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Cyrus stares as if I were mad—and hearing it all aloud, maybe I am. His rotten heart—damnation or salvation,Felicita’s prophecy had said. Well, it’s been the former. I should have done it. I should have stabbed him.
Like an answer, something shimmers at the edge of my vision.
It lures my eyes; magic is hard to look away from when it knows you want something. On the far side of the room, wedged in between a curio cabinet and a reading chair, is a potted plant. The leaves are a vibrant green—too green for the shadows, almost as if it were glowing—and trimmed in a bushy manner for ornamentation. The stem is thick and vined, leading up to a single golden flower, unfurled like a star. A fayflower.
Like the kind of growth found in the Fairywood. Or on the outside of my tower.
The scar on my palm itches.
I could do it, couldn’t I?
Yes, yes,answers a distant voice that is all too familiar.
I don’t even know if it’ll work, but my blood is buzzing. In the back of my mind, I know it will.
He deserves it. They all do. Be cruel and you may live.
As I let Cyrus go and stand, I’m dizzy—half instinct, all anger, hopelessness scouring every space I’ve hollowed out inside.
“Violet?”
You hate yourself for wanting him.
I claw at the wound in my hand, digging past the scab with my nails. There’s nothing left in me. What do my ambitions matter when the world is built on deception? I’ve built nothing real, and neither has anyone else. Auveny’s empire will be born from false hope and a false love, because lies are the currency of this world. Lies, grand and small, the keystones of dreams.
You hate yourself.
My fingers come away bloody. The gash is ragged and red and fierce with fresh pain. What do my feelings matter when they are all fear in different masks?
“Violet.” I hear Cyrus groan and shift onto his side. “What are you doing?”
Making certain that I will never lose control to him again, whether as king and Seer or as clashing lovers. He’s claimed too much of me.
I grab the trunk of the plant and smear it with my blood.
Like a nightmare, a red-tipped thorn sprouts under my hand.
Use the thorn and you will get away with it. When it strikes his heart, it will destroy his body.
I break it off. It fits in my grip perfectly.
I was always meant to wield this.
Cyrus tries to get to his feet, but I cross the room quicker and push a knee down on his injured chest. I’ve pinned him like this before. I wrap my other hand around his neck and he gasps—whimpers, really, for a breath. I don’t know if the Fates are giving me strength or he’s just that weak, but he barely fights.
“This is what our gods want.” I redouble my grip; the thorn is slippery with blood. “I was wrong to defy them. They’ve been right about everything else.”
A sound comes out of his throat. I think he’s laughing. “Do it, if you’re so convinced.”
I imagine that Cyrus is deliriously reacting to imminent death, but he grabs my wrist and doesn’t push me away. He points the thorn’s tip at his chest with all the strength I didn’t think he had.
“Do it.”
I dig the thorn into his flesh through the gap in his shirt, but with my pulse constricted under his fingers, I realize that I haven’t stopped shaking.
“The worst mistake I ever made,” Cyrus says, stained lips cracked and swollen, “was letting Camilla convince me we should sneak out to the Moon District that day.”
I finish the thought for him. “Because you met me?”
