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“You are a fool, Ensley,” I tell her, my voice low enough that the guards outside will not be able to overhear us. I rarely call her by her birth name and she notices, a frown scrunching up her face, but the hatred of me still swirling in her eyes. “I wonder how your father will react when I tell him what you did.”
Her frown deepens and, childishly, she crosses her arms over her chest. “What am I supposed to have done?”
“Told our family secrets to a litalf prince, like some sort of idiot with a crush much too big for her to handle. But that’s exactly what you are, isn’t it? Just a silly little girl with a big mouth.”
Slowly, understanding flickers across her face and her frown smoothens out. I watch the shutter of fear in her eyes.
“Where did you hear these stories?” I ask as calmly as I can muster, though my breath shivers with the rage whirling inside of me. “About the light healing me? Where did you hear this?”
She shrugs one shoulder and forces her face into a stone cold mask of her father’s, hiding her worry. She knows she fucked up.
“In the castle?”
“Around,” she mutters, cutting her gaze to the curtained window.
“My sickness,” I tell her, “and the light healing me—these are matters to be kept private. And you …” I pause to release a shuddering breath and close my eyes on the red I’m seeing. When I open my eyes, I see that she’s watching me. “You told a litalf, of all things about yourmother.”
Her eyes turn cold, ice storms. “You are no mother of mine.”
I surprise myself as my fury rips out of me with a shout, “I gave my life for you, you horrid, ungrateful,uglychild! But I know now that I should have let your uncle kill you when all I did was protect you inside of me.” I level my stare, gathering whatever calm I can. “You were my mistake.”
“The only mistake was made by my father when he bound himself to you to save you,” she sneers.
And the slap echoes through the carriage.
My hand stings as I fall back on my seat, panting from the rage pumping through me. Ensley sits at an angle, her cheek facing me, turning red.
I expect her to dive at me, throttle me, use her art of fighting on me.
But no reaction comes.
She simply lifts her chin and ignores the obvious sear of her cheek. She doesn’t look my way, keeping her unreadable eyes on the curtains. And she sits in silence.
It takes me a moment before I realise why she doesn’t react.
Daein.
Not only would her punishment be brutal for harming me, but it would reveal the cause of our fight. And she wants to keep that quiet. If Daein found out …
Not even I want that level of cruelty to come down on my own daughter, as much as I loathe her in this moment.
And I do loathe her.
That’s awful, isn’t it? I’m supposed to love her no matter what. That’s what I always expected to happen. Eternal love.
But the truth is, in this particular moment, I have just … snapped. And I find it hard to care about her very much.
I look down at my clenched fists in my lap. I relax my hands, flexing my sore palm. Her cheek must be burning, I think. But I say nothing. I am not sorry.
What I am sorry for is how she turned out. Maybe if I’d had more of a role in raising her, she would be better for it. Maybe she would be kinder, less like a dokkalf, more like me.
Maybe…
My gaze shifts from my hands to my belly. Swollen. Always swollen. It’s the way my body is. But inside, it’s empty. No child grows in there.
Would it be so terrible to have another?
With Daein’s bond protecting me, keeping me strong and alive, I wouldn’t face the same complications as before with Ensley. And as his wife, I am untouchable.
