Chapter 22

Itap my thigh with the vial, watching her from where I’m reclined against the wall. Her spine is hunched, shoulders tucked forward, that long, silver hair unbound and puddled behind her stool as she works the bright strands wrapped around her trembling fingers. Threads them into place.

Drawing deep, I screw my nose at the heady scent of desperation seeping from her pores.

I’m late, but really, she’s only got herself to blame. After all, I was cleaning up the fucking mess she made.

My gaze lifts, narrowing on the half-finished tapestry she’s working on. You can see the rapt attention she’s poured into the design—the colors, the tension of each bulging thread. It all fits together in perfect, blissful harmony, and I’m certain that’s all she’s ever wanted. All she cares about.

Perfection.

Her love for the craft … it’s endless, poured all over the walls downstairs; a constant mutating thing that grows and fucking grows. I have nightmares of those tapestries spawning mouths and taking big, bloody bites of me, masticating my face until I barely recognize myself.

I should burn them all, but I’m too good to her to even consider it.

Too lenient.

She uses her weft stick to tighten the layer, the instrument jiggling with the uncontrollable shake of her hands. She releases a frustrated grunt, pushing some rogue tendrils behind her ear with a dash of her hand. Again, I tap the vial against my thigh.

“Are you enjoying that?”

Her flinch is a whip snapping at my heart, making that voice inside me pick.

Pick.

Pick.

She always does it—every time.

There’s a pause before she nods but doesn’t look back. Doesn’t seek me out with the tender stare I crave.She used to try, but her eyes didn’t lie, and I could see the roiling fear below the surface.

Again, I look at the tapestry, tilting my head to the side as I study the half-finished piece of a face shrouded in a nest of flowers. I note the shape of the woman’s eyes and the half-moon irises, the burst of orchid threads a stark contrast to the rest of the piece.

In it, I see Orlaith.

“You like her,” I murmur, and the air between us tightens.

Her head bobs. Slow.

Cautious.

“I like her, too.” I saunter forward, heavy boots hammering the stone. “The talon Orlaith came here with is gone.”

Her hands still. Even the tremble abates for a beat before reigniting tenfold.

Disappointment clogs my throat.

I had my suspicions, but seeing it confirmed is a different beast entirely.

“She used it on Rhordyn,” I admit, forcing back a breath burdened by her undiluted fear. Guess I should be used to it by now, but she shouldn’t have the right to be scared of me.

I’m her fucking child.

“A little bird once told me you sent a tapestry to Rhordyn’s territory. Call me sentimental, but I tried to find it. You know—wanting to keep the entire set intact because I’m such a good son.” I study the flowers she’s pieced together thread by tedious thread. “I failed, of course. Though, for you, I guess that’s hardly a surprise. But after finding Orlaith on the island tonight, I wonder … were you trying to send clues?”

Her shoulders stiffen in the silence.

Blessed fucking silence.

I cross my arms and study the back of her head. “Is that true, Mother? Did you hope Orlaith would see me through your eyes and do what you failed to do?” I grip her stool and whip it around, wooden legs screaming against the stone. “But where would you be without me, hmm?”

She flinches again as I crouch, bringing us face to face. She doesn’t even bother to hide the fear in her wide, pasty eyes.

“Dead,” I pronounce. “You’d be dead. Need I remind you, the only reason you’re still breathing is because I need your filthy blood to keep Father from slipping away entirely.”

She makes some sounds I pretend not to hear, molding her hands into shapes I never bothered to learn the meaning of.

I drop my head, massaging the bridge between my eyes. If I wanted to listen to her speak, I would never have cut out her tongue.

“I heard you talking with Father, you know. When I was small. Pleading with him.” She becomes still, and I can feel the warm tickle of her undivided attention blazing across my face.

There she goes again, trying to manipulate the situation by feeding me drips of hope that she cares.

I lift my head, looking up at her from beneath my brows. “I heard you say that what I lack in power I also lack in empathy.”

Her mouth falls open.

“That you’re frightened of my capabilities. Ironic, since you mated a monster. I’m not sure what you were expecting to end up with.”

All the color slips from her face that used to be beautiful once upon a time. Before I started starving her of the thing maintaining her youth. A little petty, but I do hold a good grudge.

“Any weakness I have is because of you,” I scoff. “My pathetic, mortal mother who can’t even look at her own son without shuddering. You’re the reason I’m not stronger. The reason I’m pure bloodlust and no fucking power.”

I reach up, and she flinches as I snag some silver strands and squeeze them between my thumb and finger, desperate to tame them.

Later. After I’ve dealt with my pretty flower.

She’smy priority now.

“By the time I’ve done what Father never could and claimed Ocruth as my own, perhaps I’ll finally be worthy of your love,” I say, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Her face scrunches, garbled words dropping from her mouth like pebbles. Tears gather in her eyes, and all I see is a paltry, desperate, dramatic ploy to gain the upper hand.

Not today.

I grip both sides of her face, stilling her jaw and those mutated noises. “You almost ruined everything,” I seethe, upper lip peeling back, my gums aching with the promise of elongated canines that never emerge. “You almost ruined everything!”

The words blast out of me with a violence that ricochets off the walls.

I press my forehead against hers, rolling my head one way, the other. “But she loves me,” I whisper, a slow, rumbling laugh building in the back of my throat. “She loves me in a way you never did.”

Mother trembles in my grip, tears slipping down her cheeks, her knobbly, frail hand settling upon my heart. Making my flesh burst with goosebumps—a sensation that scurries up my spine. “I ooh ove ewe, Gnong. I ooh ove ewe!”

I do love you, Non.

Perhaps I need to sew her fucking lips shut, too.

“No, you don’t.” I rip her hand off my chest, then shove back and push to a stand, looking down on her. Feeling sick to my stomach. “I have the scar to prove it.”

Another whimper, and my mouth twists in distaste.

I jerk my chin at the empty spot on the stool beside her. “Hand. Now.”

Her breath stills, face crumbling with a guttural sob. She shakes her head, mumbling words that find no berth.

“Now!”

Another flinch. Pathetic sounds whittle free as she lifts her hand, feebly tugging at her clothes with clawed fingers.

As if that will help.

She gasps as I seize her wrist, a mere stick in my firm grip. I place her hand on the stool, palm up so I can see the calluses that have built up over the years from the constant twist and tug of the threads she dearly loves.

The middle one has the most.

I eye it like the enemy it is, knowing it speaks the language of the only love she really knows—her craft. I whip my blade from my boot and slam it through the base of her finger, severing it just below the knuckle.

Blood splatters my face, and she releases a loud, curdling shriek that ripples through the palace.

I think I made a similar sound when she tried to put me down.

“Be grateful,” I mutter, sheathing my dagger. “I should be taking two.”

She tucks her bleeding hand up close to her chest and cradles it, big, heaving sobs racking her frail form as she looks at me through eyes glazed with immeasurable hurt. Like she didn’t bring this on herself.

A trail of blood dribbles off the stool, pooling on the ground.

I unstopper the empty vial and snatch Mother’s hand, collecting the ruddy liquid from the severed stump while her chest heaves with silent sobs. Punching the cork back into place, I use her water pitcher to rinse my hands. I dry them with a cloth I throw on the ground, pulling the other vial from my pocket to wave in her direction, Father’s blood sloshing about.

A desperate sound bludgeons past her chattering teeth as she stumbles off the stool and falls to her knees, looking up at me like a begging dog.

“Not today,” I say, a smirk grazing my lips. I tuck the jar in my pocket before I give her my back.

Today, she can suffer.