Page 92 of Queen Takes Triune

The rest of my Blood gathered close, but behind me.

I was their queen. I would deal with this threat and there was nothing they could do to protect me.

Marne Ceresa didn’t show fangs. That would have been too gauche for the queen of Rome.

No, all she had to do to call down her power waswillher blood to well up.

She lifted her right hand, index finger pointed up, and a single drop of blood dotted her fingertip. One. Measly. Drop.

Power surged in her so suddenly that my wet hair whipped into my face. The soggy material of my dress whooshed and slapped against me like a flag in straight-line winds.

Instinctively, I reached for my power. Urgency strummed in me. My throat squeezed in a fist of fear.

I hadn’t come all this way to die.

I hadn’t just freed Okeanos or healed Rik to watch them die.

My blood still dripped down my neck. It would be so easy…

Just in time, I caught myself. No power. I had agreed to those conditions when I’d stepped into her nest. I’d repeated the words myself. I wouldn’t use my power against her.

I had been powerless before. I’d been poor, lost, and terrified. Yet I’d still fought back the only way I knew how. I’d stayed one step ahead of the monsters hunting me for years.

This monster might wear a pretty smile and control one of the most ancient cities in the world, but she was still a monster.

But not as big a monster as me.

I’m Shara fucking Isador.

Daughter of the god of monsters.

Last daughter of Isis, She who is and was and always will be.

Marne Ceresa would find me a slimy, poisonous bite to swallow, and I hoped to goddess she choked on me.

Standing in surging winds that whipped and howled around me, I swiped my hair out of my face and stared back at her. Chin up. Shoulders squared. Eyes blazing with fury. Determination. Love.

Love was my weapon. I loved my Blood. Fully, deeply, and without reservation. If we were to die today, so be it.

We would die together. I had bargained with the Mother of the Gods Herself to ensure no one would be left behind to suffer such grief.

“Did you think you could come into my house and disrespect me without paying the consequences?”Her words swirled in the wind, tearing at my clothes. “No illusion lasts forever, Shara. Especially the illusion of love.”

That was it, I finally realized. My existence didn’t piss her off. She was furious because I still believed in love.

For me, love wasn’t an illusion at all, and that infuriated her. Because she’d seen the ugly side of that coin at some point in her life. She wanted to shatter my belief in that illusion by forcing me to take a Blood that I didn’t love.

That I would never love.

And give herself a spy at the same time.

:I have it!:Carys crowed in my head. :Il Pentamerone.It’s a collection of Italian fairy tales, and one of them is called “The Three Sisters.” It’s about—:

:I don’t have fucking time for this.:Through the bond, I seized her head in both hands and…

Drank.

I pulled on her knowledge, swallow after swallow of the book she’d found. The story of a young, pretty, but common girl named Nella, who’d loved a prince, and the two jealous sisters who betrayed them. Her prince was dying, so she went on a quest to save him.