Page 160 of Crown of Darkness
“No, please.” I grab for the bundle, that little finger still curled around mine. “Please.”
Andraste hesitates, and for a second I think I might have a chance. Just one.
“Enough.” My mother’s voice is a whip crack. “Get that child out of here before I decide to see it drowned.”
Andraste straightens, and as she wraps the linens around my daughter, her shoulders square for one defiant moment. “Amaya will be powerful,” she says in a hollow voice. “She is born of your blood, Mother. And as much as you despise him, she’s born of his blood too. Amaya will wield all the powers of the Evernight and Asturian royal lines, and if you harm her, then you will see your greatest weapon against the Prince of Evernight destroyed.”
Greatest weapon?
“Don’t you dare,” I gasp.
“Raise her.” My sister doesn’t even look at me. “Raise her in seclusion so that no one knows of her birth. Train her to be strong and powerful. Love her.” She pauses then, looking down at my baby. “And teach her the truth about her birth—that her father is a monster who stole her mother away and defiled her.”
“No, no, no, no, no!”
They’re not listening. Nobody is listening to me.
My mother steps closer, twitching the blankets aside and considering my daughter’s fate. And then she smiles. “You always were my favorite child, my eldest. You’re always thinking ahead. And you’re right. I’m letting my anger rule me.” She leans down and presses a kiss to my baby’s forehead. “This baby is mine. And she will be the greatest weapon I can ever wield.”
“No!”
Hands pin me down. The nursemaids. And just as I prepare to roll from the bed, another uncontrollable spasm assails me.
“You must push again, Princess,” the midwife says as my vision blurs again. “This is your afterbirth. You’ve lost a lot of blood and you must push, or you might die.”
I don’t care.
“My baby, my baby, my baby….” But the door shuts behind my sister, and all I can see is her figure outlined in a halo of light before they’re gone.
Forever.
And there’s nothing I can do but scream.
* * *
“Vi? Vi!”Someone grips my shoulders as I kick and sob.
I blink out of the memory, every inch of me torn open and ravaged.
Thiago hauls me into his arms. “It’s all right, it’s all right. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
But it’s not all right….
She was there, and her little finger curled around mine as if I could keep her safe…. And I didn’t. I didn’t.
I don’t know where she is.
I don’t know what her life has been like, but I can imagine.
Tears stream down my face, but it’s the rage in my heart that can’t be hidden. I always thought my mother had taken everything she could from me.
But I was wrong.
“I will kill her.”
“Vi?”
I let the note fall into his hand, and Thiago’s eyes race as he tries to read it.
