Chapter Sixteen Ayleth #2
I huff out a short breath. “So you’ll protect them? That surprises me, given how much you despised the covens. Tell me, are you a Second now?”
Jacquetta’s cheeks pink. But she doesn’t deny the accusation.
“And after you were so haughty and self-righteous,” I say, clicking my tongue.
“Insisting that the covens should fall. You turned around and ran right to them. Abandoned all your precious principles. All for—what did you call them—magical rocks? That’s what they want, isn’t it?
My crown. Is that why they sent you here? ”
Her gaze flits up to the Bloodstones again. But I don’t detect greed or desire in her expression. Instead, she glares at the crown like she wants to grind it to dust.
“No one sent me here,” she says, annoyed. “And what else was I supposed to do but go to them? You broke the Veil. Stole from us. Your own—”
“Family?” I interrupt. “That’s not what we are. You proved that when you told me to…what was it, again? Find another life? Well, this is the one I chose.”
“A pretend throne?” Jacquetta asks with a mocking laugh. “A husband?”
“I prefer him over you.”
Something flashes in Jacquetta’s eyes. Guilt? Shame? Whatever it is, it just as quickly vanishes. “Go back to him, then. Enjoy your palace and your hideous crown.”
“Not quite yet,” I reply, ignoring the twinge in my own chest. “Not until you tell me what happened out there today. Which one of you cast those spells?”
Jacquetta scoffs, stubborn as ever. “None of us, probably. Not if anything like Malum was involved. No other witch would stoop so low.”
My patience finally sputters out. One of my shadows lashes at Jacquetta like a whip.
She gasps and jerks back, clutching her arm where it struck her.
It should feel good to retaliate. To be the source of Jacquetta’s fear.
But a deep grief-like feeling pulls at me instead.
Because she used to look at me with such softness.
Used to tell me I was beautiful. Wanted. And now…
She does not matter, the shadows insist.
“So I’m supposed to believe that you just happened to run into that Follower group today?” I continue, distracting myself. “This close to the palace? Out for a stroll, were you?”
“You should know what I was doing,” she spits at me.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Jacquetta approaches the cell door.
“Where’s my mother, Ayleth?”
“Nerissa?” I ask, genuinely taken aback. “How would I know? I’ve not seen her since the day the two of you left Stonehaven.”
Jacquetta laughs, low in her throat. “Please. She’s been missing since the attack on the Mines. I don’t sense that she’s dead, so she must be here. You took her.”
Is that what she believes? Is that what she was doing out in the forest? The reason Shade found her alone? Beneath Jacquetta’s simmering rage, I sense something else. Sadness, perhaps.
She lies, the shadows hiss. Do not trust her.
“Well, Nerissa isn’t here,” I say, drawing my shoulders back. “If you were even looking for her at all. What did you assume was going to happen? That you would spout some tragic story about your mother and I would release you? Is this all part of the Heirs’ strategy?”
A muscle in her jaw works. “I’m not lying.”
I laugh. “Yes, your word is enough to convince me of that.”
“Ayleth, please.” Jacquetta presses herself against the bars, so near that I can smell the hint of juniper clinging to her skin. “I need to find my mother. Something is wrong.”
Desperation hums beneath her words, so raw that it could be real. But Malum rumbles a warning in my chest and my shadows wrap tighter around me.
Do not fall into her trap, they urge.
“Perhaps. But have you considered that Nerissa might just have run off on her own?” I ask. “Maybe she tired of having a daughter who was such a disappointment.”
Pain flashes across Jacquetta’s features. I feel it slice through my own heart as well, but quickly smother it. Let her hurt. Let her bleed.
“The way you disappointed Cassandra?” she returns. “And Rhea?”
My shadows leap and dart around me.
“Don’t you dare speak her name.”
“Why not?” Jacquetta raises her eyebrows. “Afraid of what she might think of you now, Your Majesty?”
My power surges inside me and I do nothing to hold it back. My shadows slam into Jacquetta’s chest, burrowing instantly into the pulse of her latent magic. With the iron shackle, she can’t fight me off. Just a little farther and her power would snuff out like a candle flame.
Do it, that voice again. End her.
But as the seconds drag on, I do not push the shadows. Instead, I release my hold. Jacquetta crumples to the ground.
“Most witches last about three days before the iron poisoning starts to show,” I say. “After that…Well, you already know what happens to witches in this realm.”
With that, I turn to leave, my shadows trailing behind me.
“I thought you died,” Jacquetta calls after me. “On the night the Veil fell. I thought you died and for so long, I blamed myself for it. And then, when I learned the truth of what you’d done I…”
“Well?” I ask over my shoulder.
“I wished you had.”
The words pierce deeper than any arrow she could ever fire. But I blink back the tears before they fall. Hold my head high and keep walking, ignoring the throbbing pain in my chest.
And the truth that, sometimes, in the loneliest, darkest part of my heart, I wish it, too.