Page 249 of Burn Her They Said
“What was her name?” I ask Lorn, just before he exits the space.
He turns back to me while straightening his black eyeglasses. “Her name is May, Imperial Grand Witch Tasch.”
May. Renewal.
The name of a witch whose magic mimics my own. A fact I hope the Emperor does not know. Though she arrived too quickly to live anywhere else. Meaning he must be hiding her somewhere covertly enough that I have yet to hear any whispers of her presence. Which may mean she is the contingency for whenever I inevitably fail him.
Varic glances at me in question, and I nod to indicate I am more than ready to leave this place.
We advance forward, and I cannot help but stare down where May had to writhe over the stone. Someone so young and naïve. She cannot possibly understand the gravity of all that’s happened. And I cannot feel glad, for it will all catch up with her, eventually.
And I’ll be the reason.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Attack
I no longer recognize the face staring back at me.
She is gaunt and empty. Unaffected by Drusilla repeatedly stabbing a hairpin into her scalp. Numbed so much she doesn’t flinch when the sharp tip pierces the skin.
Because she is not here. She is elsewhere. In another time and place.
Staring down at May, with her soulful brown eyes stretched wide, while her mouth hangs open and she releases a bone-rattling scream.
I did this to her. I brought her this anguish. It doesn’t matter what anyone says to the contrary. She was made to pretend I was torturing her, and I do not know how I am supposed to live with myself afterward.
Drusilla swats my shoulder, a sign I must have ignored her command to rise from His Majesty’s stool, as she collects all of my cosmetics she set atop his vanity to place in a basket. Even though he demanded I prepare for the ceremony within his quarters, they are still his, and we cannot leave any trace of my existence.
The night before haunts me, with flashes of memory.
May’s little eyebrows furrowed, just before she winks?—
Varic’s proximity warms my side as I float through the Emperor’s bedchamber like a phantom. Unable to sense many of the plodding steps I take ahead. Weightlessly lifting one foot, then the other. Obediently following Drusilla’s frail outline past the pair of Guards who bow as we enter the hall.
My defenders orbit around my being, though I feel nothing close to celestial—nothing like I once experienced as the center of their five-pointed star. I merely pull them along as if tethered by an invisible string, having tied their souls to mine the moment they vowed to protect my life with their own.
Raki flits over and lands on my shoulder, then flicks its tail up and over my neck with the stinger barely grazing it.
“There she is.” His Majesty’s tone shatters my icy exterior to unveil the agitation his presence brings, which I quickly stifle. He grins with approval at the façade I don for him as he purrs my pet name with sickening warmth, “My little witch.”
Varic steps farther away to allow His Majesty to take his place.
Then the snatcher leans in and presses his paper-thin lips to the carefully styled hair just above my ear. “You look fit to be an Empress.”
His statement descends like a blanket made of dread, though I nod and take hold of his arm as his gesture commands. I force my gaze forward and refuse to look near Varic, who wards himself from sharing the emotions His Majesty’s comment has surely conjured within him.
The Emperor’s Guards snicker behind our backs as we move toward the Throne Room, where His Majesty will host a celebration in commemoration of our first Emperor and his noble deed. Though we all know better, as His Majesty uses Reclamation Day to bask in the praise of the citizens he requires to attend.
We are to endure his favorite evening of the year after making it through the day filled with mandatory gatherings. All through which he has kept me closer than he has been, with his gray eyes casting over my being more frequently than they have of late. He has reveled in our pretend levels of excitement for every inflated claim he has made about our Empire’s accomplishments.
Because hoarding resources and charging more for the goods we have stolen is not enough to sustain his happiness. Instead, his ego requires the art of exaggeration. To pretend he is more beloved and admired than could ever be true of someone like him.
Varic’s concern infiltrates my chest, and my pulse pounds harder in my veins, reminding me that I still exist, despite his being incapable of extracting me from this fog I’m in. What I did to the young witch has only proven the Prince’s claim is accurate. It has given credence to the harm I have enacted on our citizens after years of deluding myself into believing I was doing the opposite.
What was once a body filled with emotions, so many trapped within they clung to my ribs, has now become nothing more than an absence. A void, without a pathetic sense of apathy or numbness. Nothing, and silence, aside from that ever-present pounding of my pulse.
It blurs my surroundings until I cannot be sure what is before me.
