KINGSLAYER

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Her mother made a contemplative sound. "I suppose that is all I can ask for."

Ourania looked away, shaking her head ever so slightly. "What is it?" Jaylah asked her. "You cannot say anything about my accomplishments?"

"There is nothing to say. You have turned out exactly as I expected."

"I am an Empress," she repeated. "This is the only way I can protect our people. I am finally strong enough."

"No." Ourania's tone was grave. "You are not. You cannot even look Mother in the eyes."

Before Jaylah could retort, her mother tilted her head, a loop of a braid brushing the shoulder of her pale green gown. "You say you are an Empress now. But what is an Empress that burns her own people and desecrates the royal title for her own selfish gain? That is no Empress at all. That is a desolate, hopeless creature."

Jaylah swayed on her feet. She may have fallen to the ground under her dizzy spell. Her mother had finally stopped trying.

Her tears overflowed at last as she turned to face her father. Surely he would have encouragement to give, since she had at last become everything he wanted. But he only frowned at her, utter disappointment tracing the line of his mouth. "You sully my crown for my enemy. It is possible to be both a monster and an Empress, and you are the worst parts of both."

They had both given up on her.

She sobbed as they stood over her, none of them sorry for what they had said. Her mother bent daintily again the waist to put her hand underneath Jaylah's chin. Her skin was cool. So, so cool against Jaylah's bonfire of a body. "My sweet Jaylithia. Now do you see what you have done?" A single tear traced down her mother's cheekbone. "You should have let me save you. It is so tragic, all that you could have been." Jaylah sniffed her dripping nose. "Now you have ensured you will die bitter, ugly, and alone."

Jaylah dropped her face and sobbed at the truth of the words. It was as if her mother had reached into her head and plucked out all the things that made her rot and spat them back at her. It was spreading, covering her whole being.

Her mother's hand slipped away from her face and she had the sudden voracious urge to snatch it back, to hold her close. But would that not prove her mother's words true, wanting her to exist only when Jaylah saw fit? You cannot control people like dolls, her mother would have said.

Yes I can yes I can yes I can yes I can yes I—

"You left me," she whispered. Every centimeter of her body was shaking. Why would they not leave her now? Why would they not stay?

They still stood above her. Looking down on her as adults as she sobbed on the floor like a child. She still felt the press of her mother's soft gaze like a brand. No, her mother was wrong. She had to be. Jaylah would make her see it.

Fraud.

Her breaths came erratically, simultaneously too deep and too fast. Who was her mother to judge her? Where was Queen Euadne when Jaylah's father displayed that frightening anger all fathers have, when she had to become just as vicious to cover up her fear that he might hit her? How dare her mother look down on her like she was the only stinking, rotting one?

Fraud.

"Shut up!" Jaylah yelled. Her mother flinched back. It made her feel good to finally be heard, to finally be consequential.

Fraud.

She could not stand the sight of them still in her room, still in existence. She wanted them obliterated. "Get out!" She was shrieking at the top of her lungs. "Get out get out get out get out!" Reaching out, she threw a vase at her mother, but it shattered against the wall behind her. The shards fell like teardrops. She hurled another at her mother's beautiful face, then wiped her nose on her hand.

Her mother still stood there, subtly shielding Ourania with her body. Not dead. Neither was her father as he finally watched her with something like interest. Jaylah was a crumbling home. Debris crashed down inside her as she blindly groped for the candlestick. Cool metal. There it was.

Jaylah threw it, wanting to watch her family burn too, just like that black-haired girl. They all deserved to rot. Jaylah did not, they did.

Fraud, fraud, fraud.

Her bedroom went up in flames. The bed caught fire first, her comforter a layer of writhing red. It was instantly a bonfire. Smoke filled the room and spilled over into the surrounding ones. Jaylah shattered her belongings against the wall, hoping she would get to see the moment her family died.

"Leave me!" she screamed over the roar of the flames surrounding her. "Why can't you just leave me again?" Her words were slurred when she listened to herself speak.

She was going to burn alive. Barely even able to see through the gray-black smoke filling every corner of her vision, she staggered her way to the exit. It was nearly dawn, nearly time for the wedding's first phase. Her soldiers were aghast, especially as the stink of fire trailed out through the door behind her.

"The room is on fire," she said to them, her voice hoarse. "I want it in pristine condition by the end of the day."