Page 29 of His Eternal Claim

I’ll give them their merger. And when the room is full of the scent of jasmine, when the music reaches its peak, I’ll show them what happens when you try to cage a man who has nothing left to lose but the ghost of a girl.

It won’t be a wedding. It will be a massacre.

A beautiful, blood-soaked slaughter of everything the Vitale family stands for.

I’ll bathe in the blood of the Union until the pink of that diamond is the only thing left that isn’t stained red.

Wait for me, Dolcezza.

I’m bringing you a ring. And I’m bringing you their heads.

The King is dead. Long live the monster.

Chapter 12

Tether

THE REQUIEM | Present

Sad moon… You who see her, let her know that I am dying unintentionally.

I am back in bed after my Mother left. I lie there like a statue carved from adrenaline and terror, waiting for the silence to reclaim the room.

It’s absurd how little of what my Mother said makes sense to me. Not a bit. I stare at the door, hoping whatever I see or hear or find out is just an illusion. There’s also a part of me that doesn’t want her to be a villain in my story.

But the photograph and that vial.

The knowledge is cold, a blade twisting in my gut. I inhabit a forgery. I am a painting that my Mother is retouching every morning, brushing away the dark, jagged strokes of my reality and replacing them with soft, pastel lies of her memory.

I do not sleep even though the medicine she has given me should make me lose myself. The dust motes dance in the shafts of light, suspended in a state of permanent, beautiful stagnation.

That is what this room is. A bell jar. And I am the specimen inside, breathing my own recycled air, slowly suffocating on the scent of lavender and betrayal.

But if I keep letting her play with my memories that way, I will lose myself.

Taking a deep breath, I swing my legs over the bed, hide the photograph under the mattress, and make my way to the bathroom.

There is no mirror in the bathroom, only one in the room, which saves me the trouble of avoiding my reflection. Every time I look at myself, I do not see me. I see a clone. There, but not truly there.

I brush my teeth, take a hot bath, hoping the tiredness will wash off me. It doesn’t. Wrapping a towel around myself, I walk into the closet, grab whatever I can find and change.

I hate how there are only dresses; it reminds me of my time with Zagreus.

He wouldn’t let me wear anything but dresses—silk, satin, velvet. As if I were his doll, and he could play with me however he pleased.

My heart stings at his memory.

Zagreus liked the way silk clung to my hips, the way he could ruin a thousand-dollar hem with a single, possessive tug. He dressed me like a queen only so he could remind me he was the one who wore the crown. Now, my Mother does the same, replacing his dark, bruising shades of crimson and midnight with these anemic pastels: lavender, cream, dove-grey.

A different cage.

A different colour of silk.

But the bars feel exactly the same.

I feel a phantom hand on the small of my back. I can almost smell him: the scent of cedarwood, expensive tobacco, and that sharp, metallic edge of danger that used to make my blood sing even as it froze.

Those steel-grey eyes.