Page 141 of Queen of Nothing

A harsh breath cuts through me.

His finger—the makut—slices along the meat of my palm and splits the flesh.

I cry out, but he ignores it, and hot, crimson blood pours out of the cut.

The blood threads through my fingers and drips onto the stone floor at my feet.

But in my palm, there is a puddle of it.

Dray lifts my wrist.

My hand.

My palm.

And the moonlight cascades over us; it cascades over the blood pooling in my hand.

Dray’s sharp, glass eyes are locked onto the blood. The tension in his jaw is so tight that a muscle is stroked across his cheek.

He watches the regular glisten of blood under the light. He watches for the glitter, the reflection of the clear night sky above.

His throat bobs, his grip on my wrist flexes, but still, he waits.

There should be stars in the blood, there should be the whitish wisp of a moon—

But another heartbeat passes.

My blood is unchanging.

Beneath his cashmere sweater, his body is tense, like his skin is pulled tight over muscles of steel.

And still, he waits.

He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t breathe.

He stares and stares and stares.

My mouth flattens against the silent tears wetting my face. My throat is slick, and I swallow back the wretched truth I saw in that same blood years ago, in the garden of Hell House, when I realised my whole life had been a lie.

I am a krum.

I don’t know why my parents adopted me and pretended I was their own.

I don’t know why they chased me to the ends of the earth, a krum child that isn’t their own, not really.

But I do know that Dray will never marry a krum.

The final card up my sleeve—played.

A breath ushers out of him and his shoulders sag.

Blood spills over my hand. Unchanged.

He flings my wrist away from him, like it’s infected with a wretched virus.

His gaze snaps to me—and the look he pins me with sends a chill down my spine.