Gemma’s spoon clinked against the pot simmering on the stove. “Hm?”
“Wells—” I pushed off the chair, crossing to her side. She stilled. “I know that’s for him.” We both stared at the pot, amber swirls bubbling, foaming. “How did he survive me?”
She rummaged through a drawer, metal clinking against glass, before tipping another liquid into the basin. “You were new to your curse,” she muttered, hissing when water snapped back at her hands. “You didn’t inject enough venom—” Leaves crushed to powder fell from her palm. “He wanted to live.” Another stir. “The antivenom helped.” She fanned her flushed face, sweat gathering at her temple. “Take your pick. It doesn’t matter why he lived. Only that this,” she nodded to the brew, its surface turning from honey to rust, “keeps working for him.”
“And it is?” I questioned, my eyes narrowing at the edge of her tone. “Working for him?”
Her hands slowed, then stilled. “It is. But the illness is…progressing. Taking more from him every day.” Quieter, she said, “I’m working on something stronger.”
Exhaling hard, I watched the elixir darken. “I just feel overridden with guilt. That I didn’t even know.”
Her head snapped up, stare piercing clean through me. “Good.” She dropped a pinch of rouge powder, the liquid blooming crimson beneath the stir of her spoon. “Not because you should be. But because it meansyou’restill with us.”
The bitter dust hung in the air, stinging my nose. I coughed, spitting flecks off my lips. “Why?”
The Viper brushed across my skull, listening as it had been the entire time.
She tasted the brew, swallowed, and then looked at me. “Because, my love, I fear no one will survive when you’re gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Verena
“YOU ARE NOT A CAGED RABBIT,” I snapped, following Elva onto the balcony.
The wind tore past, catching her hair. She smoothed a strand from her
shoulder, calm where I was fury.
“No,” she murmured. “I am the prized mare.” Turning away, she fled back inside.
I scoffed, trailing her steps. “How can you think so little of yourself?”
Fingers drifted down the sage silk of her gown as she stood before the mirror. The smile she forced was fragile, splintering at the edges.
“I will be queen, Verena.” The quiver was too obvious as they skimmed the ivory ink etched along her arm, a mask of strength over skin too soft to bear it. “There is no higher ruling of oneself in our world.”
My eyes flicked up, catching my reflection beside hers. She was delicate, draped in pastel and grace.
I looked night deep. Cloaked, scarred, marked. My image wavered in the mirror, as if even glass rejected me.
“Yes—” I stepped back. “Because what grand things a gagged queen can do.” Plush sank beneath me as I dropped onto her bed, the pink canopy falling in a soft cascade, veiling me in roses. “Might as well hog-tie you above a fire.”
Her eyes glistened, shoulders tensing as she turned. “Why are you being so cruel?”
I shot to my feet. I wanted to fight for her. Fates, I wanted to see her rise into the woman she was meant to be. But itguttedme, seeing how she’d folded in on herself. How she’d stopped resisting. As if she had woken one morning and decided this cage was all she deserved.
“Why are you not fighting for yourself?” was all I said in its place.
I had never pushed her. Never forced her hand. Always waited, always watched her slip and get back up, no matter how leisured. But now, I needed her to answer.
Her shoulders drooped, a single tear slipping loose at last as she neared. I pressed a tissue into her hand, settling back onto the bed as I patted its edge.
She joined me, the mattress hardly shifting beneath her frame. “What fight do I have to offer?” The tissue twisted in her grip. “I’m not trained like you. I have no strength. My powers are…” Her lip curled in self-disgust. “They’re nothing.”
A sharp breath cut through my teeth. “Is that what they told you?” She dabbed at her nose, her other hand clutching the heart pendant at her throat. “That if you dared to resist, you’d only lose anyway?”
I could already taste the blood of the palace rats who’d ground those lies into her.
