Chapter 3

Seraphina isn't finished with us.

At the Queen's feast, she makes a show of it.

"Wynne, pour the wine."

"Wynne, on your knees with the cup."

"Wynne, hold my hem."

Every lady at court sees it.

Elinor Wynne. Lord Cedric Thorne's own wife. On her knees. Serving a whore.

When she's drunk on it, she leads us out to the gardens, to a quiet lake under the willows.

She pulls a gold earring from her ear and flicks it into the water.

"Pick it up."

Mother doesn't move.

"You're my maid now, Wynne! You do what I say!"

Mother's voice is ice. "Dress a whore in silk. She's still a whore."

Seraphina's hand snaps back to strike.

I throw myself in front of Mother. "Don't you touch her!"

"You little bitch —"

She swings for me instead. Mother pulls me in fast and Seraphina's nails rake down her throat. Four red lines.

For one second, my mother looks like a Wynne again. Back straight. Chin up.

Seraphina actually steps back.

Then she laughs. "A cat with no teeth. All hiss, no bite."

"Fine. Don't pick it up. But your daughter will pay for every minute you make me wait."

"You wouldn't dare." Mother's eyes blaze. "Pearl is the heir of Thorne family. Touch her and I'll come back from the grave for you."

"Oh, I know." Seraphina smiles. "Half the families in the capital want a marriage contract with her. Should I tell Cedric to give her to Lord Coren's son? Or the Chancellor's boy?"

Both of them are known monsters. One has buried three chambermaids. The other likes to share his women with his hunting hounds.

Mother shakes. Then she nods, jaw locked. "I'll pick it up."

The lake is autumn-cold.

Mother wades in step by step. Her lips turn blue inside a minute. Her face goes grey.

"Mama, come out! Please come out —"

Seraphina backhands me across the mouth. Then again.

"Shut up, you little bitch. One more sound and I'll cut your tongue out."

I taste blood and I do not look away from her.

Then a voice cuts through the willows.

"What in God's name is going on?"

Cedric.

Seraphina moves like a snake. She grabs my hand, presses it flat against her chest — and throws herself backwards over the railing.

The splash sends water up the bank.

Cedric doesn't even look at the lake. He dives straight for her.

He drags her up against his chest, white with terror, and doesn't see — doesn't see — Mother going under in the middle of the lake.

It's one of the Queen's guards who runs for Mother. Pulls her out half-drowned.

Seraphina is shaking in Cedric's arms, soaked and beautiful. She sees me and screams.

"No — please — my lady, I'm sorry — don't strike me again —"

"I never touched you!" I point at the marks on my own face. "She made my mother go into the lake! She hit me! She called me a bitch and shout at my mother —"

Cedric finally looks at Mother.

She is barely breathing.

Something passes through his face. Something almost guilty.

Seraphina sobs into his chest.

"Lady Elinor hates me, I know. But to make her own child lie for her — to teach the girl such cruelty —"

"Yes, I hit the child. She called me a thousand-man whore. She spat on my dead mother's name —"

"I'm low-born, but I have my pride. I'd rather die than bear this —"

She lurches toward the lake again. Cedric catches her, of course.

"Enough." Cedric's eyes go black. "Guards. Take Pearl to the chapel. Twenty lashes."

Mother throws herself in front of me.

"I raised her. If anyone is to be whipped, whip me."

Father's mouth twists.

"Forty."

...

The family chapel is cold as a tomb.

Mother kneels on the flagstones. She is already swaying.

The whip is leather, soaked in salt water. The first stroke opens her like wet parchment.

Blood runs along the cracks between the stones and pools dark at her knees.

I throw myself at Cedric's feet. I claw at his boots. I press my face into the stone and beg until my voice gives out.

"Please — please — I'll do anything —"

My tears run down my cheek.

No one stops it.

At forty, she coughs up a mouthful of blood and folds sideways onto the stone.

I carry her back myself to her chambers.

I send for the physician.

I sit by her bed until my eyes won't stay open.

I slump against the edge of the bed and sleep takes me whether I want it or not.

Sometime before dawn, someone comes in.

Cedric.

He kneels by her bed. His fingers shake as he lifts the cloth from her back. When he sees what's under it, his whole body folds.

A tear lands on her ruined skin.

He starts dressing the wounds himself. His voice is wrecked.

"Elinor. Why must you be so stubborn."

"Sera came from filth, yes, but her soul is good. She saved my life in the north. I'd be a corpse in the wastelands without her."

"Fine. If you truly hate her so much — I'll send her away once she's given me a child."

"And it'll be the three of us again. The way it was."

I keep my eyes shut.

There is no the three of us anymore.