Daphne

The next time someone approaches, lantern aglow, Daphne knows it's her mother before she can see her face—she knows the cadence of her steps, feels the whisper of her presence like a chill against her skin.

The empress doesn't come alone—as she draws nearer, Daphne sees Adilla on one side of her, Cliona on the other, each girl holding a lantern of her own. Daphne searches Cliona's face—cast in high relief in the flickering light of her lantern—but finds no hint there of her true intentions. A thread of doubt winds through her. If she trusts Cliona and is proven wrong, it isn't only she who will suffer for it. Can she really risk so many lives by placing her trust in Cliona?

"No hello for your mother, Beatriz?" the empress asks, coming to stand before them, between Beatriz and Daphne. She sets her lantern on the stone floor at her feet.

"Hello, Mother," Beatriz says, her voice unbothered, but Daphne hears the fear and anger deep beneath the surface. The empress hears it too and smiles.

"I do wish you'd done your duty in Cellaria, darling," the empress tells her. "For your own sake, you understand. I didn't wish for it to come to this, but you've left me no choice."

Beatriz smiles. "You know me, Mama. I simply must be difficult. And it simply wouldn't do to die on Cellarian ground."

The empress lets out a hard laugh. "Nigellus told you that, did he?" she asks. "I won't pretend to be surprised. For one with so much power, he was a weak man. As it happens, though, I'm not concerned with the conditions of your deaths."

She reaches into the pocket of her cloak and withdraws two velvet pouches, cinched with gold rope. She empties one just in front of Beatriz's outstretched legs, then empties the second in front of Daphne.

Soil, Daphne realizes, understanding dawning. She understands why Cliona is here, why her mother didn't simply have Pasquale and Ambrose killed. Because she needs them to do what she can't.

"Why not do this in the first place?" Daphne asks her mother. "You could have hired assassins and imported soil and finished us off as infants, if you'd wanted to."

"Is that what you believe me capable of?" the empress says, looking at Daphne with cold eyes. "I raised you, trained you, ensured that you had the very best that your lives could offer you. I acted as a mother to you for sixteen years. Without me and my wishes, none of you would ever have taken a single breath. I gave you your lives."

"And then you washed your hands of us and told yourself that whatever happened to us wasn't your fault," Daphne says. "Did you truly believe that? Or did you only care that no one else thought it was your fault? Sophronia—"

"Sophronia's death was quick and merciful, which was more than she deserved after betraying me as she did," the empress snaps. "It's more than either of you deserves too, but luckily for you I will be kind."

Kind.Not a word Daphne would ever have used to describe her mother, even before understanding what she was capable of.

"So you'll have me killed by a friend who betrayed me?" she asks, cutting her gaze to Cliona, who flinches slightly.

"Under duress, I assure you," the empress says before glancing at Pasquale and Ambrose. "I assume neither of you will willingly kill Beatriz?"

Pasquale laughs. "Never," he bites out.

"Not even to save him?" the empress asks, gesturing to Ambrose.

Pasquale hesitates, but after looking at Ambrose, he shakes his head. "Neither of us is walking out of here alive, no matter what you promise."

"The danger of breaking so many promises, Mama," Beatriz taunts.

"Perhaps," the empress says. "But your deaths certainly don't need to be quick or merciful. Which of you will break first, I wonder? To save yourselves or each other from one more moment of agonizing pain?"

Neither Ambrose nor Pasquale answers her.

"You're a monster," Beatriz tells her.

"It's hardly the first time I've heard that, Beatriz," the empress says, shrugging. "I'm afraid it's long since lost its sting. But I'm growing tired of talking." She moves toward Ambrose and Pasquale, intending to begin torturing them. Intending to kill Beatriz first.

"Then begin," Daphne says, drawing her mother's attention. "Begin with me."

The empress looks at her, brows raised in surprise. "Very well, then," she says. "If you insist. Be a good girl and stretch out your legs, will you? That's it, on the Frivian soil."

Daphne feels the dirt underneath her legs, cool against her skin, and then she looks away from her mother and toward Cliona, who approaches with slow, measured steps. Cliona keeps her gaze down, as if she can't bear to look Daphne in the eye as she kills her. She draws her dagger and holds it pointed toward Daphne, ready to strike.

Panic sets into Daphne, flooding her body and drowning out any thought or hope. Cliona isn't looking at her because she's consumed with guilt, because Daphne miscalculated, because Cliona is going to betray her after all and bury that dagger in Daphne's chest.

But then Cliona's eyes snap to hers and something uncoils in Daphne's chest. She twists her wrists, feeling the rope grow taut like a pulled thread. And then she's up on her feet, grabbing the second dagger that Cliona holds toward her, hilt first, and lunging toward her mother, who stumbles back in surprise, throwing her hands up in a paltry defense against cold, sharp steel.

Daphne knows half a dozen places she could strike, but she goes for the chest, the tip of her dagger piercing the skin above her mother's heart without hesitation—until she hears the scream she knows right away is Cliona's, and it constricts around her heart like a snake.

She looks away from her mother's frightened face to see Cliona on the ground, clutching her stomach, crimson staining her gown as Adilla stands over her with a dagger in hand.

The half second of distraction is all her mother needs. She drives the heel of her hand upward and Daphne hears the bones of her nose crack half an instant before pain blinds her and sends her stumbling half a step backward, her grip on the dagger loosening as it drops to the ground with a clang that echoes through the catacombs.

"Daphne!" Beatriz screams. "Behind—"

But it's too late for Beatriz's warning. Adilla grabs Daphne by the elbows, wrenching her arms behind her back and pinning her there, her grip too strong to break free from. Daphne tries all of her tricks from combat training—stomping at Adilla's feet, rearing her head to try to break her nose, throwing her entire body back to catch Adilla off-balance and topple her to the ground. None of it works. Adilla seems to anticipate every move she makes and evade them with ease. But Daphne keeps trying, until she catches sight of her mother, walking toward Cliona, sprawled on the ground and holding her wound.

"Get away from her!" Daphne shouts, but her mother pays her no mind. She picks up Cliona's dropped dagger and crouches beside her.

"It didn't have to come to this," she says with a sigh. Then she takes Cliona's left hand in hers and uses the dagger to cut it off in one clean movement.