Chapter 2

Vesper Thorne POV:

The heavy footsteps of my father and sister had barely faded down the spiral stone staircase before the drafty corridor stirred once more.

The door creaked open, and Concetta glided back into the room alone, having dismissed the guards outside. In her hands, she carried a lidded porcelain bowl.

The moment she stepped across the threshold, my nose twitched. Beneath the sweet, heavy steam of honey and steeped roots, my senses caught it instantly—a sharp, scorched-almond bitterness with a faint metallic bite.

Concentrated Drake-Tongue sap.

A caustic herbal poison designed to blister mucous membranes and permanently seize vocal cords into silence.

Concetta closed the door behind her, dabbing the corners of her eyes with a lace handkerchief as if wiping away maternal tears.

"Your father is a hard, unyielding man, Vesper," she sighed, her voice dripping with soft, practiced compassion. "He thinks only of the clan's standing. But as a mother, my heart aches to see you sent into the frozen northern wastes."

I leaned back against the vanity chair, watching her through the dark, polished mirror. I didn't say a word.

Concetta set the steaming bowl on the dressing table, then picked up the carved ivory comb I had set aside.

"Ancient tradition demands that a mother comb her daughter’s hair before she departs under the Moon Goddess’s light," she murmured, standing behind me with a gentle, saintly smile. "Your own mother departed this world too early. Let me perform this final duty for you, so your journey north might be blessed."

The ivory teeth touched my scalp.

"Comb it straight," I said coolly, tilting my head back slightly to meet her startled gaze in the glass. "And mind the stray strands along the nape of my neck. Keep your hands steady, Stepmother. If you pull out even a single hair, my head might throb so badly by tomorrow morning that I say the wrong things to the royal envoy."

Concetta’s fingers stiffened around the comb. The knuckles of her right hand turned white from the strain of suppressing her rage, but with the marriage decree hanging in the balance, she forced her mouth into an agonizingly sweet smile.

"Of course, my dear. Gently, then."

The rhythmic rasp of the ivory teeth through my hair was the only sound in the room for a few moments. Concetta leaned down slightly, her breath warm against my temple.

"You must learn to bend your pride in the north, Vesper," she murmured, her tone softening into condescending counsel. "Do not be like your late mother, Yseult. A woman of such stubborn fire, always demanding what was not hers... pride like that only invites tragedy. You remember how she died on the precipice of the Northern Crags, don't you? A sudden slip on the ice, gone before she could even utter a prayer."

My gaze drifted down to her throat.

Tucked neatly into the collar of her velvet bodice was a teardrop pendant carved from deep blue crystal, surrounded by woven platinum filigree.

My mother's Tear of the Deep Sea.

Slowly, without warning, I reached up and laid my fingers over Concetta’s wrist, pressing down against her pulse. The sudden, icy grip sent a violent tremor through her arm.

"It is a peculiar thing, Stepmother," I whispered, my voice as smooth and quiet as still water. "They said my mother lost her footing in an unforgiving blizzard. They said her body fell into the bottomless abyss, shattered on the jagged rocks below. If she tumbled down that freezing trench, how is it that this pendant—which she wore every day of her life—sits so comfortably against your neck tonight?"

Concetta froze entirely. The ivory comb slipped from her numb fingers and clattered onto the stone floorboards.

I didn't let go of her wrist. I turned my head, fixing her with a dead, unblinking stare that stripped every ounce of blood from her cheeks.

"And another curious detail," I purred softly, nodding toward the bowl beside us. "The herbal draught she drank three days before her fall... did it carry this exact same scent? The scorched-almond stench of Drake-Tongue sap you just carried into my room?"

Concetta’s eyes dilated in sheer, suffocating terror.

"You always did have the desperate, filthy hands of a thief, Concetta," I continued, my lips curving into a leisurely, poisonous sneer that cut deeper than any blade. "Did you really think wrapping yourself in my mother’s jewels and draping yourself in her silk would make anyone forget what you truly are? A cheap, rutting whore who couldn't find an Alpha of her own, so you crawled on all fours into a married lord’s bedsheets while his wife was carrying his child. You spread your legs like a gutter tramp behind the stables just to steal the scraps from my mother's plate."

Concetta’s breath hitched in a strangled gasp. The ten years of aristocratic respectability she had painstakingly built evaporated in an instant, ripped to shreds by the crude, brutal truth.

"You killed her because every time she looked at you, you were reminded that you’re nothing but a foul little mistress living on stolen linen," I whispered, leaning in closer, watching the veins pulse wildly in her temples. "No matter how high you sit at the high table, Stepmother, you still reek of the brothel floor."

The saintly mask completely shattered.

Her face turned a mottled, apoplectic purple. A guttural screech of raw, humiliated fury tore from her chest, her fingers curling into predatory claws.

"You filthy little bastard!" she shrieked, all pretense of elegance wiped away into an ugly, feral snarl. "I should have strangled you in your cradle like I did your whore of a mother! Drink it! Drink it and choke, you insolent wretch!"

She lunged wildly, grabbing the steaming porcelain bowl with both hands, using her wolf-blooded strength to slam the scalding rim toward my mouth.

I didn't panic, nor did I grapple with her brute force.

Instead, I shifted my weight back, slipping inside the frantic arc of her reach. My right thumb drove with pinpoint precision into the ulnar nerve junction nestled just below the inner joint of her right elbow.

Concetta shrieked as a violent, numbing spasm shot through her arm. Her fingers went slack, and the bowl slipped from her grip.

Before the vessel could hit the floor, my left palm swept under the base, catching it cleanly. With my right hand, I hooked her wrist and yanked her forward off balance, sweeping my foot behind her ankle.

Concetta stumbled, gasping for air in shock, her mouth flying wide open to scream for the guards.

In that fraction of a second, I shoved the lip of the bowl between her parted teeth and tipped it straight up.

The thick, scalding broth rushed down her throat. She choked on the scorching heat, her own swallowing reflex betraying her as the dark liquid emptied entirely into her gullet. The dregs splashed over her velvet gown, staining the silk a greasy black.

I stepped back, letting her collapse onto the thick woven rug.

Concetta clawed at her own neck, her eyes bulging as she writhed on the floor. The Drake-Tongue toxin was instantaneous; the corrosive sap seized her vocal cords in a vice of fire. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that escaped her ruined throat was a series of wet, raspy wheezes.

Hiss... hrrk...

I stood over her, taking a linen napkin from the vanity to wipe a single drop of broth from my thumb.

Then, bending down with fluid grace, my fingers hooked beneath the silver chain of the blue crystal pendant. With one sharp, unhesitating jerk, I snapped the clasp from her neck, tearing a stitch of velvet and leaving a bloody welt along her skin.

I slipped my mother's heirloom into the pocket of my skirt, then patted Concetta’s purpling, tear-streaked cheek.

"Thank you for returning what you stole, Stepmother," I whispered with a cold, mocking smile.

Concetta stared up at me, trembling like a struck cur, weeping silent tears of agony and terror.

"Before dawn arrives," I added, stepping over her sprawled form, "make sure my mother's apothecary chest and those ten thousand gold sovereigns are placed outside my door. Now get out."