Eyes Like The Ocean | A Culled Crown Novella

Chapter 11

Oredison Palace, Gazda.

The day of the announcement.

Once, when Viera was seven years old, she had tried to cut the mark from her flesh. This had been before her mother's accident, before Viera really understood what being goddess-chosen meant. To her, being marked was an outer sign of the poison she could so often feel slithering in her blood. She believed that to remove the mark would fix everything. No mark, no poison.

The kids at school wouldn't be afraid of her and she could be normal again.

So, she had stolen a razor from her father's shaving kit. It took her days to work up the courage to actually use the blade. But she had wanted it gone desperately. So, she had tried to cut it off.

Colette had found Viera wedged between the dresser and the wall, crying as she slowly sliced at her skin. Her older sister had screamed and her mother had come running into the bedroom, pale with fear.

There had been a lot of blood.

She had cut and cut and cut, trying to scrape the mark from her skin. It worked. She managed to scrape the mark off. In its place was only a deep, bloody gash. For two weeks, Viera's wrist was bandaged and the mark was gone. She told all the kids at her school what had happened—promised them that she wasn't marked anymore. They could play with her now, it was safe.

Viera had told them she was normal.

But she wasn't normal and she would never be normal.

Viera could remember sitting on the edge of the kitchen table as her mother had carefully unwrapped the binding on her wrist. She had lifted the fabric just enough to glance at it, but had frozen in surprise. The cuts were healed and the mark—the mark was just as brazenly evident as ever. It was as if the goddess had repainted it over her mended skin.

Her mother had held her as she'd sobbed.

There was nothing else Lorna Kevlar could do. Her daughter was dreadfully lonely and she was destined for a competition she couldn't even begin to really understand. At seven years old, Viera hadn't wanted a crown—she'd wanted friends. She had wanted her father's approval. Seeing the mark still on her skin, even after she had been willing to hurt herself to remove it, had been devastating.

She had never tried again.

Now Viera was sitting in a beautiful palace, over ten years later, watching as a stranger scrubbed a hard bristle brush on that same patch of skin. The woman had been messing with the mark for twenty minutes, scrubbing it and trying different tonics and creams. They were checking to make sure it wasn't a tattoo. Why anyone would fake a goddess-given mark and join the Culling, Viera didn't know.

She wanted to tell the woman that.

But Viera found that her mouth no longer worked to form words. She had arrived at the palace late the night before. She had been brought directly to a bedroom and left there to sleep. Guards were posted at her door and on the balcony outside. She couldn't leave.

Viera had cried herself to sleep.

She'd awoken that morning to the presence of strangers and a lavish breakfast. The prince wanted her to speak before the press and announce herself publicly into the Culling. He'd sent these women, these stylists, to clean her up and prepare her for the task. There had been a note from him, reminding her of their deal and telling her that the women would report her movements.

Viera darling, make sure to keep your poisonous little hands to yourself—I'd hate for your little friend to pay the price for your stupidity.