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“Thank you,” I tell her, and I mean it.
She swallows, and I know her well enough by now that this would be easier for her if she despised me utterly. That my genuine smile tugs at her heart.
The queen’s heart might be made of ice, but that’s the thing about ice.
It has a tendency of wanting to melt.
When she speaks, her voice is hoarse. “He is my son,” she explains.
I ignore her and instead settle into an image, the place I want my mind to occupy before I’m wiped away by a flurry of magic and evil.
So I close my eyes and think of Blaise, I think of the joy in her heart when she finally stumbles across Theo or Rose.
I think of her combing Rose’s hair into a braid for Rose’s wedding.
I think of her attending the audience when Theo is awarded his physician’s medal.
There’s a sadness to the picture, seeing her there all alone in the crowd.
A twinge of pain mingled with the joy.
But the smile that overcomes Blaise’s cheeks is worth the tears that stain them.
So when the magic of the ritual flares, and my torso no longer functions, I hardly feel the fall. Hardly feel it when my skull slams against the marble floor.
I cling to that memory that is not a memory at all, but a hope. To Blaise smiling. To the love of my life moving on.
As the spell heightens, darkness begins to eat at the edges of the image, like fire consuming the edges of a portrait. And where the shadows eat away at Blaise’s happiness, the image is replaced, and Blaise is weeping and heartbroken and distraught.
When the happiness and joy are swept away and only the aching is left, I cling to that version of her too.
CHAPTER50
BLAISE
“Blaise…”
“Fates above, she’s killed someone.”
“We don’t know it was her—Fates, that’s Clarissa. Oh, Blaise…”
“Who’s Clarissa?”
“Blaise’s stepmother. That’s Blaise’s stepmother.”
“Still think she didn’t kill her?”
“Kiran”—another voice, one I don’t recognize—“why don’t you have a look around and make sure no one else in the house is hurt?”
A shuffling of feet, and it’s as if all the warmth flees the room behind whoever left.
I’m staring at a knot in the wood. Its swivels and swirls haven’t changed with time, but every time I blink, a different picture appears.
A puppy with its tongue lolling.
A dragon breathing fire.
A new picture joins the rotation too: the profile of a face, mouth dripping with blood.
