else as she squeezed my arm once, collecting the empty tincture glasses. The kitchen heightened with a rising cinnamon haze, winding down my throat like a memory trying to choke me.
Déjà vu struck,hard.
Wells’ face. Blood in his eyes. My hands slick with it.
Bile burned the back of my tongue, tears threatening at the corners of my eyes where rage should live before I could stop them.
I really needed to punch someone soon.
“Why did he survive?” The words came out too vulnerable.
