Page 157 of Curse of Darkness
“I don’t know. What were you saying?”
Something to do with mother, and May, and how he loves me—even the rash side of me.
“You can beat her, Vi.” Drawing back, he presses one last kiss to my forehead. “But this time, you can’t simply hold the flame. You have to become the flame.”
* * *
The challengeagainst my mother doesn’t go unanswered for long.
The courtier steps forward the next morning, setting a small golden box on the table in front of me.
“A gift,” says the courtier with a sneer as he backs away, “from Her Majesty, your mother.”
“Don’t open that box,” Thalia warns, but I can’t look away from it.
I’ve seen Mother send these boxes before.
Moving as if in a dream, I unlatch the clasp and open it.
It takes a moment to realize what I’m staring at. I’d expected a finger, but this looks like a piece of fine leather, painted with—
It’s the mark of the blood moon.
I suddenly realize what I’m staring at, my hand capturing my gasp as I turn away.
“What is it?” Thiago demands, looking for himself.
Swallowing down my gorge, I force myself to think through the horror I feel. “I’ve been wondering what became of Theron.” I tug the letter from the box and snap the lid shut, forcing myself to breathe through it. “I warned him not take a shot at my mother. Iwarnedhim.”
“What does the message say?” Thalia murmurs, unrolling the letter.
I already know what it’s going to say, but I let her tell the tale.
“You have until tonight,” she reads. “I will see you at my sacred oak, or the next piece I send will be his head. Bring the crown.”
* * *
“It’s not your fault.”Thiago runs his hands up and down my upper arms the second we’re in our rooms. “Theron is an assassin, Vi. He knew what he was walking into.”
“I know!” I turn away from him, pacing. “Iknow. I just hate the way she always wins. I hate the way… that I feel like I’ve finally thrown free of her shackles, and yet, the second she storms back into my life, my brain stops working. It’s like some piece of my heart shuts down. I can’t breathe. I can’tthink. I can tell myself a thousand times that I am healing. That I am stepping into my own power. That I’m free of her—winning back everything that she stole for me—but the truth is: I don’t know if I will ever be free of her in here.” I slam my curled fist against my chest, the anguish burning through me. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to feel like I’m… like I’m enough.”
Thiago presses a hard kiss to the top of my head. “You will always be enough, Vi. It’s not your fault.”
Not my fault, not my fault, not my fault….I have to hang on to that.
You should kill her,whispers something in my head. I don’t think it’s my conscience.
“If it was that easy,” I snap, “then it would have been done years ago.”
Thiago blinks at me.
I twirl a finger near my head. “I was talking to the crown.” Which sounds absolutely ridiculous. “And I know how that sounds.”
“What doesitthink you should do?”
A vision of two armies rolls through my head. Thousands of fae warriors clash and die. I see myself clad in gilded armor as I step onto Asturian soil. The ground shudders beneath my footstep as I reach for the leylines and claim her kingdom too.
My mother screams as I crush her with the power of the Hallows.
