“She’s not Tadhg’s at all, is she?” the Queen said. “She’s yours.” She shifted the dagger, plunging the blade into my abdomen. Pain exploded through my body, but I didn’t dare cry out, not when Leesha screamed loud enough for the both of us. “You are nothing more than a weak, pathetic fool.” The Queen twisted the blade, blood running like tiny rivers down her pale hands. “Your human broke the rules and must suffer the consequences.Do it.” She withdrew the dagger, forcing it into my palm. “Do it!”
“Mother, please,” I choked. Heat from my magic knitted together my torn flesh. “I will do anything you wish. Anything, I swear it. Just let her go.”
She sighed as if this was the heaviest burden to bear, when I knew—I feckin’knew—that deep down, she rejoiced at having found my weakness.
“Don’t harm her. Please.Please.” An invisible force tightened around my torso, binding my arms to my sides. My knees finally unlocked, and I tried to rush forward and throw myself at her mercy. More magic cinched my legs together, sending me face-first into the blood-splattered dust. My mother knelt beside Leesha, her soulless eyes fixed on me as she whispered a spell that haunted my dreams, drawing from the endless well of dark magic that had consumed her long ago.
The fingers on her right hand began to glow like a branding iron. With a malicious smile, she flayed the skin at Leesha’s breast, the sound of my love’s screams ripping me apart.
I twisted. Writhed. The bonds tightened. I couldn’t get free. Couldn’t get to Leesha. Couldn’t save her.
With the bloody cross drawn, the Queen pressed her fingertips into Leesha’s wound and tore her still-beating heart from her chest. Blood oozed down her wrist, chasing the black veins to her elbow.
Leesha slumped, her green eyes open to the clouds above.
My bonds vanished just as a desperate cry left my throat. The Queen pressed a hand to my love’s shoulder and inhaled.
“No . . . no no no no no.” I crawled forward, my breeches snagging on ancient bones, slicing my skin. The pain was nothing compared to the unending ache in my chest.
“Take mine too,” I choked. “Take it!Take it!” Our hearts were one and the same. A life without Leesha wasn’t a life worth living.
My mother turned to me.
Smiled.
And stole my heart.
* * *
I awoke on a settee in the parlor, my breaths the only sound in the silent room. I rolled upright, rubbing at my sore head, aching like the time Tadhg had convinced me to drink an entire bottle of wine and made me look like a fool in front of Ruairi. They’d laughed and laughed as I heaved my dinner into the blackberry bushes along the cliff walk.
I checked my reflection in the gilt-framed mirror leaning against the wall. My stark white shirt gaped at the neck, the corner of a scar peeking from between the open buttons. I pressed the heel of my palm to my chest only to find more silence.
The Queen appeared at my back, onyx crown reflecting the dull sunlight.
I remembered the nightmare. My finger traced the scar.Not a nightmare.
“Come with me,” she ordered.
As if I’d follow her anywhere after what she’d done.
She flicked her wrist. In the reflection, I watched as blackness invaded my eyes. I had no control over my feet as she crooked her finger, forcing me to follow her through the marble hallway, down the staircase, and out into the gray light of morning to where a young woman with strawberry-blond curls sat cross-legged on the steps.A young woman I knew.
Leesha’s sister.
I waited for the pain to come, but all I felt was hollow, like the Queen had scooped out my innards, leaving an empty vessel for darkness.
“She was caught crossing the Forest,” said the Queen.
I could taste the truth in the witch’s words. Still, I had to ask, “Did you cross?”
“Yes,” the young woman sniffled, “but only to find my sister. She’s missing since last night and—”
I cut off the girl’s useless excuse with a swipe of my blade, taking her life as payment for the Queen’s tax, vowing one day to do the same to the witch who had destroyed my world.
1
She didn’t knowmy real name.