DOFAB#3

Chapter Thirty

~ TRISTAN ~

The devil black that fills my veins sizzles on a blade made of pure amber glass. The instrument meant to kill me slices through my flesh upon unwrapping the dagger from the swaddled home it lived since my mother buried it beneath the wickeria. The specks of blood that fell on the blade comprised of the willow's sap evaporate as instantaneously as a well-fed vampire heals.

Second to Rien's flame the eevie tend is this—sap from their precious willow. Like bees in a hive, this amber is their honey. A continual flowing waterfall of wine like the wineyards in Cistoca are for us devils of Haysha. The sap from the willow has many properties others would seek to profit from. Medicinal. Capable of being weaponized. An untapped fountain of youth humans would kill each other to get their hands on if they knew of its anti-aging properties. For the eevie, this sap is their way of life. A nutrient-rich fertilizer for their garden. Made into a mead that used to be the only alcoholic liquid that passed flowered lips. It was the sugar in their tea, the syrup on their plate, the scent added to their homemade soaps, and the beads fashioned around their wrists.

In essence, this sap is how I feel about Kinley. She's my everything, and I will do what I must to protect her, including leading her astray from my true intentions. I do not seek Thrage's demise. I seek to become the master who leashes him. For that to happen, I have to rid myself of the infirmest spell that's clouding me to him. And the only safe way to purge the infirmest incantation is to replace it with the infection it's mimicking.

A creak to my door sounds, an extended whine that results in moonlight skin standing at the threshold to my room.

"The Queen requests your presence. The Night of Z'atist has already begun without one of her sons by her side," Izzy says, gaze cast down.

Mommy dearest can continue to be upset.

"Tell her Trissy-wissy is busy in his room, studying the dagger she used to cut out his heart before she threw it into the flame at the Star of Crowns."

"You've found it." Izzy cautiously steps inside but doesn't let go of the door.

Of course, my mother knew I'd be looking for it. Just how much has my mother confided in her Izzy puppet?

"What do you know of the world before?"

"I know enough. That a headless dove bewitched you in the old world and you believe you've found her again."

"It's not a belief, Izzy. It's a fact."

The metal knob twists in Izzy's tightening grip. "Belief or fact, if Rakasha is right, that eevie you brought home, she will be what destroys this new world she built. Your mother showed me in the Eyes of the Serpent."

That's where Izzy disappeared these past few days, to my mother's collection of seer crystals. Visions my mother inherits from Haysha. Gods are not clairvoyant in an all-knowing capacity. The future shifts too much for them to know what path will be chosen, so they offer us warnings, steering us in the direction they want to pursue. Haysha wants but one thing when it concerns me—revenge. I wasn't an obedient mutt and she lost half her kingdom because of it. The yagkains preferring a new master to her restrictive leash

"If you saw what your mother showed me," Izzy says, "you would take that blade in your hand and end that temple priestess yourself, disposing of her ashes where your mother threw your heart."

The doorknob Izzy was holding punches a hole through the stone. My forearm dug into her throat as I keep Izzy pinned to the door, amber blade poised at a stilled heart.

"You fear the future, then change it." I flip the dagger around, offering the hilt to Izzy on the silver platter of my palm. "Flowers do not grow in the dark. But if the darkness surrounding them attempts to choke them out, a flower will learn how to become its own sun." How's that for hyperbole, mother.