Page 17 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

Responsibility? The urge to turn and slap her rises like a tidal wave. Unfortunately, even as the desire swells, it crashes against cliffs that stop it from doing any damage and I remain right where I am. Sight darkened and unchanged, my body completely ramrod straight as pain darts through me.

As if she finally—blessedly senses my spasming torment—Ophelia’s fingers are gentle as she slips a nail under the brimstone and the damn thing comes free. All her prying and wiggling has paid off. The stone slips from my neck, from beneath my skin, and the wash of warmth that encompasses me a second after it’s gone spreads from the wound in my neck and down my limbs.

The image of the room flares back to life and I can see—truly see—once more. I blink and frown. In fact, my eyesight is far better than it’s ever been. The peeling wallpaper that was once a flat, grotesque design becomes thousands of tiny little fibers woven into one another and stretched into the material that covers the wall. I can pinpoint each individual tear and the wood beyond, scarred by deep grooves.

Slowly, confused by the strange sensations coursing through me and aware of my own skin knitting back together and healing far faster than ever before, I turn to face the woman at my back. Her fingers are coated in blood, but she doesn’t move to wipe them.

Whereas before I never noticed, now I can see the soft marks of makeup dotting her skin—covering … more lines I realize. Far more than I’ve ever detected previously. The dust is a light coating but still there, and it no longer masks the shadows beneath Ophelia’s eyes or her sunken sockets. Her lips, once full, I now recognize are dry and cracked beneath the gleam of some sort of glossy lipstick.

For the first time, I see. See it all in a way that I hadn’t in a decade, in a way that I had forgotten was possible. It makes my head throb with all of the information being thrown at my sight at once.

“I will do whatever it takes to not become you,” I find myself saying.

“You don’t mean that,” she says on a sigh as if the words are so obvious that she’s annoyed she has to say them at all.

I look at her, and when my eyes meet hers, I repeat myself. “Whatever. It. Takes.”

Her lips part and her eyes narrow. “Kiera.” She says my name like a mother ready to castigate a recalcitrant child, but I am no child, and I have not been one for a very long time.

“I mean it,” I say, my tone quiet. I feel no need to shout or scream. Making the words louder won’t make them any truer. “I am done.”

Ophelia’s brows crease and her lips curl down into a frown. “What do you?—”

“I am done letting everyone else make decisions for me,” I say. A cold sort of chill comes over me. It starts at my fingertips and slowly crawls up my hand, over my knuckles to my wrists.

“I think it took me this long to realize that I’ve never made a choice for myself, not really,” I continue. “I didn’t choose to be born?—”

Ophelia scoffs, a sharp sardonic chuckle rising from her throat as she cuts me off. She rolls her eyes and then waves her hand, the frown and confusion easing slightly. One look at her face. That’s all it takes and I know she doesn’t understand what I mean. Then she speaks, and my assumption is confirmed.

“You didn’t choose to be born?” She shakes her head again. “You still have benefited from it. You were given opportunities others would have killed for.”

I tilt my head to the side and stare at her for a moment. She won’t understand. It doesn’t matter what I say or do. Perhaps I’m just now realizing it, but there are some people you cannot convince of anything. They will go their entire lives believing the sky is purple and fuck anyone who says otherwise. I know that … yet somehow my next words come out anyway.

“If you were told you could either lose your right hand or your left hand, which would you choose?” I ask suddenly.

Ophelia blinks. “Excuse me?” Her tone suggests that she thinks I’ve gone crazy.

“There’s an accident and you must give up one hand. Which do you choose, right or left?” I ask.

She pauses but after a beat, answers. “Left.”

I nod, unsurprised. She’s right-handed. Therefore, her choice makes sense. “Alright, then, by your own choice, you lose your left hand. Do you agree?”

Ophelia scowls. “This is ridiculous,” she snaps.

“You lose your left hand,” I repeat. “Do you agree?”

“Yes, damn it,” she seethes.

I take a breath. “What if, then, the Gods decide that no one is allowed to use their right hand? They make the law that everyone must use their left hand as it’s more Divine. Should anyone be caught using their right hand they will have it cut off. What do you do?”

More frowns from her. “I would go back and choose to cut off my right hand then.”

I shake my head. “You can’t go back,” I say. “It’s gone. The decision is made. You only have your right hand.”

“If the Gods decree that I cannot use it, though, then it’s useless. How was I supposed to know that they would make such a preposterous decree?”

“It doesn’t matter if you could tell the future or not. You made a decision in the moment, assuming one thing. Now, you cannot use either of your hands or, if you try to use the one you have left, you run the risk of losing it completely as well.”

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