I am twelve years old when the seventh serpent man buckles his belt and walks out of my mother’s chamber. My father is in the corridor. Vespera — his whore — is hanging off his arm. He is watching my mother’s ruin like it amuses him. “You used to call yourself a highborn Vixen,” he says, low and lazy. “can’t share a Hold with my Vesp.” “Now look at you. How many beasts have fucked you tonight? How many have touched it? Tell me, my Queen— surely you can let me take Vesp as Second Mate now?” This time, Mama does not scream. She does not fight. She only takes the Beast Bond pendant off her throat — the tiger-fang my father carved for her the night of their bonding — and drops it into the brazier. The flame eats it whole. The next morning, he throws a Mating ceremony. Louder. Grander. More gold than the one he gave my mother fifteen years ago. He takes Vespera Nyss as his Mate before the whole Hold. The Stripe Hall is hung in crimson. The lesser shifters howl her name. The Hold elders bow. The feast is still going at dusk when the parchments come down from the rafters. Drawings of my mother. Naked. In half-shift. Vixen ears, two of her nine white tails curled out at the small of her back — tails she has never shown outside her own mate. And around her, drawn in cruel black ink, seven serpent men with their hands on her fur. I throw myself at the parchments. I tear them. I crumple them. I cover the worst ones with my body. It is not enough. The Hold is laughing. Kael’s face goes black. “So you like to be seen? Then I’ll let the whole Hold see her. Guards — take her to the Iron Beast Rack!” I scream. I lunge forward. Old Nan Brynn clamps her hand over my mouth and drags me away. The voices follow me down the corridor. “A Vixen who’s been on the Beast Rack — even if she lives, her body’ll be broken forever. Half a beast. Less than a beast.” “Generous of the Tiger King, eh? Sharing his own Mate with the rest of us.” “Going to taste sweeter than any beast-whore, I’ll swear.” The cold goes through me from the soles of my feet up. By the time Brynn gets me back to my chamber I have no voice left. I sit on the floor. I stare at her. “Nan. What is the Iron Beast Rack?” She doesn’t answer at first. She just sits down across from me, very slowly. “It’s the cruellest thing one shifter can do to another, my kit. That is all you need to know tonight.” I wait by the window all night. Mama does not come. It is past noon before they let me into her chamber. The moment I push the door open, the smell hits me — iron, sweat, something deeper and worse — and my stomach turns inside me. She is on the bed. Not moving. Her vixen-eyes are open, staring up at the carved beams. Under the thin white robe, her skin is one long bruise — black, purple, yellow at the edges. Her nine tails are gone. Tucked away under the robe, or unable to come out at all. I cannot tell which is worse. “Mama —” My voice will not steady. My fingers will not touch her. I turn, about to run for the Hold’s healer. The door bangs open behind me. Kael walks in with Vespera on his arm — painted, perfumed, the stolen tiger-fang pendant already swinging between her breasts. The moment she smells the chamber she lifts her sleeve to her nose and gags. My father looks down at my mother. His voice goes flat. “Iselle. Stop playing the dying swan.” “I told every beast at that feast not to actually touch you. Must you lie there like a corpse?” I open my mouth to fight him. To say she’s covered in bruises, can’t you see — Mama’s hand finds my wrist. She squeezes once, hard. Then she reaches under her pillow and brings out a folded parchment. A Bond-Break. “Kael. Break the Bond. I want it ended.” “I want nothing of this Hold. Not the gold. Not the name. Not the crown.” “I only want Lyra.” His brow knits up like he’s heard a child’s joke. His voice goes tired and impatient. “Don’t be a fool, Iselle. Your father is dead. Your brother is dead. Your mother died before you came of age. Leave me and where do you go?” I freeze where I’m standing. So he remembers. He remembers that my uncle drew the enemy off his trail in the Bone Wastes and took every arrow in his own body. His bones are still out there, bleaching in the frost, without so much as a cairn. He remembers that my grandfather smashed his own forehead open on the pillar of the Lion Throne Hall — begged the King of Beasts, bled all the way down the gold steps — just to get my father the war-bands he needed to come home alive. He remembers swearing under the moon in front of the Bloodline Altar of House Vale — I, Kael of the Drayven Streak, swear by tooth and claw — Iselle Vale of the Hollow, is my only Mate. One Bond. One bloodline. No other, while I draw breath. One life is a long time. It only took three years. He went north with the war-bands. He came home from the Bone Wastes with Vespera Nyss at his side. Serpents run cold-blooded, he said. Vesp couldn’t bear the chill. So Mama was to be gentle to give Vespera the warmer chamber. Because Vespera could not bear the scent of moonflowers, he ripped up Mama’s moonflower garden — five years she had spent on that garden — to spare her pretty nose. And when Mama quickened with a cub, Vespera laid her head on Kael’s shoulder and whispered, “The healer says this cub’s blood is set against mine. I will not live to if he draws breath — ” So he poured the wolfsbane brew down my mother’s throat himself. That night Mama lay on her bed bleeding through her shift, sobbing so the whole Den could hear her. And down in the Stripe Hall Kael had Vespera in his lap, listening to the moon-singers play, the drums so loud they smothered every sound my mother made. That was the night I understood. My father — the one who used to watch the bonfires of the moon-festival with Mama and I — was already dead.
He must have been afraid she would ask again. He snatches the parchment out of her hand and throws it into the brazier. The fire eats it in a heartbeat. Then he sighs. Soft. The way he used to. He reaches out to smooth back the white hair at her temple. Mama turns her head away. His hand stops in the air. His jaw locks. The stripes under the skin of his throat ripple once, dark. “Tonight I’m taking Vesp to the King’s moon-feast at Highmount. Give her the Vale Nine-Tail Crown.” “No!” I’m on my feet before Mama can answer. “That was my grandmother’s. That’s Mama’s only piece of the Hollow left. No one’s putting that crown on her head!” Vespera’s eyes fill on cue. The tears slide down without so much as a tremble. “It’s my fault. I should never have wanted the crown. I’m low-born. I have no father, no mother to stand behind me. Just let them laugh me back. It’s only what I deserve…” Kael’s face goes hard. “Iselle. This is how you raise my daughter? No manners, no shame? Maybe Vespera should raise her from now on. She will teach Lyra what obedience looks like.” Mama goes white. She drags herself upright on the bed, every bruise screaming, and shoves me behind her body. “Take the crown. Take it. Don’t touch Lyra.” A flash of triumph in Vespera’s eyes — gone before anyone but me sees it. She presses her hand to her chest, soft, sweet. “Kael. I’ve never been to the King’s court before. I’m sure to shame you in front of the Lion. Let Iselle come with me — as my maid. She can guide me. So I don’t fail you.” My mother — his true mate — serving the serpent like a slave. That’s not guidance. That’s to shame her in front of everyone. Kael doesn’t pause for so much as one breath. “Done.” By dusk, a rough grey robe lands in the chamber. I watch Mama drag her broken body off the bed. I watch her pull that coarse cloth over her bruises body, over the place where the tiger-fang pendant used to lie at her throat. The tears come up out of me without sound. Mama reaches over. Wipes my cheek with her thumb. Presses something cool into my palm. A hairpin. A single strip of polished silver willow-wood. The sacred wood of the Vale Hollow. And wound twice around it, fine and snow-white — a single strand of my mother’s fox-fur. “Lyra. My little kit. I don’t think I have much longer with you.” “After I’m gone, you take this pin. You leave the Drayven Reach. You go north — past the Bone Wastes, into the Frostfangs. You find Roen Wolfram, the Alpha of the Frostfang Pack. He was your grandfather’s sworn second. Show him this pin. He’ll keep you alive.” I close my fingers over the pin. My chest is splitting open. I know already. I know she’s been worn through. Bled out. Ground down, year after year. She fought. She fought every time. And every time she fought, they pushed her deeper into the mud. When Vespera was first brought into the Hold, Mama had a small den built outside and quietly settled her there — afraid she would ruin me. The next morning Kael named it jealousy. He made Mama crawl on her knees from the Hold gate to that little den, to beg Vespera personally to come back. Half a year ago, when Mama woke from the wolfsbane brew, she took a knife and went straight to Vespera’s chamber to kill her. Kael caught her at the door and told her, “Take one more step toward Vespera, and I’d throw your mother’s bones to the kennel-hounds. Nothing of the Vale family left to bury. Three days ago, Vespera’s drawings turned up all over Highmount. Naked. With half a dozen shifters crawling all over her. Kael decided Mama had drawn them. That night he poured a sleep-draught down her throat and locked her in a stone kennel with six lower shifters. After that night, Mama stopped fighting. I press my face into the bones of her shoulder. She is nothing but bones now. “Mama —”
Vespera isn’t done with us. At the King’s moon-feast, she has Mama pour her wine. Lift her hem. Kneel to set the cup at her feet. “Vale, pour.” “Vale, kneel.” “Vale, lift.” She uses Mama’s own family name like a slave’s collar. Every command snaps across the hall. The vixens of the King’s court titter behind their fans. The lords laugh outright. Mama does it all. She doesn’t lift her eyes from the floor once. I sit in the corner with Brynn’s claws tight on my shoulder. I don’t look away from any of it. When Vespera’s had enough of ordering Mama around, she takes us out to the cold pool behind the King’s hall. She tips her head, smiles, and slips one of her serpent-scale earrings off her ear. Drops it straight into the black water. “Swim for it.” Mama doesn’t move. Vespera’s voice snaps sharp against the water. “Vale. You’re my maid. When I tell you to go get something, you go get it.” Mama looks her in the eye, very calm. “You crawled out of a brothel, Vespera. A stolen crown doesn’t change that.” Vespera’s hand goes up to slap her. I’m between them before her palm comes down. I shove her hard with both hands. “Get away from her! Don’t touch my mother!” “Little bitch, you dare —” Her hand swings at me. Mama snatches me into her arms in one breath. Vespera’s nails rake across the side of Mama’s throat — three thin red lines. For one heartbeat, the old fire comes back behind my mother’s eyes. The old Vale blood. Even Vespera takes half a step back. Then she collects herself. Curls her mouth. “Iselle. You’re a clawless old vixen. All hiss, no bite.” “Don’t get it. I don’t care. But your daughter — your sweet little Lyra — is another matter.” “You wouldn’t —” Mama’s eyes flash wide, wild. “Lyra is Kael’s firstborn. If you touch her, and I’ll claw my way out of my own grave to drag you under —” “Oh, I know.” Vespera’s smile widens. “She’s almost old enough to mate. Every minor Streak and Nest is sniffing after her. So tell me — should I tell Kael to mate her off to Vorath’s boy? Or the Hawkmaster’s son?” Two of the most rotten cubs in all of Highmount. One a leopard-whelp who’s mounted low-blood shifters to death. The other a hawk-blood so cruel his own Cast won’t fly with him. Mama is shaking. Her jaw is locked. “Fine. I’ll go.” It’s the deep of autumn. The pool is half-frozen at the edges. Mama walks down the stone steps into the water inch by inch. By the time the water’s at her waist, her skin’s grey. Her lips are blue. I’m crying. I scream for her to come back. Vespera turns and slaps me twice across the face. “Shut your mouth, whelp. One more word and I cut your tongue out.” The marks of her hand burn on my cheeks. I bite the inside of my mouth so I don’t scream again. Then — behind us — a voice. “What are you doing?” Kael. Vespera’s face doesn’t change for one breath. Then she moves and grabs my wrist, slaps my hand onto her chest, and throws herself backwards over the low stone railing. The water swallows her with a great white splash. Kael is in the pool before she’s fully under. He hauls her up against his chest, fur cloak and silk shirt and all, his great gold tiger-eyes wild with panic. He doesn’t — not once — look toward the middle of the pool, where my mother is going under for the third time. It’s a low-blood shifters who finally drags Mama out. Vespera collapses in his arms, sopping, shivering. The moment she sees me, she shrieks and burrows deeper into him. “No — please — I’m sorry — I’m sorry — please don’t hit me again —” “I never touched you!” I scream. I point at the red prints on my own face. “She drove my mother into the freezing water to pick an earring! She called me a half-bred whelp! These marks on my face — she did this! She’s a serpent, she’s poison, she —” For the first time, Kael’s eyes go to my mother. She’s lying on the stone, the back of her robe torn open, the patchy place on her shoulder — where her bonded mark used to be black and clean. Her breath is barely there. Something almost like grief flickers across his face. He starts to open his mouth. Vespera weeps into his shoulder. “Iselle. I know you hate me. Play your wounded game — that’s your right — but to teach Lyra to lie about me…” “I admit it. The slap on her face was mine. Because she called me a whore. She even spat on my own dead mother’s name…” “I came up from the dirt but I have my pride. I’d rather drown than be spoken to like that.” She twists in his arms as if to throw herself back into the pool. “Enough.” His voice cuts. The stripes under his skin are crawling all the way up his throat. “Lyra. You raised a hand against Vespera. You shamed the Drayven Streak in the King’s court. To the Bloodline Altar. Twenty lashes of the Silver-Thorn.” “No —” Mama drags herself across the wet stones on her elbows. She throws her body over me. “If you whip anyone, you whip me.” Father’s voice doesn’t lift. “Forty.” … The Bloodline Altar is bone-cold. Mama kneels on the black stones, swaying. The Silver-Thorn Lash is brought out — black leather threaded with cursed silver, every barb a thorn forged to bite straight through a shifter’s hide and burn the soul beneath. One lash and a low beast’s shift breaks forever. Forty can kill a vixen of the highest blood. The first lash opens her from shoulder to hip. The blood runs down the stones in a long dark line and pools at her knees. I crawl forward on the floor. I beg the Hold elders. I beg Kael. No one looks at me. I watch her light go out, lash by lash. I watch it leave her eyes. By the fortieth, she hasn’t made a sound in a long time. She vomits a mouthful of bright blood and slides sideways off her knees. I carry her back myself to her chamber. I send for the healer. And I sit by the bed until dawn. I fall asleep with my face pressed to the edge of her furs. I half-wake to footsteps. Kael. He kneels beside the bed. His fingers shake as he lifts the robe off her back. When he sees what’s underneath — the cursed silver burns, the strips of skin curling away — his eyes go red at the rim. A tear falls on her shredded back. He begins, very gently, to dress the wounds with his own hands. His voice is broken raw. “Iselle. Why must you be so stubborn…” “Vesp came up from nothing, yes. But she’s loyal to me. She bit her own wrist open and fed me her blood in the Bone Wastes when I was bleeding out. Without her I’d never have come home to you —” “If you truly can’t share my Hold with her — once she bears me a cub, I’ll send her away. And then it’ll be the three of us again. Like before.” I keep my eyes shut. There’s no us anymore. You and Mama are finished, Kael.
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