His eyes were frantic.
"Laurel, are you all right?"
"Jason, don't worry about me. Just take Constance home and live your life with her..."
Laurel's tears poured down her face.
Jason lifted her up gently, then turned on me like a beast gone mad and charged.
"Constance, won't you be happy until you've driven Laurel to her death?!"
As he spoke, his gaze landed on the veil in my hands.
His brow tightened.
"You did this to spite Laurel on purpose!"
His grip clamped down, and he ripped the veil out of my hands and ran straight for the altar where the incense burned.
The instant I understood what he meant to do, I lost all composure.
That veil had taken my mother three years to embroider, one stitch at a time.
Woven into it was thread my late grandmother had twisted by her own hands.
In it was my mother's heart, every drop of it, paid out through fingers she had pricked countless times.
A scrap of cloth no bigger than a span, and yet it brimmed with the blessings of everyone I loved. There was only one like it in all the world...
I threw myself toward Jason like a madwoman.
"Jason, don't!"
In the very moment I lunged, Laurel suddenly stuck out a foot.
I crashed straight to the floor.
My head struck the incense table and knocked it over.
Scalding ash rained over me, and the little sparks scorched through my outer garment in an instant and seared into my flesh.
Jason just watched me with cold eyes.
He threw my veil into the fire.
I bit back the pain stabbing through me, scrambled up, and rushed for the brazier.
But Jason kicked it clear out of the shrine.
He looked down at me, his voice cold as if it had been quenched in ice.
"Constance, you're my woman, so you'll do as I, Jason, say."
"For the rest of this long life, whatever Laurel doesn't have, you don't get to have either."
"She'll have it."
A deep man's voice rang out beyond the mountain shrine.
Jason and I turned at once toward the sound.
It was Roderick Sanchez.
The back of his hand was burned raw and red, and he came toward me slowly, my veil clutched tight in his grip...
