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To know what she knows.
To feel the suns of other worlds upon my skin, to drink from the rivers of other realms and discover whether their waters taste just as sweet.
To live a different life than my own. To be handed the opportunity to take another path.
The chance to cry out when Derek leads me into that pantry. The knowledge to take my baby and run. The opportunity to sneak out of Madame LeFleur’s shop while she’s busy preparing a potion behind that thick curtain.
There’s that part of me, but then there’s the other; it’s tired and worn and a little trampled. But it has learned to stand on weak knees, learned to love without expectation of return.
It survives, and it manages a laugh or two along the way.
“What sort of things are you hoping to learn?” I ask, but the question is two-fold. It’s about Zora, but the queen brought me here for a reason. She brought me here to show me what Nox stands to lose.
“I wish to know how to protect the world I’ve come to feel a responsibility toward. I wish to right my wrongs. But the sister is not the only means to that end. The parasite that dwells within you, if wielded by someone with greater understanding of the dangers to this realm—it could protect this realm in ways you could not possibly understand. It’s why I’m more than willing to give up the girl in exchange for the parasite.”
“That’s the bargain you made with Nox,” I whisper.
The queen nods. “If he extracts the parasite and delivers it to me, I will release his sister and allow him to take her wherever he wishes.”
The truth comes cascading down upon me like loose rubble, and there’s no escaping it. No pretending it away.
It’s why I can’t let him fail to meet his end of the bargain. It’s why, tomorrow, when he performs the ritual to extract the parasite from my body, the ritual that will end with my shredded mind unable to sustain life in my body—I’ll let him.
It’s why my dreams of running away with Nox are just that, dreams.
Because he has to save her.
I have to save her.
Even if, when it’s my eyes closed in an eternal slumber, there will be no dreams left for me.
CHAPTER37
NOX: AGE TWENTY
I’m to be punished for the lives I took in the village.
“You must learn the consequences of your actions, Farin. It’s my responsibility as your mother,” says the queen as she leads me to the topmost tower.
My head is still pounding from my blood-soaked revelry, so it’s easier than it should be to spout off, “And what of your responsibility as queen? Your responsibility to your people? Shouldn’t you avenge their deaths? Administer justice?”
“Execution is quite a waste as a punishment, don’t you agree?” she says. “It never allows for the violator to change their ways.”
She means she doesn’t want to execute me, because somewhere, deep down, the worm that’s left of her son’s soul writhes inside of me.
We reach a set of doors. Intricate carvings of constellations decorate the facade, and when the queen places her palm against the wood, the stars begin to quake.
Then a lock clicks and the doors swing open, and when I behold what lies inside, I’m confused.
There’s a beautiful female laid out across a raised dais, her pale skin sparkling like a diamond in the playful specks that pass through the painted windows on the right side of the room.
“Go, have a look,” the queen says, jerking her head in the female’s direction.
I cross the glittering floor, and with each step, dread fills my chest.
By the time I’m standing above her, my lungs have been cleaved from my ribs.
I didn’t recognize the female at first, and that’s the worst part.
