27. 26 #2
“I didn’t know he’d go this far,” Auor whispered, voice thin as parchment. Her hands trembled as she dabbed at the blood tracing Mabel’s side, the cloth darkening with each pass. “Mabel, I-I’m so sorry.”
Mabel didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her limbs were heavy with exhaustion, and the heat of the bath was making her woozy. But more than that—she couldn’t trust her voice not to break.
Auor hesitated, cloth paused mid-motion. “If he hadn’t known about that damn raven—” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Her gaze snapped to the necklace lying like a chain of ice against Mabel’s collarbone.
“What do you mean?” Mabel’s head jerked up, eyes narrowing. The pain stitched through her side, sharp and punishing, but she didn’t care. “Whisper? What does he have to do with this?”
“I … I can’t—” Auor’s voice faltered to a breath. “The necklace, Mabel. It’s—he’s watching us.”
Mabel froze. The steam no longer felt warm. It wrapped around her like fog, suffocating. She looked down slowly, dread pooling like lead in her stomach.
The pendant glinted innocently in the firelight. But now, it felt colder.
“Wait. What do you mean, watching? Does this mean—” She stopped herself, her face going pale.
Her gaze dropped to the necklace resting against her chest. And for the first time, she noticed it—subtle movement within the gem, colors swirling, glinting with a magic.
She remembered Whisper’s constant irritation with the necklace. And now she understood why. And she should have listened.
A chill threaded down her spine. She’d worn it since the beginning—since that quiet farewell in Aurevyn. Since the day they left her.
Had he been watching her ever since?
Every tear. Every act of defiance. Every secret.
The thought curdled something inside her.
She reached for the clasp.
“Mabel, no—”
The moment her fingers touched the chain, pain flared across her skin. She cried out, biting it back, clutching her hand to her chest. Angry glowing sigils shimmered briefly on her fingers, then faded. A pit opened in her stomach. She’d always been able to take it off, how—
She remembered the morning of the wedding. Auor’s fingers brushing her collarbone, the clasp of the necklace clicking into place. Her mother’s lips had moved, shaping words too soft to hear, barely more than breath. A whisper.
But … Auor didn’t know magic.
Did she?
Or had that morning—she—been just another illusion?
“How—why—” Mabel’s chest tightened. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts, each one failing to reach the bottom of her lungs. “Why can’t I take it off?”
Auor moved toward her, hands raised in offering.
“Don’t touch me!” Mabel recoiled, the words piercing the warm air like shrapnel. She raced to stand but quickly stumbled, pain flaring so sharply through her side that she choked on a sob. Her vision blurred with tears.
“Mabel—”
“Are you even real?” she hissed, voice trembling with exhaustion and something closer to terror. “Or are you just another trick? Another mask he made to hurt me with?”
Auor froze, stricken. “No. No, I’m real,” she said, voice cracking. “This morning, in the washroom—that was me, I swear it. I held you. I cleaned you. I—” She reached forward again.
But Mabel shoved her hand away, eyes wild.
Auor’s voice dropped to a whisper, almost broken now. “Mabel, my sweet girl … I swear to you—it’s me.”
Mabel let out a bitter laugh, the sound scraping from her throat like glass. “No, you’re not,” she spat. “My mother would never call me that—my sweet girl.” Her voice twisted cruelly around the words. “She was never sweet. Never kind. She was cold. Cruel. And I was a fool to forget.”
Auor flinched at the words, swallowing the sting of truth in her daughter’s voice. How deeply it struck. How much of it she’d earned.
Mabel pushed herself upright once more, staggering to stand—but her legs gave way at once. Pain screamed through her ribs, and she collapsed with a cry that echoed against the stone.
“Mabel, stop!” Auor pleaded, catching her before she could fall again. Her arms closed around her. “You’re making it worse—please, just look at me. Look at me.”
Mabel thrashed weakly in her grip. “Let go!”
“It’s me,” Auor gasped, voice catching. “I swear to you—it’s me. I’m not an illusion, not some trick—”
Mabel’s eyes finally met hers.
And in that stillness, she saw. The face was the same—older, hollowed by time and sorrow—but it was hers. The woman who had once braided her hair with raven feathers. The mother who had once taught her to sew, to dance.
But recognition settled like dust.
“You put the necklace on me,” Mabel whispered. “You knew. You let him—” Her words stalled as horror widened her gaze. “How did you do it? How could you?”
Auor inhaled shakily, her grip loosening just slightly.
And then she spoke, quiet and steady, as if the truth itself might crumble in her hands.
“I …” Auor’s voice barely broke the hush of the room.
“I didn’t …” Her hands were still gripping the edge of the basin, knuckles white.
“It wasn’t me. It was your father,” she said, the words tasting like rust. “He disguised himself; he locked the necklace around you.”
She dared a glance at Mabel, then quickly looked away. Her gaze caught on the necklace, the delicate chain glinting like a snare. “And your stupid bird—” Her voice cracked. The rest caught in her throat.
Mabel didn’t speak.
The silence between them settled like ash. She sank back against the side of the tub, pulse fluttering weakly beneath her skin. Everything inside her felt hollowed out—carved sharp and empty by her mother’s words.
The betrayal moved through her like a second wound, deeper than the first.
She stared down at the necklace, at the delicate golden filigree now biting into the slope of her collarbone. It gleamed like nothing was wrong. As if it hadn’t been forged to cage her.
But it was Whisper her mother wouldn’t say aloud.
Her fingers twitched slightly over the pendant. “What does he have to do with it?” Mabel asked, breathless and ragged. “With this?”
Auor didn’t answer at first. Instead, she reached for the cloth again and dipped it into the water. Her hand hovered a moment, then moved to press gently against the skin near Mabel’s wound—wincing when she felt her daughter flinch but not pulling away.
When she finally spoke, her voice was softer than steam. “What do they call us? Our house?”
Mabel’s brows drew together. “The House of the Raven.”
Auor nodded. Her gaze was distant now, caught somewhere between the present and some blood-soaked memory. “They were right to fear what runs in our line. The blood. The bond.”
She paused, fingers still pressed gently to the bruised flesh above the cut.
“Your raven was never just any bird.” Auor looked at her daughter with eyes full of sorrow, the apology etched deep into every line of her face.
“The moment he knew about it, he’d made his decision.
” Auor’s voice barely rose above a whisper, brittle with grief.
“He knew you’d never strike him. Not even now. ”
There were no more explanations left—only regret, heavy and helpless.