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I didn’t want to be here any longer.
If at the last moment, I’d been unable to let Huitzilopochtli drain me to the point of death. Or if I’d deployed the red serpent too early. Forced to endure whatever horrors Ra had subjected Karmen to for centuries.
If I’d twitched one single finger toward my power while the queen of Rome blasted me…
“There were never any guarantees,” Esetta whispered behind me.
Whirling around, I gazed into my mother’s eyes, so like my own but closer to brilliant indigo than midnight blue. She stood in front of the “Blood of Isis” painting, a crescent moon hanging low over the tip of a golden pyramid. Upon this house, She builds Her future.
Even though I’d never seen her outside of dreams or Lew’s recordings, her beloved face was familiar, perfected and polished through centuries of power. High, proud cheekbones, an elegant nose a bit sharper than my own. Creamy mocha skin, flawless like a da Vinci painting without a single wrinkle or blemish. Glowing as if lit from within by the full moon—and our goddess’ magic.
Her expression revealed nothing. Keeping her secrets. Even from me.
Her thick, black hair fell about her shoulders and down to the floor, streams and rivers of black silk dotted with jewels, crystals, pearls, and golden wire. Coiled tendrils flared out wide around her head and shoulders like the cobra’s hood. Floating gently on the invisible breath of our goddess.
She wore a simple white sheath gown. Chunky gold around her waist and neck like armor. Thick segmented golden snakes twined up her forearms. No crown, but Esetta didn’t need to proclaim her royalty in such a way. Especially for her daughter. The heir she’d died to produce.
So beautiful, even dead. It hurt me to look at her.
I would never feel her arms around me. My head on her breast, her heart beating against my ear. I would never smell the scent of her skin or feel her hair against my cheek. Now that I knew what we were, I felt the loss of her blood keenly. G’s sharpest sword, slicing and dicing my heart to ribbons. She’d never whisper her secrets to me. Teach me about our magic and all the things she could have prepared me for in this brutal game of queens.
Which ones I should take as siblings. How to manage my Blood without any hurt feelings. When I should risk a goddess’ wrath by killing one of Her daughters.
How I could possibly survive the kind of loss she’d endured.
The fucking pain she’d caused. Or at least allowed to happen.
“How could you?” My voice rang in the small room, bouncing off the black marble and painted papyrus.
She didn’t wince or flinch away from my rage. “I didn’t know.”
“Bullshit,” I retorted. “You knew everything. You planned everything. Don’t stand here and lie to me. Did you see them put Lew’s eyes out before you sent him to House Skye?”
An explosion of stars flared in her eyes, but her face remained smooth and unchanged. “Yes.”
“And you fucking sent him anyway.” My voice cracked with strain.
So he would be there when I needed him.
“He could keep you alive longer,” she replied in a gentle, sing-song voice meant to soothe the tumult tearing me apart.
But I didn’t want to be soothed. I wanted to rage and scream and destroy. It’d be so easy. Throw my head back and bellow boiling flames to darken the sky. A hurricane laced with teeth and claws to tear New York City apart. Skyscrapers turned to rubble like the ancient cities of Egypt. My wrath a blazing, blistering sun to rival the worst of Ra. Punishing the very earth with my fury, only to water it with the blood of anyone in my path.
Which told me more than anything how close I was to losing everything I cared about in this world. No one should have this much power. One slip. One moment where I lost control of my emotions and tore open the earth…
Too many innocents would die.
Vibrating with the strain of holding myself in check, I snapped, “And Thierry?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I couldn’t see his fate. Only that he’s necessary. When you need a miracle, he can buy you a few extra seconds.”
“Exactly. You, the grand strategist, who made plans to free Guillaume de Payne a hundred years before I needed him, couldn’t see what would happen to one of your own Blood. You didn’t stop and think, ‘Wow, if even I can’t see something, it has to be terrible?’”
I lowered my voice to rumble with the rock troll’s weight. “Maybe the Triune queen who’s hidden herself for hundreds of years might be involved? You didn’t see he’d be turned into a zombie, worse than a thrall. Rotting and falling apart for years. Decades. Stumbling, crawling hundreds of miles to find me, and for what?”
My voice, my heart, cracked like a crystal chalice. I sucked in a rasping breath and forced myself to say the words. “Even if you had seen his fate, you still would have sent him to New Orleans.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway.
