Queen of Myth and Monsters (Adrian X Isolde, #2)(95)

I held her to me, staring down at her pale face, watching as a single tear fell from her eye—it was all that she would shed for me.

As she took her final breath, I spoke. “No, Nadia. I am not your Issi,” I whispered, though tears filled my eyes. I had no time to process the feelings that tore through my chest and ripped me open, but I felt raw and exposed and completely devastated.

This woman had cared for me and nursed me; she had stepped into a mothering role, and I saw her as such—and yet, when she had seen me shift, I had only become a monster in her eyes.

My breath became shallow, ragged, and I screamed until my throat burned, until my ears rang with the sound of it, until my wails dissolved into silent tears.

“Well, isn’t this devastating.”

I froze, lifting my head at the sound of Ravena’s voice.

“First you lose your father,” she continued. “And now the woman who treated you as a daughter.”

My gaze fell to Nadia, whose eyes remained open and wide. I closed them, pressing a kiss to her forehead before carefully resting her upon the ground. Then I rose to my feet and turned, still surrounded by the mirrored circle, and faced Ravena.

She filled one of the large, jagged pieces of mirror she had called forth from the floor. I expected her to appear all around me as she had done in the hall of mirrors at the Red Palace, but she didn’t.

“Why did you help me?” I asked.

“I have been trying to help you,” she said. “I have warned you about Adrian. I have told you that we are fighting for the same purpose.”

“You keep saying that, and yet you keep killing my people,” I said.

“Men,” she said. “I am killing men.”

“Ivka was not a man,” I said.

Ravena smiled, but it was sad. “An unfortunate sacrifice. I did not wish to see her die, but she would have distracted you, and Nalani is not your concern.”

“Who are you to say?” I asked, gritting my teeth.

“You did not incarnate in this life to be Isolde of Lara. You incarnated to seek revenge as Yesenia of Aroth, and that revenge must be against men. They hurt you.”

“You hurt me,” I said.

“Not like them,” she said, and there was an edge to her voice, as if she were insulted I had compared the two. “I know you sometimes mourn for the life you didn’t live, but it was not just your life that was taken the night you burned.”

My stomach roiled and I hit the floor, vomiting into a chamber pot. My face was hot and my heart was racing in my chest. The feeling had come on so suddenly, I could barely stop my head from spinning.

The door opened and I looked up, realizing I was in my bedchamber at the Red Palace.

“Yesenia, are you okay?” Ana asked. She came to kneel before me, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders.

“I am okay,” I said. I spent a few moments breathing through my mouth until the nausea passed.

“Let me help you,” she said and took my hand. I got to my feet and then sat on the bed. Ana crossed to my nightstand, pouring me a cup of water. A sour taste still lingered in the back of my throat and on my tongue.

“What happened?” she asked as she handed me the cup.

It was cool to the touch, and instead of drinking it, I placed it to my head.

“I don’t know. All of a sudden, I do not feel well.”

“Are you with child?”

Ana’s question shocked me, and I looked up to meet her gaze, which was soft and gentle.

“No,” I said quickly and paused, going cold. “I can’t be. I…”

I am going to die, I thought, though I knew there was a very real chance that I actually was pregnant, and if that was the truth, then I had just signed a death warrant for my child.

I stood, shaking.

“Ana, I can’t be pregnant.”

“You very well can be, Yesenia.”

“You do not understand—”

“I know you’ve said it before, that you are going to die—”

“I am. Dragos asked if he would conquer the world, and I foretold that his attempt would end in his demise,” I said. “He will murder me, Ana.”

Her lips slammed together and her jaw tightened.

“Then you must flee,” she said, as if it were that simple.

I shook my head. I had seen the future, seen my death at the stake, but why had I not seen life? My chest felt as though it were being ripped to shreds. I pressed my hands to my stomach and then hugged myself, tears streaming down my face.

“How did I not see this life?” I asked, my voice broken.

Ana rose and placed her hands on my shoulders. “You can change the course of the future, Yesenia. Perhaps you did so here.”

I wanted to believe her, and perhaps stupidly, her words gave me hope.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“Adrian will figure it out,” Ana said. “But first, you must tell him.”

Ravena came back into focus. She stood opposite me, and it was the first time I’d ever seen any kind of expression on her face beyond hateful smugness.

I remembered the rest of that night. Adrian and I had fled to the cottage under the mountains where we would spend a final night together. It was the same place Adrian had buried the bones of High Coven. It was where we had been captured, where Adrian had been beaten and where Dragos had raped me.