Page 152 of Queen of Nothing

It’s pure exhaustion that keeps me curled up on the bed, hugging my pillow like a child holds onto a safety blanket.

Father loosens a heavy breath and starts, “The transfer… It…”

But his words fail.

They flounder between us.

I’m unmoving. I stare. And wait.

But not really. I don’t really wait—because what can he say to make me understand, to make me ok with this? Any of it.

He tries again, “Your mother… She…”

And again, his mouth clamps on words he can’t quite conjure, and his lips suck inwards.

It’s like he doesn’t know where to land, where to start and where to end.

Static hums around me in the air.

Nothing feels real.

Not my blank, numb mind. Not the cuts on my body that I can’t feel anymore. Not the walls around me, the chandeliers above, the man on the armchair—a father who has failed me since birth.

I’m too detached.

Too detached for his excuses.

But that doesn’t stop him from trying.

He runs his hands down his thighs and pushes upwards to sit up a bit straighter.

He says, soft, “I was hard on you. Perhaps more than I should have been.” His nod is faint, and it’s to himself, his own thoughts, his own words. “But there was reason behind it. I feared this.”

He gestures to me.

To my catatonic state.

“I feared your pain if you learned the truth… I feared your reaction. And the reaction of others, if they realised what you are. You are more… complicated than a deadblood, which can be unsettling for others.”

“Is it bad?” I ask, and the bluntness strikes him silent. “What you did to me—would the others think badly of you?”

His mouth flattens into a grim line.

“No, Olivia. Any other coven house would have done the same. Sometimes…”

His lips sink inwards again, and he bites down on them, turning his cheek to me.

Then, he continues, “Sometimes the gods test us and our loyalties to them—how well we will serve them. Oliver was not only born weak of power. He was born sickly. Very,” he adds, and the look he hits me with is severe. “If we hadn’t performed the ritual, your brother would not be with us today.”

I am unmoved.

I am still too numb.

Too detached.

Father’s shame drops his gaze to the rug. “It was never meant to be all of your power. But the pull of the transfer, it was too much, and the ritualist lost control. You were drained.”

My stare is stagnant, just like my insides.