Page 70 of Of Songs and Silence

The side that sent a woman and her child into the shark infested water for a single perceived slight. The drain in the floor of her dungeons to capture the blood of her victims. Her children. Death after gruesome death at her feet. Rose’s body, her face swollen and purple. Zaina’s empty eyes. Aika’s deadly hands. Damian’s sadistic smirk.

And through it all, the endless rage and pain and grief that shines through everything my mother does.

How will she punish them now, if they fail? Will I lose all of my siblings as my aunt has lost hers?

“Oh, Ulla.” Danica brings her hand to her mouth, horror widening her eyes. “What have you become?”

I meet her eyes in our moment of shared grief, perhaps the only two people in the world who still hold something other than disdain for the woman who gave me life.

I understand her, in a convoluted way I almost wish I didn’t. Driven mad by the death of her soulmate. Clutching at power to protect the people she loves and punish the people she deems deserving.

I can’t hate her, not anymore. But neither can I forgive her for the things she’s done. The things she will still do. All while I sit here, powerless to stop her.

“You may be powerless, but I am not.” My aunt’s words are filled with a quiet steel I have never heard from her before.

For a rare change, her shields are down, and I feel all the pieces clicking together. A decision washes over her, settling into the marrow of her bones.

She has seen what her father became. For too many years, she has watched every member of her family succumb to violence and brutality, in one form or another. She has watched them tear each other and themselves apart, drowning in the destruction she felt like she was too weak to stop.

Danica can’t reach Mother, not physically, but not mentally either. Not now. There is only one thing she can realistically contribute to.

“I would never ask you to do this,” I say.

She nods solemnly. “The sister I knew was brilliant and calculating, but she would have died before hurting the people she loved. She would not have wanted to become this. And I have failed her once already.”

I think about my own sisters, the way I have come so close to losing them both to the darkness inside of them. Could I have made the choice to end one of their lives, to save them from destroying themselves and the people around them?

I love them enough to know the answer, even if it would decimate pieces of myself to see it through.

So I don’t argue with Danica again. Instead, I ask a more practical question.

“What about your father?”

She levels a look at me, more reminiscent of her usual self. “I am not blind, child, and neither are you. I think we both know he won’t be long for this throne, or this world.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Then why did you tell me I could leave Ari?”

She gives the closest thing to a shrug I have seen from her. “Because it was still your choice. Then and now.”

I feel a surge of affection for this woman who has protected me and helped me since I arrived, at constant risk to herself. She is by no means immune to the king’s wrath, but she took this on herself.

My mother didn’t take her sister’s share of the bravery. Not by half.

A small, sad smile graces Danica’s lips. “I will leave tonight, and have my maid make excuses for me in the morning.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, hoping she understands the way I mean it to apply not just to this moment, or to her help with my sisters, but to everything she has done for me.

Somehow, I suspect this will be the last chance I have to tell her. I think when Danica leaves this palace, she might never look back. She doesn’t argue with my last thought, though I know she hears it.

She only reaches out a hand to my shoulder in a display of affection.

“Goodbye, Melodi.”

CHAPTERFORTY-THREE

MELODI

The next day is an echo of the ones before. More death. More bloodshed. More celebrations. I didn’t talk to Ari last night. Or rather, he didn’t talk to me. He’s giving me the space I asked for. It’s just as well. I needed last night to think, to process without anyone else sharing in my thoughts.

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