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“No, we trailed after you when she ordered you to go through the goblin glass, but by the time we reached it, the glass had already closed.”
Vori’s stomach dropped down, down, down, and the sick feeling bubbled up.“What did you do?”
“Me?Nothing.I was a little kid.My big sister tried to follow you through.”She dragged a finger through Artanya’s bright-red blood.“But she’s not royal enough.Why do you think she stays in that human form?She did it when we were kids so no one would see how ordinary she is.How little she matters.How she could never become as great as her ambitions.”
Perry stepped forward.“You made those scars on your sister, didn’t you?”
Petra twisted her face into a snarl.“Keep quiet, Consort.I’ll show you personally how I made those scars.You and your father are no better than my sister, failing to put innocent kids before your own ambitions.I’ll tear you apart too before I kill you.Your turn is coming.”
Vori circled closer, putting herself between the killer and Perry.“Not here, he’s protected by the law of consorts.”
“Didn’t stop me from killing the king.They’ve all violated the same basic code.The easiest and most fundamental rule.The same that forced you to another world, Princess.I can’t let that go.”
“What rule?”Vori wanted to keep her attention away from Perry.“The men in the human world.Why did you kill them?”
“Like your consort, they all failed to protect children.The most vulnerable of us, the weakest of us.Just like my sister did.”
Artanya interrupted.“I was saving you.”
“You were sacrificing me to save yourself because your blood wasn’t royal enough to open the portal.”
The truth was plain in the red spattered across the stone floor.
Shame twisted Vori’s stomach into knots, forcing her to swallow past the sick.She had spilled Artanya’s blood.Was she as much of a monster as Artanya?As Petra?She needed to know the rest of the story.She could deal with everything else later.“What happened when you tried to go through the goblin glass after me?”
“She told you.”The pretender queen groaned and struggled to pull out of her sister’s hold.“We were too late.”
But Petra wouldn’t allow it, yanking her tight against her body, soaking them both in blood.“Yes, the glass had closed.My sister sliced her hand, let her not-royal-enough blood soak into the amethyst.But nothing happened.When her own blood failed, she stabbed me over and over and over.”
“I couldn’t stay here.”Artanya’s voice was pleading, smaller than it had been moments before.So small it could slip through the cracks in the floor as her blood did.“I’d seen what was coming.The mad king was slaughtering us.He murdered our parents right in front of me.Executed my mother, the woman he’d promised to love before your fae bitch mommy showed up as a gift from another court.”
Vori’s breath tangled on the last.“He killed my mother too.”
“Poor little princess.”Artanya’s sarcasm bubbled around the blood in her mouth.“You were long gone before he killed her.You didn’t watch him butcher unarmed people—hispeople—just to protect your throne.I did.”Her voice caught, an ugly raw sound like a wound reopened.“The lands outside the castle?Those woods where you played?Those fields that used to grow before everything withered and died?The mud was slick with silver and gold blood.I couldn’t stay another minute.”
Petra cupped Artanya’s cheek in a mockery of a sweet gesture.“But you didn’t have the power to open the glass on your own, and I fought back.I hope every time you’ve looked in a mirror, you’ve remembered what you did to me.”
“No, it can’t be true.”Mykata reached for her sister.Which one, Vori couldn’t tell.“Artanya was so brave, and you…Phaedra, you were just a baby.”
“Petra.”The goblin yanked on her sister’s neck again.“I was reborn on the other side of the glass when Baba Yaga found me.”
An icy chill skated down Vori’s spine.“Baba Yaga?”
“In the woods on the human side.It was so cold.I ran and tripped and fell and ran some more.”
The same as Vori had done.“What did you promise her?”
“Nothing.The old hag was looking for you, but she found me instead.A story for another time.”Petra’s smile changed from the cunning smirk of a killer to the oh-so-scary imitation of a child’s, a child who had gone terribly wrong.“This is the tale of two sisters.One who would destroy the other to find a new world, and the other who found a way to conquer that world, to punish those who deserve it.”She stroked the pretender queen’s bloody hair.“Like you.”
“Why did you come back?”Artanya asked.“What do you want?The throne of Kradnovtl?”
“Oh no, the crown princess can have that.She might keep this realm alive.Or not.”Petra rolled her eyes in Vori’s direction and swept a hand toward the flowers on the ground.“Figured out the whole ‘blood of a living royal sustains the world’ concept, have you?”
Vori’s skin went clammy.“Which is why I will allow your sister to live, to let you both live.Regardless of your crimes.”Because what else could she do?Kradnovtl was dying.Her home was dying.These people—herpeople—were dying.“The realm needs you both alive.Needs us all alive.”
“A truce?”Mykata asked.
Vori nodded.“I’ll show the mercy my father didn’t.Artanya, acknowledge you’ve lost the challenge.Forfeit any claim to the throne.We can find a way to save the realm together.”Her heart ached, and her gut twisted like the spreading vines of royal gold and amethyst flowers across the stone.
