“I don’t understand,” I admit, and she points to the child’s leg. To the birthmark—a love heart.
Same color.
Same spot.
Mybirthmark …
My heart lurches, breath hollows.
Her warm, soft hand comes up to cup my cheek. “Viola …” It’s whispered. The word such a gentle thing passed to me in a shaken voice.
“Viola,” she repeats, and I let my eyes lift, landing in the wide, hopeful, lilac pools of hers.
“Her daughter—” Gun starts, voice cracking. He clears his throat as my focus shifts past Della to his troubled stare. “My niece. She, ahh, contracted the Blight as an infant. Della was only eighteen at the time.” A long beat, then, “We buried her in the backyard with her grandparents.”
My throat tightens, stare sliding back to Della. “I’m so sorry for your loss …”
She shoves the painting in my face, shaking it so much I flinch. “Viola!”
Realization knifes into me, and my heart drops, splits,shatters …
She thinks I’m her daughter.
I’m not. I have a mommy. A family.
Had.
Though I can’t deny the resemblance between myself and her daughter, I’m something very different beneath this skin she thinks she knows.
I can’t look at the painting. Can’t look in her eyes and tell her this is nothing more than a tragic coincidence. That her little girl’s not here, not coming back, because I know the burn of that hopeful flame, even when you know it’s useless.
Sometimes, it’s the only thing that keeps you warm.
“I’m so sorry, I have to go …”
Her sobs attack me as I slip my towel off my shoulders and stand, easing past. I grab my knapsack, give a slack-faced Zane a kiss on the head, and make for the door. Barrel down the stairs on feet that won’t move fast enough.
It’s only once I’m outside, backed into a large cleft between the big rocks the fishermen use as seats, that I stare across the angry ocean, press the back of my hand to my mouth, and break.
The storm rolls offshore, its bulbous clouds pulsing with a fierce, electrical heartbeat while it continues to rumble like a restless beast that nests beyond the palace. Another wave crashes, dusting my face in salty spray as I stare at the bridge—long and lit and daunting. Picture it crumbling beneath my feet the moment I climb back up the rocks and step onto it.
I just want to sleep, but despite being able to see my balcony from here, my bed seems so far away.
So foreign and unreachable.
I’m a different person now than I was this morning. I left that room a maiden, naïve, and packed full of questions.
I left that roomOrlaith.
Now, I’mSerren—plucked, snipped, so achingly aware of my fragile existence and painted in another layer of murder.
I’m struggling to bridge the gap. To force myself to power on with the knowledge of my slain species sitting heavily on my shoulders. To picture myself sleeping in those pure white sheets without feeling compelled to bunch them up and feed them to the fireplace.
I’m living in a shell that doesn’t fit right anymore. Perhaps it never did.
This plush life feels so exorbitant compared to the bigger, uglier picture.
The distant clop of hooves snaps me out of my reverie. I clamber up the craggy face, peeking over a rock to see a gold-brushed carriage pulled by two horses clatter down the otherwise desolate esplanade.
