Page 51 of Of Beasts & Vengeance

All because I allowed Aika to put a scratch on my face during training.

“How many times must I tell you? Beauty is power. Power is beauty. If you have one, you will always have the other. And if you have neither, you are useless to me. You don’t want to be useless, do you?”

I thought of Rose and wondered if maybe I did wish I was the one who was useless to Madame. But then who would protect the two sisters I have left?

“No,” I answered dutifully.

She arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me, and I belatedly tacked on, “Mother.”

“Very well. You may stay here until it heals, then we’ll deal with the scar. That should give you ample time to shed that bulk you’re picking up as well.”

I finally wrench my eyes away from my own haunted gaze, only to land on the reflection of something that nearly undoes me entirely. The letters from my sisters.

They’re on the floor by the wardrobe, along with my jewelry box, likely because Einar read them. I pick them up with trembling hands, even though I’ve memorized them by now, and collapse on to the bed with the only piece of my sisters I have left here.

They don’t even know that I’m alive.

I will probably never see them again.

A silver gleam catches my eye, pulling me from my thoughts, and I glance back at the jewelry box on the floor. My wedding ring is resting on the ornate rug beside it.

It had felt like a shackle, the day he slipped it onto my finger. I never imagined I would find it beautiful, but I find myself admiring it now. The hammered silver band is delicate but strengthened by the intricately entwined strands. An oval-shaped moonstone sparkles in the center, shimmering with blue the exact shade of Einar’s eyes. Diamonds edge the stone like icicles, and I could almost believe this ring is a part of Jokith itself, a shard of frozen beauty like the landscape around me.

Though my room is dim, the ring still seems to give off pearlescent glow like the ethereal scales of the dragon.

I slide off the bed and onto the floor, my fingers wrapping around the last piece of my farce of a marriage to Einar and clutching it tightly in my fist.

The room spins in the whirlwind of my grief, and I close my eyes in a desperate attempt to drown it out. But instead, memories come crashing in to assault the frayed edges of my sanity.

Einar’s gentle hands removing my bridal chain connected from my nose to my ear cuff. Slipping my shirt over my head and kissing every inch of my skin as if I was worthy of his worship. The way he handled me with care when I showed him my broken parts.

Then, his face in the training room.

I’d done that. I’d ruined him. Broken his trust. Broken what semblance of a future we could’ve had together. I should be alright with it, but I’m not.

My breathing is too rapid, too shallow. I force my eyes open, but that doesn’t fix the problem. Instead of the dungeons, I see the ruined room. The devastation I caused. I’d hurt the one creature who was happy I’d survived. Khijhana’s purrs grow louder, and I dig my fingers further into her soft coat.

“I’m sorry Khijha. I’m so sorry.”

Silent tears stream down my face, and I can’t stop them. I can’t control them or anything. I can’t fix it. Any of it.

There are hundreds of people in this castle who have died or will die because of the woman who raised me. And I am no better. I took their only hope on the barest chance that Einar would find it again, and now...

I can’t save them. Any of them.

My sisters.

Aika.

Mel.

Einar.

I can’t save them.

I hear Madame’s voice again.Useless.

I turned out to be the useless one, after all.

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