I wait for her to elaborate, until I am done waiting. “You say I am the spear, the pain-welded blade.” I thrust my hand out. “You say I am the wound turned weapon, but you won’t help me become that weapon! Either no one knows how or they do and they refuse to tell me. I’ve been running for my life, nearly killed because I have to almost die before I can defend myself! What kind of power is that?”

‘None of us can help you become… anything. We can only show you what we know, enough for you to make your own choices.’

I scoff. “You have got to be kidding me. We don’t get to make our own choices; you made sure of that!”

Vera’s flames burn hotter. She glides toward me, and I can feel her displeasure from here.

Oh well. I’m displeased, too.

‘I bargained for our survival.’

“You trapped us,” I hiss. “And you don’t even seem to care. And the Hunter? Do you know about him? Do you know about the bloodmark?”

‘I do not know of this Hunter, I will admit.’ Vera bristles, lifts her chin. ‘But you know nothing of a trapped life. A bound life.’

“No, I don’t. Not like the one you lived,” I admit. “I won’t dismiss that, or diminish it.”

‘Good.’ She nods, begins to turn away.

“But ‘one daughter at a time, for all time.’ That was the deal that you knowingly forced on us. That was your Bloodcraft spell,” I call out. “And Bloodcraft is a trap for the descendants who bear it. It is a binding from birth. That’s why other crafters call it a sin,” I argue. I glance around the empty circle, where my foremothers once stood. “You bargained for our survival, but you never had to bear the consequences. I see the agony still in their faces. It’s baked into their voices. I can hear it, because it’s mine too.” I step toward her, teeth bared.

“Bree…” Hazel’s voice is an urgent plea.

“You got your wish, but you never inherited it at the expense of losing your mother, you just bound us to lose ours, over and over and over again….”

Vera’s voice roars over me, a hot wave. ‘You wish to wield my power, but you cannot manage your own tongue. I saved our bloodline.’

“That may be true, but that’s not the full story.” I step into her flames, fury making me bold. “You said that our family ran so I wouldn’t have to, and I thought you meant we ran from the Order. What you missed is that some of us ran from the Hunter and we all ran from pain and grief. You didn’t just save our bloodline, you cursed it.”

Her image flickers, then recovers. ‘That is not true.’