I prayed for her, I begged for her—and yet, I could not take care of her.

I pulled back, running my thumb along her jaw, and we stared at one another. I could not place this look in her eyes, and her thoughts were more like static—a strange, unfocused tangle. She looked away and then stood, stepping around me to climb into her bed.

I turned to face her but did not follow.

She rested on her side, facing me.

“You hurt me today, more than you ever have before,” she said.

I swallowed hard. She did not need to say it. I knew. I would never forget the way she looked at me in the hall or how hard she slapped me.

“I understand why you did it,” she continued, her voice shaking and her eyes glistening. My heart and lungs felt like chaos, crushed and uncomfortable. I never wanted to be the reason for her tears again, and yet somehow, I knew I would be. “But in that moment, all I could hear were the screams of my sisters as they burned alive. All I could smell was their burning flesh. All I could feel were the flames licking my feet. And it isn’t as if I don’t already think of it all the time—relive it all the time—but suddenly, this nightmare that followed me into this life became a possibility as soon as Solaris spoke, and you stood there so stoic and cold and pretended that you had not watched me die because of people like him.”

I clenched my jaw so hard, it ached. “You think I did not relive it while he stood before me?”

“This is not about you,” she said, and her voice shook as she sat up. “You have never been hunted. Even now, you are hated, but no one can touch you because of your power. And then you callously reminded me that I have no magic.”

I wanted to beg for forgiveness at her feet.

“Sometimes I fear you will not value me as much as you valued her,” Isolde said.

That comment surprised me, and I felt a rush of anger that she would even say those words aloud. She had never expressed insecurity over this before, and it frustrated me that she would now.

“I value you,” I said. “It is not as if you are two different people.”

“But we are,” she said. “You cannot refuse to see it just because you wish Yesenia had never died.”

“How often must I assure you of your role as my queen?” I asked tightly.

“As often as I require,” she snapped, and there was a flush to her cheeks that made me think she was either embarrassed or angry—perhaps both. “You know why I feel this way.”

“I am not your father.”

“Words do not heal trauma,” she said.

“Then tell me how I heal this.”