Chapter Thirty-Six #2
I won’t let her sway me. I won’t let her break me.
I am the darkness. My magic destroys. And I will destroy the Queen.
Belladonna takes a step closer to me. “Your very existence threatens my Kingdom, my family, my home.”
I shake my head. “All I wanted was to be left alone. It’s you who made me your enemy.”
Belladonna surveys me with a bored expression. “Oh? And you’ve been so innocent, have you?”
A chorus of strained giggles erupts as princesses spring up all over the room, popping up from pools of water like corrupted daisies. Hemlock, Narcissa, and Azalea.
I spin in place, but there’s no way I can stand without turning my back to one of them. I’m so terrified that I’m angry. My shadows tremble within me like a cloak of darkness.
Belladonna smiles. “Perhaps you need a reminder.” She snaps her fingers.
The room disappears, winking into blackness like someone blew out a candle. And then a completely different scene materializes before me.
There is my mother, sitting in a chair, my baby brother on her lap.
She’s shelling nuts into a basket, one of her usual tasks she did for the community in the caverns, and she hums softly to herself, rocking my brother while she works.
The song is a distant memory. A lullaby.
I remember her singing it to me as a child.
She opens her mouth to sing aloud, my brother gazing up at her face adoringly.
But the words are different.
Hush, my darling, hush,
Oh-la-lee-la-lay
Hush, my darling, hush,
Or Bloody Annie will take thee away.
Her eyes snap up to mine, and the look in them is like a knife through my heart. Tears welling, eyes burning. It’s the look she gave me the day she and my father sent me away.
The day I killed my brother.
Old grief seizes my chest, a stone crushing my heart.
And then the scene disappears. I’m in the Berlaise common room, everything awash in pink light.
Kole is tinkering with his little golden tools on the sofa next to me, and everything is warm and wonderful.
But then he looks up at me, the light catching the gold in his green eyes, the metal rims of his glasses.
“I thought we were friends, Viola,” he says. “Why … did you do this to me? Why did I deserve this?”
You didn’t, my heart screams. You were mean and awful to me. But you’re just a stupid boy. You didn’t deserve to die.
He stares at me with a look of such sadness, such disappointment, that I feel my heart shatter all over again, and grief is a living, angry thing in my stomach. I want to tear it out of me.
But then the scene fades, and I’m in Roze’s tower.
He’s there with me, near the piano by the window.
His face is grim, but his eyes shimmer as he lifts his hands—his gloves are gone, and somehow I know that the poison is too.
Roze slides warm fingers over my cheeks till his hands are caught up in my hair, and a shiver passes through my body.
He leans forward till his forehead rests on mine and we’re sharing breath.
I grab him by the wrists just to have an anchor.
I don’t dare close my eyes. I’m afraid he’ll disappear like the others. And right now, he’s tender and unafraid, and he can touch me.
Not real, a voice calls in the distance.
But I’m not listening. I lean forward—
“I know what you did, Viola,” he whispers.
And then my skin starts to burn. I fall to my knees, but his grip on me tightens, my neck blistering beneath his touch, my vision spotting black and white.
“I know what you did.”
No.
Not real.
Shadows shoot from me like arrows, and for a moment everything is black. When my vision clears, I see Moody Hall again, covered in vines, and Roze’s sisters staring at me with abject horror and hatred.
I don’t understand why until I see the ring of dead, dark vines circling me, and I realize—I’ve killed them. My shadows broke through the hold of the Queen’s magic on me.
I glare up at Belladonna. “Where is Roze?”
I can feel her mother’s ire through her eyes, but for a moment Belladonna’s own expression flashes through—sad, desperate.
“It’s too late anyway,” she says, although she seems uncertain. “You want to see him? Fine.”
She snaps her fingers. And Roze materializes before me.
He lies on his back on the floor. His gloves are gone, revealing those pale pianist hands, and his sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. The tattoo of the rose is on full display. There’s one thorn left, and it’s fading.
“Roze,” I choke.
He opens his eyes wearily, and they find mine. He seems weak, like he’s waning too. His mouth opens barely, like he’s trying to speak but can’t.
I look back up at Belladonna.
“Let him go, or I’ll destroy you,” I hiss, my shadows forcing their way out of my hands and winding around my fingers like snakes.
As one, the sisters smile. “His bargain is nearly done. His spirit is already fading. Strike me now, and you destroy your Prince as well.”
No, no, there has to still be time.
All the sisters are watching me with a disturbingly similar gleeful expression on each of their faces.
“I’ll make a trade,” I say again to the dead Queen’s spirit. “My life for Roze’s.”
Roze’s eyes shoot up to mine, full of hard rage. “Viola,” he croaks. A chill skitters over my skin at the weakness in his voice.
Azalea says in the Queen’s voice, “Do you really think I would let Roze get away with his rebellion?” The sisters step closer as one.
Their eyes turn dark and condemning. Furious.
“You’ve been so clever in how you’ve gotten your claws into him.
He was willing to give his life for yours.
But then again, he’s never known what’s best for him.
Roze was disloyal. There are consequences for that. ”
I shake my head. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
Her expression is soft, almost … sympathetic. It’s so disturbing on a face possessed that I don’t breathe as she says, “Oh dear. You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?”
She exchanges glances with the other sisters, all possessed with the same spirit. “Didn’t he tell you what he is?”
That he isn’t real. That he was created, not born.
“I don’t care,” I say. I will fight for him. He deserves to exist.
“A terrible, unforgivable mistake,” she hisses.
“I created Roze by accident—consumed as I was by grief after Castelle destroyed my home, I let my emotions overcome me.” Belladonna tilts her head back, looking down on me in an expression that is purely Queen Maria.
“My magic is light. It is born of logic and control. It creates. But there is the other way—the wicked way. Emotion and pain beget the dark magic. It destroys. When I created Roze, I created something using dark magic. I … melded … the two ways.” She turns her gaze on Roze, a look of pure disgust on her face.
“Such an act is obscene. Roze is a poisoned prince. A life that takes life. An abomination.”
At that word, Roze closes his eyes, as if accepting the truth of that condemnation.
“I told you I would do whatever it took to protect my family, Miss Sinclair. If that should include taking back the power I foolishly gave Roze all those years ago, then so be it. He has endangered us all by protecting you.”
“You’re the danger, not me,” I growl. “Why don’t you tell the truth—that you are the reason we’re all trapped in this castle. You sent the Mists. You murdered your own people.”
The Queen’s lips pinch in fury. Roze manages to open his eyes and stare at the possessed face of his sister.
“Fine,” she snaps. “I created the Mists. I was tortured with grief, full of righteous rage against Castelle, and the Mists were made. And yes, the people paid the price—hardly an anomaly in the war games of rival kingdoms. But look what they have done—they kept the filth of Castelle away from Aragoa for nearly two decades, thank the Saints.”
I shake my head. “Any way you paint it, you are a liar and a traitor. You’ve killed thousands. Single-handedly. And you’ve been deceiving everyone about it for years.”
“You are not one to lecture me on truth. Time to confess, Miss Sinclair.”
My face pales.
“Don’t be coy, dear,” Wisteria says, her voice motherly and chiding. “All I ask for is honesty. You know it’s the least I deserve after all you’ve done.” She tilts her head like she’s studying me. “Honesty, Miss Sinclair. With your Prince … and yourself. I’m giving you a last chance at redemption.”
When I say nothing, she exhales through her nose resignedly. “He hears it from your lips or mine. It’s your choice.”
Belladonna charges forward and grabs Roze by his hair, pulling his head back against her legs. She pulls a dagger from her waist and rests it on the long column of his throat, against the moth tattoo. “Perhaps it should be the last thing he hears.”
Her hand on his head lazily threads through his hair, petting him. His eyes, however, are glued on mine.
I meet his gaze, steel myself. “King León of Castelle is my father. That’s what the book was hiding,” I say. “I don’t belong here.”
His smile is small and incredulous. Fire sparks in his eyes despite the knife at his throat. “Of course,” he croaks. “How could I not see it—you terrible, lovely thing.” His smile broadens, looking down his nose at me. His eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them. “Hello, Princess.”
I can’t look away from those quicksilver eyes.
“Roze—”
The dagger tightens on his neck, and he winces. “You’re still not telling the truth,” Hemlock says with a strange twist to her neck, baring her teeth.
“Hiding things again,” Oleandra adds.
“Keeping your secrets and trapping the Prince in your snare,” says Narcissa.
My eyes snap away from Roze as I watch them speak. They take another step forward.
“Tell the truth,” they say together. Their voices echo against the towering ceiling of the hall.
I shake my head. No.
“Viola?” Roze says. There’s hesitation in his voice. I nearly flinch at the sound of it.
I can’t look at him. I can’t. My whole body trembles as I hold my shadows at bay. My veins have turned black with their presence, like they’re trying to press their way through my skin.
Belladonna clenches her fists and shouts, “Tell him. Tell my son the truth, little witch.” She spits the words. Full of hatred.
Hatred I deserve.
Tears break free from my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Roze.”
His face turns wary, genuine fear in those eyes of shattered glass.
I can hardly see through the tears that blur my vision. I deserve this, like I deserve the horrors of the Mirror and the Queen’s torturous visions, like I deserve what happened to Kole and my brother and everything the Queen has unleashed on me.
They are all judgments. For what I am.
This is justice.
I want to tell him. I beg my lips to work, but when I open them, they make no sound.
My knees go weak. Roze wrenches himself from Belladonna’s grasp, knocks aside the dagger, and lunges across the floor to catch me, holding me up, handling me like I am some fragile thing to be protected—not a monster, not a creature of darkness.
He sinks to the floor with me, his arms firm around my shoulders.
I am consumed with no other thought except that I don’t deserve him.
I thought he was a wicked and cursed thing, like me …
but he isn’t. He may not be kind, but he is good—the sort of person who trades lives with someone with whom they used to trade insults.
He has a type of darkness, but nothing like my own.
He draws a handkerchief from his pocket and uses it so that he can lift my chin without touching my skin.
“Viola,” he whispers.
I can’t look at him.
I lift my eyes instead to the cinquefoil window at the end of the hall, towering over our heads. The Mists turn a dusty rose color—the sunrise.
“Roze,” I say. My throat is raw and rasping from crying. “I killed your father.”