Filed to story: When the Moon Hatched Book
Sereme. I go down there to see if anybody needs help, because nobody else seems to give a fuck.”
She snatches the vial dangling between her breasts.
Shit.
I brace myself as she scrapes the tip of her tailored nail down the groove of my rune—
My entire body jolts, the same scratching sensation scoring one of my ribs like a filleting blade.
“Why can’t you just be happy?” she snips while my breaths come short and sharp, eyes narrowed on the poisonous female. “You have the Elding’s favor. He does more for you than he’s ever done for anyone else. Isn’t that enough?”
I bind my side with a trembling hand, struggling to wrap my mind around the jealous taint to her tone. Not only have I never met the Elding, but being his favorite is swiftly tumbling to the bottom of my priority list.
She lifts her nail, brows hiked up her forehead, finger poised to mess me up all over again.
Creators, I loathe this female.
“Hard to be happy when the King’s mincing young elemental minds until they’re brainless killing monsters. When thousands of less valued folk are rotting in the Undercity, failing to scratch out an existence in the mines—slaves to the kingdom’s well-oiled cogs.” Wiping beads of sweat from my brow, I reach into my pocket, unscrunch the notice I ripped off the wall, and slap it on the desk, though Sereme merely glances at it. “If we don’t usurp the King, I’m convinced things are going to get much, much worse.”
“Not now,” she says in a firm, even tone. “Not until the Elding deems it so.”
Same story, different dae.
“Screw the Elding.”
Another sadistic scrape of her nail, this one scouring down the knobbles of my spine. Another series of hissed breaths, and I chew on the urge to lurch across the table and pop her eyeballs from their sockets—fuck the repercussions.
But I hold my composure, the pain still slicing down my bowing vertebrae like skipping stones as I speak through gritted teeth. “Slitting King Cadok Vaegor’s throat will not only keep me from being a pain in your ass, it’ll protect the cause.”
She releases the vial.
I swallow my breath of relief, refusing to give her the satisfaction, instead jabbing an unsteady finger at the notice that’s fully armed to do irreparable damage. “Nobody will suspect it, given the heat surrounding our name.”
“Simply killing him without a thorough, well-constructed plan would leave the Queen in charge.”
“Perfect.” I throw my hands in the air, wondering why it was presented as a negative when it’s exactly what this kingdom needs. “This is her ancestral land. She should be in charge.”
“The Tri-Council would never allow it. Queen Dothea can only speak with Clode.”
A sour taste coats my tongue. “Don’t they have a tri-bead son?”
“Prince Turun hasn’t been seen for many phases. Some say he went mad, and rather than make the problem public, the King was all too happy to hide him away.”
“Bet he’s still more competent than King Cadok Vaegor. Perhaps he’ll pop his head back up once his pah’s remains fertilize the ground?”
Sereme looks at me like she’s more than ready to grab the broom and sweep me toward the door. “Again, Raeve, you assume you have some say in the matter. You don’t. You have one job, and that’s to follow my orders. When I say stab, you say how deep. When I say leave Rekk Zharos alone, you leave Rekk Zharos well the fuck alone.”
It’s weird hearing her swear. Perhaps I’d pump my fist and call it a victory if anger wasn’t churning in my gut like a snowball that grows with each bouldered roll.
“How do you live with yourself? Honestly?”
She grips her vial again, and my entire body flinches.
Satisfaction ignites her eyes, a smirk curling her lips that boils my blood. “These aren’t easy decisions to make, but I must consider the cause first and foremost. Your strong affinity with Clode, your skill with a blade, and that savage side I glimpsed before you collapsed in the Undercity the first time we met makes you an essential tool we can’t do without.”
An icy rumble builds in my chest.
I curse the dae she fell upon me, seeing that side of me I barely understand myself. Not that I remember that part of our meeting—tucked beyond a veil of ice I was all too happy to ball up and wither beneath.
I do remember the screams that somehow found their way down to me. I also remember being pitted with a certainty that whatever I was doing was not okay, but that the part of me in control lived by a different set of rules.
That in their eyes, it was tame.
Sereme later told me I’d looked out at her through black, glittery eyes, face splashed in blood, canines bared, and that she knew I was broken beyond repair, in desperate need of an avenue to channel my rage.
I see it differently now.
I think she saw me, surrounded by the mulched bodies of freshly slain folk who’d come to hunt me down, and decided broken things make the sharpest weapons … so long as you fetter them to yourself so they don’t fly away.
“You coped just fine without me before you snatched me from the gutter.”
“I gave you the option,” she volleys, quick as a blink.
A deep belly laugh wrestles up my throat, spilling out in a mirthless tune. “And what an option it was,” I muse. “Die or drip my blood into your runed vial and be a forever slave to your whim, able to be yanked to heel at any given opportunity. Except it wasn’t voiced that way, was it? You offered me revenge. Painted such a pretty picture I was salivating to give you my blood, falling into your web like a plump bug, immediately put to work.”
So many empty promises.
“Ironically, had you simply asked me to join the cause, I may have agreed, given the drowning amount of injustice I soon discovered in this kingdom. But you just had to slap a collar around my neck.”
She sighs, long and deep—the breezy confidence of someone who lives in a bubble of safety I can’t penetrate. “Always so dramatic,
Raeve. Truly, I’ve never met someone with so much battle in their blood.” Her elegant hand grips the vial hanging between her breasts. “Perhaps you wouldn’t be so bitter were you not constantly testing me, forcing me to take advantage of the blood bind.”
Yeah, okay. It’s my fault.
“Can’t you see you’re made for this?”
“Sure,” I deadpan. “Nothing quite like the constant threat of a casual torture session to make you feel right at home.”
“It’s nothing personal. Everybody puts their blood in the vial—“
“Except you.
“
“—benefiting from its many advantages. Remember how quickly I was able to heal you?” she continues seamlessly. “You would’ve died without it. Besides, you’re the only one I’m forced to punish.”
“And what do you do for the cause?” I ask, brow raised. “Besides sucking the Elding’s metaphorical cock.”
Her cheeks flush, painted lips falling open. Not that any words come out.
My brows bump up.
Not so metaphorical, it seems.
“You chose to live,” she seethes. “Sure, it’s no longer on your terms, but at least you’re breathing. I’d think you’d be more humble toward the one who saved your life.”
I click my tongue, trying to imagine a world where someone would deign to help another without expecting something in return.
Failing.
Thousands of times I’ve been pieced back together. Only once was it for my own benefit—but Fallon’s dead, her light extinguished, all that goodness gone from the world.
Sereme may think she saved my life, but all she did was cage me again, carving Fallon’s death into an even deeper tragedy.
I’d rather be back in our cell, looking up at the moons Fallon sketched on our ceiling with blunt bits of coal. Would rather be listening to her vivid explanations for the colorful clouds draped across The Fade, her words so descriptive my mouth would water—like I could taste the colors, feeling their textures puff against my tongue.
She made freedom sound so exquisite with her big, beautiful vocabulary. Made it sound so magical.
I couldn’t wait to taste clouds with her. To lie on our backs, side by side, and look upon the real moons.
Together.
But she’s dead, and I’m here, shackled to this purple-scaled serpent. Doing none of the living