She’smy priority now.
“By the time I’ve done what Father never could and claimed Ocruth as my own, perhaps I’ll finally be worthy of your love,” I say, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Her face scrunches, garbled words dropping from her mouth like pebbles. Tears gather in her eyes, and all I see is a paltry, desperate, dramatic ploy to gain the upper hand.
Not today.
I grip both sides of her face, stilling her jaw and those mutated noises. “You almost ruined everything,” I seethe, upper lip peeling back, my gums aching with the promise of elongated canines that never emerge. “You almost ruined everything!”
The words blast out of me with a violence that ricochets off the walls.
I press my forehead against hers, rolling my head one way, the other. “But she loves me,” I whisper, a slow, rumbling laugh building in the back of my throat. “She loves me in a way youneverdid.”
Mother trembles in my grip, tears slipping down her cheeks, her knobbly, frail hand settling upon my heart. Making my flesh burst with goosebumps—a sensation that scurries up my spine. “I ooh ove ewe, Gnong. Ioohove ewe!”
I do love you, Non.
Perhaps I need to sew her fucking lips shut, too.
“No, you don’t.” I rip her hand off my chest, then shove back and push to a stand, looking down on her. Feeling sick to my stomach. “I have the scar to prove it.”
Another whimper, and my mouth twists in distaste.
I jerk my chin at the empty spot on the stool beside her. “Hand. Now.”
Her breath stills, face crumbling with a guttural sob. She shakes her head, mumbling words that find no berth.
“Now!”
Another flinch. Pathetic sounds whittle free as she lifts her hand, feebly tugging at her clothes with clawed fingers.
As if that will help.
She gasps as I seize her wrist, a mere stick in my firm grip. I place her hand on the stool, palm up so I can see the calluses that have built up over the years from the constant twist and tug of the threads she dearly loves.
The middle one has the most.
I eye it like the enemy it is, knowing it speaks the language of the only love she really knows—hercraft.I whip my blade from my boot and slam it through the base of her finger, severing it just below the knuckle.
Blood splatters my face, and she releases a loud, curdling shriek that ripples through the palace.
I think I made a similar sound when she tried to put me down.
“Be grateful,” I mutter, sheathing my dagger. “I should be takingtwo.”
She tucks her bleeding hand up close to her chest and cradles it, big, heaving sobs racking her frail form as she looks at me through eyes glazed with immeasurable hurt. Like she didn’t bring this on herself.
A trail of blood dribbles off the stool, pooling on the ground.
I unstopper the empty vial and snatch Mother’s hand, collecting the ruddy liquid from the severed stump while her chest heaves with silent sobs. Punching the cork back into place, I use her water pitcher to rinse my hands. I dry them with a cloth I throw on the ground, pulling the other vial from my pocket to wave in her direction, Father’s blood sloshing about.
A desperate sound bludgeons past her chattering teeth as she stumbles off the stool and falls to her knees, looking up at me like a begging dog.
“Not today,” I say, a smirk grazing my lips. I tuck the jar in my pocket before I give her my back.
Today, she cansuffer.
Madame Strings’s heady musk clings to me, making my skin itch more than it usually does. Making me want to scrub it with a dry loofah until I scrape away the sensation, though I doubt it would help.
