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Killian pulled away from us and went to speak to Rees.
“The last time we ran through that field—” I stopped speaking, bringing a hand to my mouth. Too much. There had been too much violence and destruction. Too many people close to me—dying. And for what? My adventure hadn’t been grand. It hadn’t been important. Gathering casters. Hattie should have done it herself.
“It’s not your fault,” Jackson said.
I refused to look at him. He pulled me around by my shoulders so that I was facing him. “It’s not your fault. There have been troubles far longer than before the duke spoke up. This is not about you, Ainsley. It’s about a man out for blood and power.”
I nodded a few times, pressing his words deep into my soul in the hopes that it would lessen the rising guilt.
The ship’s sails adjusted as we lowered to the hill. The moment we landed, I ran. I heard Killian calling my name behind me, but with the enemy gone, I only wanted to speak to my mother about the fires they had set and find out if everyone was all right.
Jackson fell in line with me, and I could hear Killian behind me as well. I tore over the hillside as I had that fateful day of the horrid ball. When my world had changed.
The doors to my home appeared, and I choked on tears as I ran toward them. I yanked hard, pulling them open.
“Mother—”
She was there.
The duchess was there.
Lying on the floor.
“Oh, mother, I’m sorry I wasn’t—” I could no longer speak.
I fell next to her, kneeling to embrace her, however, she didn’t move. A crimson pool of blood had been hidden as she’d been lying with her back to me.
“Mother?” I rolled her body over, realizing her throat had been slit.
I screamed and slammed my fists against the floor. “No, no, no.” My throat fought any other noise that threatened to come. I shook my mother.
“I should never have left you, Mother,” I cried. “It is my fault you’re gone. I didn’t…I couldn’t…Please forgive me.” I inhaled a strangled breath. “No, come back to me. You can’t be dead. Please, Mother. Come back.”
Shaking her harder, I continued screaming until my throat was raw, until I felt arms tugging at my back.
“Get off of me. Get off of me.” I threw myself over my beautiful mother’s body. I felt her blood beneath my hands and wailed even louder.
Instead of pulling me, those same arms wrapped around me. A droplet fell on my back, and I heard Jackson sniffle. He held me tight, as if his arms were the only things holding me together.
My screams abated into racking sobs that echoed throughout my body. I heaved but swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I wouldn’t, couldn’t make the entryway worse than it already was.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Jackson kept repeating. “I should have stayed.”
He wasn’t speaking to me. He was talking to himself. Gwendolyn had been like a mother to him as well, and if anyone could feel even a measure of the pain as close to mine, it was him. I let him sit, squeezing me tighter as I cried, stroking my mother’s blonde hair and arm, hoping for a miracle that wouldn’t ever come.
My head was heavy, hanging in front of me as Jackson clung to me, supporting my full weight and preventing me from falling face-first onto my mother. I didn’t want to move. I did not want to leave; however, we couldn’t remain like this.
Yet, I didn’t know how I could let her go.
My kind and beautiful mother…dead.
She was just…gone.
How would I go on now?
I lifted my gaze. Just a small amount of strength, and I could at least sit up.
As I slowly raised my head, anger began replacing my despair. My mother’s body was not the only thing that had been defiled.
Written in blood on the marble flooring where the duchess had been facing, was a message from the devil himself.
An eye for an eye. You’ll be next. Be seeing you, Ainsley.
