I pulled my collar closed.
"Dana Griffin. On your wedding day, you knelt three times before heaven and earth. You looked Clarissa in the eye and swore you would trust her, protect her, never doubt her. That you would be hers alone, for the rest of your lives."
"All those vows dripping with devotion. Did you feed every last one of them to the dogs?"
I didn't wait for his answer.
My gaze dropped to the strands of his hair still tangled between my fingers, torn loose only moments ago.
"No matter."
"Every wrong done to her, I will repay in full."
Dana's brow furrowed. "You—"
Lucretia wrenched herself free of his arms and threw herself at my feet.
She flashed me a taunting smile, but the words that left her mouth were a tearful wail:
"Sister, whatever grievance you have, take it out on me! Don't hurt His Majesty!"
I was happy to oblige.
Without a heartbeat's hesitation, I swung my hand and slapped her across the face.
Then I hurled the entire bowl of heart's blood over her.
Lucretia screamed.
The blood was still warm. It dripped from her hairpins, ran down her temples, soaked through the crimson phoenix robe until the silk clung to her skin.
She raised a hand on instinct and wiped at her face, smearing the blood into a grotesque mask.
Dana stared at Lucretia, drenched and trembling.
As though she were the one who'd been bled. As though she were the one who'd been hurt.
Every ounce of tenderness in his eyes belonged to her. Every shred of his pity, his bias.
"Clarissa, you've bullied Lucretia since you were children. And now you use whatever affection I still hold for you to humiliate her again and again!"
"Since you drew heart's blood and still refuse to save her, then I will have every last one of those wretched spawn dug up and ground to dust. Let's see you use them to terrorize Lucretia then!"
"Guards! Exhume the remains of the First Prince, the Second Prince, the Third Princess, the Fourth Prince, and the Fifth Princess. All of them!"
"Burn them in open flame. Boil them in oil. Then summon the Exorcist to lay the foulest curse he knows, so they can never be reborn. Not even as ghosts!"
A savage pain detonated in my chest.
It wasn't mine. It was my sister's.
I froze.
Was Clarissa's soul still inside this body?
Then why, no matter how many times I called for her, had she never answered?
With every word Dana spoke, the pain deepened, as if something were being ripped apart inside me, slow and alive.
Lucretia sat crumpled in the pooling blood, biting her lip, sobbing as though each breath cost her dearly.
"Your Majesty, my sister truly despises me beyond all reason!"
"But... but the Exorcist himself said those five children died because of the elder sister's wickedness. That her sins provoked heaven's wrath..."
"That's why they were smothered one by one, trampled by horses, thrown to their deaths... I grieve for those poor children so deeply..."
Dana's chest heaved violently. He erupted.
"Even after you've humiliated her to this degree, Lucretia still weeps for those children! That is a heart of pure sincerity!"
"And you? All you do is use your own children as weapons for revenge! You don't deserve to be called their mother!"
Two lines of blood-red tears spilled from my eyes, beyond my control.
Those were my sister's tears, shed for her five murdered children.
I clenched my fists until the strands of hair bit into the flesh of my fingers.
I laughed. The sound was jagged, ugly.
"Sister Clarissa! Your five children are barely cold in their graves, and you... you can still laugh?!"
Lucretia's tears flowed without end, her expression the very portrait of unbearable grief.
But I saw it clearly. The triumph glinting in her eyes.
The same look her mother had worn, all those years ago, when the two of them had wielded their fragile, pitiful act to steal Father's affection and driven Mother to weep alone every night.
"I'm laughing," I said, "because you fools don't know what you've done. You woke me up."
I raised my hand and pressed a finger to my own chest.
"Dana Griffin. Do you know what a Soul-Scattering Nail is?"
"It is a torture designed to pin a living soul apart, scattering all three spiritual essences and all seven mortal forms until nothing remains."
"I was trying to save you, and you threw it back in my face!" Dana's eyes were full of bitter disappointment. "That ritual was meant to purge the darkness festering inside you. And it didn't do a damn thing!"
