47. Violette
VIOLETTE
Fuelled by fury, I’ve searched tirelessly for a way to sever my tether to Levi.
Tinkered, toiled, and concocted innumerable potions.
None of which worked. Several of which gave me indigestion.
All of which made me curse Moirai, the Goddess of Fate, and anyone else that might hold power over one’s soulbound.
To further my dismay, the fact that I am able to detect soulbond connections does not equate to having any power over them.
An insidious voice creeps into my mind.
You weren’t good enough for your father; why would you ever be good enough for your soulbound?
A roar leaves my throat as I smash the mirrored glass of my boudoir, reflecting my puffy, red, tear-swollen eyes.
Pain sears across my knuckles as blood trickles from a gash. Taking a deep breath, I plant my hands on either side of the table and permit one last shuddering sob before I resolve to calm myself and begin my search for an alternative solution.
Still, the only one I can come up with begins and ends with Azrael. I can only hope he’ll be interested in bargaining with me. The only thing I have to offer him is leading him to his soulbound.
I haven’t forgotten that he specifically mentioned that she was hiding.
This, of course, means I’m gambling on him even wanting to find her. Even my fuckhole father would visit my mother...
My feet carry me back to my scrying bowl in my bathing chamber.
The sacred water within hisses in protest as a singular drop of the acidic concoction I created for it kisses its surface.
Lilac mist rises as the fluid trembles. A moment later, my father’s bed chamber fills the scrying bowl.
Sure enough, my father, another male, and three other females are a tangle of limbs on the bed.
I am thoroughly disgusted.
What my mother ever saw in you, I cannot even begin to surmise, you wretched, gluttonous creature.
With a wave of my hand, the water goes dark as I sever the connection, but not before my father’s head lifts and his eyes seem to find mine across an expanse of worlds.
Perhaps Azrael can help me enter Sinsól—warded so powerfully that not even my portal magic will gain me entrance—so I can finally wreak my revenge.
A tiny ember of hope flickers to life in my chest.
Perhaps after I fulfill this vow, I’ll ask Azrael to give me a peaceful death.
I’m no longer certain I wish to exist within this loveless world.
Maybe then I can reunite with Thessaly, Horus, and my mother.
My mind wanders to the memory of the note someone left me just before I’d begun my career as a brothel whore.
I will it to hand, examining it for perhaps the thousandth time.
It is tattered and yellowed from the passage of time, and the multiple hands it has passed through.
Over the years, I’d asked several skilled scryers and sorceresses to try and suss out who had sent it.
Only for each of them to give me the same response: Strange magic. No trace of sender.
At least now, I have an excuse to seek out Azrael and ask him myself.