Chapter 33
Ipush open the unlocked door the next morning. Peonica stands in front of the mirror, her fingers, black at the tips, twisting a red strand of hair. The sight of her hits me like a punch to the chest. My lungs tighten until I stagger forward, the glass of juice rattling on the tray in my hands.
She meets my eyes in the reflection and grins.
“Here to welcome me into your Crimson Tether ranks?” she says with a breezy chuckle. She doesn’t realize I know her secret yet.
“At least now I can stop warning you to be careful,” I say, rolling my eyes hard enough to feel the ache behind them as I kick the door shut.
“When am I not careful?” she shoots back, wiggling her eyebrows with that same insufferable smirk.
My blood heats. “It has to be one of the stupidest decisions you’ve ever made,” I snap, slamming the tray down on the small table. The words fly out before I can stop them, and once they’re out, there’s no holding back. The frustration crashes over me. “Why did you do it?”
Peonica’s face hardens instantly. Whatever light was there vanishes, replaced with something cold. “Someone had to,” she bites. “Since you’re too busy fawning over your beast to see past all that brooding and muscle.”
A flush of anger burns through me. “Our relationship is not your concern,” I grind out. “What is your concern is your idiocy. You nearly got yourself killed! Do you even understand that? If I hadn’t made it in time, you would’ve bled out on the floor.”
Just like our mother.
Peonica’s lips twist into something that might’ve been a smirk if it wasn’t so full of venom.
“Relationship?” she draws out the word with a grimace, like the word itself disgusts her.
“Are you really that desperate for validation? You’ll give yourself to anyone who shows you the tiniest bit of affection? ”
Her words land like daggers. A direct hit, straight to the heart.
My vision blurs, rage and pain roaring up from deep inside. I feel the coil of magic tightening beneath my skin, a dangerous heat rising. I see red.
“And are you so terrified of rejection that you’ve been dragging yourself after me for years?” I scream. “Hiding the truth that we shared the same mother because you were too scared to face the chance that I wouldn’t hate you for it?”
The words tore out of me, wild and full of grief. “You had her. Even in that hellish place, you had her. And I didn’t. She sang to you, didn’t she? Told you stories. Stories that were supposed to be mine.”
My voice cracks as the truth I’ve been shoving down finally spills free.
“I was left with beatings,” I hiss. “Shame. Silence. Loneliness. I longed for her. And you—” I choke out the rest. “You knew. You knew this whole time. And you lied. I told you what I remembered of her. I asked you to share whatever you knew, and you gave me scraps. Scraps!”
Peonica flinches. Her jaw clenches, and for a second, I think she might just turn around and leave this room. But instead, she speaks. Her voice is quiet.
“I gave you scraps,” she says. “Because that’s all I ever had.” She crosses her arms, but it looks more like she’s holding herself together than putting up a wall.
“You think I had her?” she says. “I had a mother who was never really there. Her body was in the room, sure. But her mind? It was always somewhere else, always with you.”
She exhales sharply, like the words cost her.
“She worked every second she could, and when she did sit down with me, when she did speak to me… it was always about you. Her other daughter she visited at night. How bright you were. How fast you were learning. How much she missed you on the rare nights she’d choose to stay with me.”
Peonica swallows. A brittle sound escapes her lips.
“She never taught me the things she bragged about you knowing. She never noticed I was right there, wanting her. All I ever got was the echo of her love for you.” Her voice shakes now.
“I waited for her to look at me the way she looked when she spoke of you. I kept thinking if I just do more, be more, maybe she’ll see me. But she never did.”
Her eyes rise to meet mine. She sees the tears in mine too, and for a moment, we’re just two daughters, wrecked by the same woman, in opposite ways.
“I didn’t tell you,” she says softly, “because I couldn’t be that girl again. The girl who lives in the spaces between people. The bridge you want just to walk over.”
I want to scream. I want to crumple. Because I finally see her. Not the girl who stole what I had. Not the liar who fed me crumbs. But my sister. A child, just like me, trying to survive her mother’s absence while living in her presence.
I thought I was the one abandoned. But so was she, just in a different room. And suddenly, it isn’t about what she had that I didn’t. It’s about what we both lost.
I step forward. Slowly.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch this time. But her arms drop to her sides like she’s no longer afraid to be seen.
“I hated you from the moment I found out,” I whisper. “Because I thought you had everything I wanted.”
Peonica nods, her voice barely audible. “And I hated you because you complained so much about her abandoning you while you were the only thing she ever wanted.”
Silence blooms. And in it, something mends.
I reach for her hand. She doesn’t pull away. Finally, we’re not standing on either side of a bridge, we’re meeting in the middle.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Peonica sniffles, squeezes once, then pulls away to wipe at her eyes. When she drops her hands, a wry smirk is on her lips. “For being so afraid of the word sister you reduced it to ‘sharing a mother’?” she says, half-mocking. The vulnerability between us has clearly rattled her.
I don’t blame her. We’ve both spent so long surviving our own versions of abandonment, it’s going to take time to adjust to our new reality.
So I lift a brow, force a breath of levity into my voice, and say, “Sorry it took me this long to realize you’re the younger sister, and it is my job to make you listen to me, not let you sneak into forbidden libraries and dig through cursed artifact histories.”
Peonica nods solemnly, like I’ve just uncovered some great universal truth. “I’m glad you finally admit that all of this is your fault.”
I tilt my head with a smile. “Well, now that you’ve almost died for your research, did you at least find anything useful?” I ask lightly, though a ripple of worry curls in my stomach, coiling tighter as I wait for her answer.
Peonica gives me a strange look, like she’s weighing her next words with caution. Sorting through them, picking each one carefully. Then her expression softens into what looks like resignation.
I open my mouth to tell her to just spit it out, but she beats me to it.
“The ring is what he says it is,” she says. “One of the old artifacts, apparently made by a witch like the rest of them.”
I exhale loudly, which earns me an exaggerated eye roll. “What?” I say. “I’m relieved. I was right.”
“For once,” she mutters flatly.
I smile, then gesture toward the door. “We need to get you to safety. To Calista’s temple. Once you’re there—”
“I’ll never be safe,” she interrupts, slumping into a chair like her bones can’t hold her anymore. “The moment I’m away from you, the prince will come for me. He’ll finish what he started. And you won’t even know I’m in trouble.”
Her gaze flicks to the ring on my finger, the one she once doubted. The one she now knows was forged to protect. An idea sparks in my mind.
“Then take it,” I say quickly. “Take the ring. If Mael comes for you, Kaelzar will know. He gave me his shadow to protect my life if I’m in danger.” I hold out my arm, showing her the black mark inked into my skin.
“That’s more than enough to keep me safe. But if something happens to you while you’re wearing it, he’ll come.”
She blinks, like she’s not sure she heard me right. Or like the idea that Kaelzar cares is somehow still… unbelievable. Why that still surprises her is confusing to me, but this isn’t the time to defend him.
But the flicker of disbelief fades fast, and she presses her lips together in a mockingly thoughtful expression. “You’d have to ask nicely,” she says.
I grimace and crouch before her, holding out my hand with the ring like an offering.
“Would you accept the ring, please?”
She holds out her hand, darkened fingers extended like royalty expecting to be adorned. “Sure,” she says casually.
Grumbling, I slide the ring off my finger and place it on hers. She exhales the moment it touches her skin, and for a breath, darkness passes over her face. For a second, I want to snatch it back.
But she’s already pulled her hand away and sprung to her feet. There’s still a shadow in her expression, but she masks it quickly with a smirk.
“Well then,” she says, brushing her hands together. “Shall we head to the temple?” The edge of her voice is still brittle, and the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
I nod, and side by side, we turn toward the door.
Downstairs, Kaelzar waits by the door. As we descend, his eyes immediately fall to my now bare hand. The shadows around him ripple, spiking like claws from a nightmare creature before vanishing just as quickly.
Peonica strides past him without pause, tossing a casual wave as she heads outside where Levi waits with the horses. But Kaelzar doesn’t move. His arm shoots out, stopping me at the threshold.
His jaw clenches so tight I half expect to hear it crack. “Where is it?” he asks with that breathless tone people use when they’re one second away from shouting.
“I gave the ring to Peonica,” I say, frowning. “I don’t need it anymore. Not with your shadow mark.” I lift my arm in quiet emphasis, gesturing to sharp swirls of his own shadows now inked into my skin.
He stares at me, and in his storm-gray eyes, something dark churns, it is intense enough that doubt curls low in my gut. “Is that a problem?” I ask, carefully.
His nostrils flare. My heart climbs into my throat. “Kaelzar,” I snap, suddenly defensive. “Will the ring still alert you if she’s in danger?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his hands curl into fists at his sides. “You shouldn’t have done it,” he growls.
Then he turns on his heel so sharply I stumble back a step. The door slams open with a jolt of magic and Kaelzar storms outside, leaving me standing there—stunned, uncertain, and with a new knot of panic growing fast in my gut.