She Stole My Curse novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Mother's Court

"Fine," I said. "We'll prove it to Mother."

Isveth's smile slipped.

She'd meant it as a dare.

She hadn't thought I'd take it.

We left for Pearlmere at first light.

Brannoch couldn't swim, so his captains carried him on a litter of red stone slung between four of them.

He wouldn't let Isveth ride beside him.

She swam ahead with her maid, and the maid didn't look back once.

The vent-folk healer came with us. She dosed Brannoch with something bitter every hour, and every hour he cursed her for it.

"That's a good sign," she told me. "Dying men are polite."

By the time we reached the Choosing Hall, the whole court knew.

They packed the water to the dome.

My mother sat on the coral throne in pearl-sewn white, with her hands folded.

She looked at Brannoch's gray face on the litter, and then at me, and her mouth went thin.

"Again," she said. "Again, Nerys. Every time something goes wrong, there you are."

"Something's been going wrong in his comb," I said. "Every night for five nights."

I swam to the foot of the steps and held up the flask.

I told it plainly. The comb, the false floor, the dark teeth, the crab.

Eight vent-folk captains stood behind me and nodded at every word.

When I finished, the hall was buzzing.

My mother turned to Isveth.

"Well?"

Isveth didn't answer right away.

She swam slowly to the middle of the hall, where the light from the dome came down in a column.

Then she sank onto the shell tiles.

She folded down with her purple tail curled under her and her face in her hands, and she wept.

It was beautiful.

Even I almost believed it.

"I nursed him," she sobbed. "I sat with him every night. I combed his hair because he said it eased his head. I never knew. Mother, I never knew."

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