Page 22 of Oracle of Ruin

Of course Irene threatened him. That was just the type of thing she would do. The true strange thing of this ordeal is that he’s still alive and she didn’t kill him just to snip any loose threads. But he had met Irene. He knew just the woman he was handing my life to. He knew the torture and agony I would suffer at her hands. He knew and didn’t care.

Mavis’s face remains stoic as she surveys the scene. Her teeth capture her lower lip and she fakes a pout of pity.

Sympathy stirs within my heart, mingling with my anger at the sight. I knew the queen. I knew better than anyone what she had been capable of, what she had already done and what she was willing to do. Hardening my features, I set the dagger on the ground.

“Vera.” Mavis’s tone is stern, a teacher reprimanding her pupil.

Still, I scowl and raise my chin. “I won’t kill him. He’s dying—”

“Then save him! Don’t you want to know who your parents are?” The lights in the room flicker and Mavis kicks the back of his knees. “Speak.”

I thought that there was nowhere further I could fall into my pit of misery. The Laei intend to prove me wrong, apparently, as the man opens his mouth with a whimper.

“Aiko and Finneas Iales.”

Four words. Two names. That’s all it takes for my final thread of restraint to snap. I’ve had my suspicions since Aiko mentioned having lost her daughter around my birthday. I’d have to be a fool not to have noticed the way I am a perfect blend of the two of them—my mother’s dark hair, blue eyes, and round face, my father’s freckles and soft mouth. Her wit and his heart—the two things that kept me alive those twenty years in the palace.

I hadn’t let myself consider the notion, not since they were in the outer palace when the Kijova were released. Not since no one has heard anything from them and we’ve added their names to the list of the dead.

They died before knowing they had met me, their daughter.

With shaking hands and strangled sobs, I search for the dagger through a blurry gaze. My fingers wrap securely around the hilt and I feel its weight in my grip.

The man before me dips his head, accepting his fate. “Go on, child,” he murmurs. “If this is all I can give you to atone for my sins, you shall have it.”

I swallow thickly, my dry sobs slowly strangling me. Mavis watches intently as I lift the dagger from the ground and hold it above his head…

Then turn the blade around and bear it towards my chest.

Mavis shrieks, the most undignified she’s allowed herself to be around me. Ripping something that looks suspiciously like a tongue from the pouch hanging at her waist, she raises a hand. The dagger dissolves right as it pierces my skin, leaving nothing but a trail of golden blood dripping down the front of my dress. A wave of dark power pulses through the room and Mavis pants. A silver strand of hair has fallen into her eyes and she spins on me with something like rage written across her face. She opens her hand and a new, smaller blade appears in it. In a deft movement, she reaches down towards the man and angles the knife to slice through the joint in his thumb. The blade sticks a moment before slicing through, and she lets his arm fall. It is as she tosses the severed digit at my feet that I notice he is dead.

“If you ever want to leave here, use it and escape.” She speaks through labored breath and nods pointedly at the already cooling thumb. “He’s already dead. No need to worry about offending the gods now.”

A servant steps in, his face not nearly as shocked as it should be as he lifts the dead man under his arms and carries him out the door. I can hear Mavis tell him to bring the body somewhere I can’t quite make out. I thank the Laei for that small mercy.

“You’re a monster.” I don’t need to scream. I barely need to raise my voice above a whisper.

Mavis flinches.Flinches. “Maybe, but we become what we must to survive.”

The door clicks closed quietly. She’s gone in a breath.

* * *

I waitall night curled up in the corner of my room, my back pressed against the cold walls. As dawn breaches the sky, I hear the doorknob begin to jiggle, just as I expected it would.

Mavis eyes the severed thumb warily as she enters. A small spark of irritation lights her face but she doesn’t look surprised by the outcome of yesterday’s events.

Neris and Emi wait outside the door, but Mavis waves her hand and the slab of oak shuts in their faces. She groans wearily as she settles on the floor across from me, the thumb acting as the middle marker between us. Her knees pop as she crosses her legs and rests her elbows on her thighs, her face in her hands. “Why did you run away from home?” she asks suddenly. “I get the whole freedom thing, but you didn’t need Rowan for that. You never needed to leave home anyway. You could have just killed your fiancé. I’m sure your knight lover would have done it if you’d asked. You could have even killed your father and assumed the throne so no one could make you marry again.”

“I don’t delight in killing,” I spit.

Her lips quirk upwards. “No, but it’s useful.” Then her smile twists into something wicked. “Sometimes, the price of one life guarantees the safety of thousands. Just think of where we would be now if someone had killed those kings.”

I open my mouth to retort, those memories still fresh in my mind when her choice of words sets my heart hammering in my chest.

Mavis leans forward, noticing the shift in my attention.

“What do you mean ‘kings’?”

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