None of that mattered. It didn’t matter how she’d gotten sick. It didn’t matter where or from whom. The Holy First had marked Euphemia with the deathshead. The little princess was meant to die.
If only I’d run when I’d had the chance. If only I hadn’t stopped to have that one final moment with her. I could have been in a carriage halfway across the city by now. I’d have never known she’d gotten sick. I’d have never known I was meant to kill her.
Why?
Why hadn’t I run?
Why was the Holy First giving me this assignment after nearly a year of seeing nothing?
My gift was gone, ripped away in a god’s fit of castigation. Had I actually seen this deathshead or had it been a trick of the eyes, a moment of doubt brought on by too much stress?
Tentatively, I bent over Euphemia, bringing my hands to her face. I cupped her cheeks, heedless of the mess I was making, the Brilliance I smeared all over her and myself.
The deathshead appeared, covering her face, its skull a bleached white.
“Why?” I demanded out loud, an angry snarl, knowing the First would not answer. “Why now? Why her?”
I struck the mattress with my fist, lashing out at the bed because I could not fight a removed and aloof goddess. Euphemia made a small sound of protest and I wished I could take my outburst back, allowing her respite where I could.
I sat with her for a long while, watching her sleep, unable to offer help. I closed my eyes, listening to the husky rasp of herbreathing. Had my valise been there, I would have made her a warm tea of jaggery and cumin, sprinkled with black pepper to help expel her congestion. I thought through all the ways I might try to treat her, all the remedies that would relieve her symptoms. But none of them mattered in the end. I had no supplies and one very insistent deathshead.
No matter how it would break my heart, I could not ignore it. The Holy First was giving me a second chance. She was giving me the opportunity to get back on track, to return to her and my godfather’s good graces.
For Merrick’s sake, I would not disappoint her again.
I sighed and opened my eyes, looking around the room for anything that would help me carry out this grim task. There would be no painless, easy slip into oblivion for Euphemia, not with my bag of potions and poisons so far from me.
My gaze fell upon the mountain of throw pillows she slumbered upon. There were dozens of them piled about. Ones covered in embroidery, ones beaded and ruffled. I picked up the largest of them, pleased to find it heavy with goose down.
Suffocation was a terrible way to die, but she was sleeping, at least, her eyes already closed. I’d hold the pillow over them and wouldn’t have to see her look of betrayal. She’d never know it was I who’d done it.
Who’d killed her.
I sat back, hugging the pillow to my chest.
CouldI kill her?
Snuffing out Kieron’s candle had been brutally painful, but I hadn’t seen him suffer. I hadn’t heard his last gasps for air, I hadn’t seen his limbs tremble and twitch. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what his death had even looked like.
Smothering Euphemia would not be like that. I’d see everymoment of it. I’dheareverything: the rustle of the bedsheets as she flailed, the frantic pounding of her feet as she fought to gain leverage, the terrible drop into silence. Those sounds would haunt me forever, even if her ghost could not.
I dug my fingers into the heft of the pillow, wanting to tear it apart. I hated the deathshead, hated that the First was back, asking me to do this. How much harm could this small girl possibly inflict on the world? How could it bid me over and over to kill the people I was meant to be closest with?
I wiped away a useless tear.
Tears could come later.
This was not the time to wallow. This was not the time to mourn.
I needed to be as pragmatic and efficient as possible if I was going to make it through the night with my own life intact.
I set aside my future murder weapon and examined Euphemia’s room. Her chamber was on the fourth floor of the palace. The windows were unlocked and able to be swung open, but the parapet outside them was dangerously narrow, barely wide enough to stand upon tiptoe.
It would have to do.
Bellatrice’s rooms were on the same side of the hall as Euphemia’s. If I could make my way five windows over—or was it six?—I might be able to slip into her chambers and escape from there.
If her windows were unlocked.
