Ethan Crawford… Blair Crawford’s father? I found myself thinking. But I was sucked away from that thought and pushed back into the memory of the burning school.Solana had arrived, and heart-stopping dread filled her when she saw nearly every building on campus raging with the purple flames of Undying Fire.
“Marissa!” Solana bellowed, a shock wave of power snapping out of her as she searched for the Bane heir’s energy signature among the campus. She hated Marissa, but not without cause. I was then slammed with an overwhelming montage of memories of every time Marissa had done something mean in Solana’s presence—a bullying remark, a shove, tripping her, lighting the ends of her hair on fire. It was sickening to know that I was descended from such a creature.
“Your family will not take from me what is mine!” Marissa cried as something slammed into Solana’s back.
One second she was standing, and the next, Solana was sprawled out on the grass. Immediately, she pulled up some kind of protective shield. Marissa loomed over her, her snake familiar wrapped loosely around her neck. Black smoke curled toward the sky as a heavily pregnant Marissa glared down at Solana in rage. Bile churned in my stomach as I saw there was no humanity in her gaze. The lights were on, but nobody was home. She’d been consumed by anger and hatred, and it waseven sadder to see that she’d done that while pregnant with me, as if having a baby could keep someone from gravitating toward evil. Her irises were half green, threaded through with black tendrils.
“Marissa, the darkness is pulling you in! Stop this and I can help you,” Solana said, trying to reason with her. I had access to all of Solana’s thoughts and knew that she’d spoken with her brother and come up with a plan. In the event Marissa went dark, they would cage her, and if that didn’t work, they would kill her.
“I don’t need help. I need what your family stole from me,” she seethed.
Solana genuinely didn’t know what Marissa was talking about at the time, though here, in the present, I knew she was talking about the crown.
“You don’t need help? You’re burning the school down!” Solana roared, getting to her feet and gesturing behind her. “With a child in your belly, no less! What kind of mother will you be, Marissa?”
Solana had no idea who had impregnated Marissa, but she had her suspicions,all of which she kept from me in that moment. Marissa’s head reeled back as if she’d been slapped, and something flickered in her gaze. An inner horror, a knowing that she’d done something wrong. One hand went to her belly, and for a split second I saw humanity in her eyes, just before they iced over, making her look like she had been possessed.
“What kind of mother will you make, Solana?” Marissa cocked her head to the side, and the snake familiar at her neck began to slither down her arm, its scales glowing a soft yellow as some sort of magic built up in it. “With yourperfectbetrothed and yourperfectroyal family.”
No. I knew what was next, and I didn’t want to hear it or see it.
Solana readied an attack, pulling on her magic as Marissa grinned.
“You know what? I think you won’t be a mother at all. Ever. That’s what I will do to the Madden line to punish you for what you stole form me. You, Solana Madden, will have no children.” Marissa’s familiar shot off her arm and punched through Solana’s protective shield, sinking its fangs into Solana’s arm.
“No!” Solana cried, throwing up her hand to blast Marissa with magic, but it was too late. The curse had been delivered, in this case through poison her snake injected into Solana’s bloodstream.
Rage and fury ripped through Solana so hot, I felt sick. The one thing she wanted to be most was a mother, to hold a babe and kiss their little fingers and toes and sing them to sleep at night.
In a fit of rage, she pulled her own curse forward, a dark magic not normally used by her kind. But it was one she knew of from studying in the rare book section of the library at school.
“Then your child, Marissa Bane, will never be touched without feeling pain,” Solana cried and released the curse. A blast of light shot out from Solana’s palms, and everything went white, momentarily blinding Solana.
Marissa screamed, and Solana instantly felt regret for cursing her unborn child, an innocent party in all of this. But her anger at her own chance at children being taken away from her had driven her to darkness—just like the old fae who spent too much time around those in the House of Ash and Shadow. They all went dark too.
When Solana’s vision returned, Marissa and her familiar were gone, and the school still burned around her. The soundof people pounding on locked doors and windows was a horror Solana would never forget.And now, I would never forget either.She rushed forward with half a dozen Royal Guard and began to pry open doors that had been magically sealed, breaking windows, doing anything they could to free people.
Young Solana, barely twenty-two, was sobbing as she pulled burned and unconscious people from various rooms, some clearly deceased. Citizens from all over the city arrived with hoses and water pails and tried to put out the fire. They heaped burned body upon burned body, each citizen muttering one name as a curse under their breath.
Marissa Bane.
I wanted out of the memory, but I felt Solana’s hold on my mind tighten. She wasn’t done with me. I was pulled into another recollection.It was at night. Solana was in her dressing robe, hair still damp from an earlier bath, when she heard a blood-curdling scream.
Her sister-in-law, Rune. The queen.
Solana bolted out of bed, pulling on her power, and instinctively knew it was Marissa. Solana had known Marissa would be back one day. Months had passed since the fire, since Marissa cursed her with barrenness, since she’d ruined Solana’s life. Not only had Marissa taken one hundred and seventeen Gilded Citizens to the Realm of Eternity, but she had also taken Solana’s beloved Ethan away from her. Solana had had to be honest with him and tell him of her curse. She said a baby might not take hold, and they could still try after marriage, but he’d backed out of the agreement. He’d wanted to be a father since he was a young boy and didn’t want to lose the chance. Now she had no prospects. No one wanted her and her barren, cursed womb. She understood. As heartbroken as she was, she didn’t want to be the cause of someone else’s despair. She promised herself if she ever saw Marissa again, she wouldkill her. She would finish this torment and save her people from sharing air with such a vile monster.
“Solana!” Clarke ran down the hall, shirtless and in night pants. He’d been woken too. Her brother’s best friend and the godparent to her nephews, Clarke had been sleeping at the palace so that he could go on an early morning hunting trip with Arkin.
Oh Light. Her nephews. They’d better be safe.
They rounded the corner together and came upon heaps of dead guards, all burned or bitten by a snake.
“Marissa,” Solana growled and rushed forward, pulling her shield power to surround her and Clarke.
They heard a crashing sound coming from the king’s room and another scream. With one kick, Clarke busted down the door. The room glowed with Arkin’s fireballs, and Solana and Clarke wasted no time rushing into the melee.
It was the twins’ crying that first pulled her attention. She snapped her gaze to the corner of the room where the two cribs lay and pushed Clarke in that direction, hoping he got the message to get the children out. He nodded and bolted in that direction.
