Chapter 11
uben doesn’t say a single word on the journey back, and I don’t press him. It’s not like I’m in the mood for conversation either.R Summer opens the door when we reach the house, but despite her offer of aid, I help Ruben upstairs by myself. After removing his furs, I gently lay him down onto my bed, then pull his shoes off his feet. I tuck him beneath the quilt as he stares at the wall, lost in a maelstrom of emotion that I know so well.
I even see the guilt festering within him, the same way it festered within me for so long.
I should have done more to help Mother, to stop her illness advancing.
I should have stopped Father’s drinking.
Yes, I know grief and guilt well. Two unwelcome bedfellows that shoehorn their way into your life without invitation.
Leaving him there, I slope out of the room. ‘Thanks,’ he murmurs softly just before I close the door.
I nod, and the latch has barely clicked when the sound of his sobs fills the corridor. The choked echoes of loss tear at my heart, stirring my own remembered grief anew.
Still, I do not go in to offer him comfort. He deliberately waited until I left before letting go, and so I will respect his choice.
On soft feet, I make my way downstairs, hesitating momentarily in the hallway before heading to the orangery. There is a suspicion that has been rippling through the back of my mind since I spoke to Dinah, and here is the place I hope to find the answer.
Damp air fills my lungs, the irrigation system watering the plants and
creating an unprecedented humidity in Wrohelm. It’s warm enough here to strip off all my clothes and dance around naked if I wanted to.
But I don’t. I’m here for a reason, and frivolity has no place in it.
Just as when I was searching for plants to help Noleen, I cast my gaze around the space, focusing my thoughts on one singular idea.
Something to suppress Issen magic.
Around me, several plants begin to glow, each selected by my magic’s instincts. But as I walk the lines of the orangery, harvesting ingredients, my stomach churns more and more as I recognise plant after plant.
When I am done, I feel sick. The highlighted plants are – without exception – the ingredients for Mother’s so-called ‘health tonic’.
All this time, it was not our health that she was promoting, but our magic she was suppressing.
An idea flickers within me, and with it, the slightest glimmer of hope. I could brew it again. Take it as I had before.
Yet even as the thoughts form, Dinah’s pointed words echo. What surfaced in you was never given, Rose. It was uncovered. And once such things wake, they do not respond well to being pushed back down.
She was warning me of exactly this. Fuck these riddles! Couldn’t she just come out and say it?
I can’t take the ‘health’ potion. Not now that I’ve used the powers.
My annoyance has barely taken root when another thought pushes it out.
One far more fearful.
I brewed Kay a vast supply of the tonic before I left for the Retterheld, wanting to keep her healthy in the slums in case Artur didn’t come for her, but did she take it with her once she knew she was heading to the High Hold?
Has she continued to take it every day, the way our mother insisted? With every fibre in my body, I pray that Kay has maintained her habit. At least if her powers have not surfaced, she will be spared this new level of fear and torment that I now have to live with.
And what of William? Dinah did not say at what age our mother started manifesting these powers. Perhaps at fifteen years old, he is still young enough to keep them at bay? Maybe it will not be too late to stop them growing within him.
With the ingredients for the suppression potion laid in a wicker basket, I leave the orangery and stride towards the kitchen.
Smells of cooking eddy through the air, yet despite the aromas I’m still
shocked when I walk in and see a ridiculously full spread laid out on the table. I will have to speak to Summer and encourage her to curb this excess. I cannot bear it when I know of the starvation others suffer beyond the rings.
I am also taken aback by the fact that the room is far from empty. ‘You came back.’ My voice hitches as my eyes fall immediately on William, though as a red tinge colours his cheeks, I realise how intently I’m staring. ‘It’s not a problem, is it?’ he asks, his tone worried. ‘No, of course not. No, I am pleased to see you. You’re always welcome here. Always,’ I repeat, only to sense that I’m now rambling as well as staring. As such, I turn my attention elsewhere.
Kay and Jonas are sitting next to each other at the kitchen table, knees touching a little under the table, like they are about to play footsie. It’s a trite act of a young couple in love, not one already bound in marriage despite barely knowing one another. And to think that only days ago Jonas actually expected me to say yes to his proposal. ‘Summer cooked,’ Kay says unnecessarily as Jonas reaches for a pasty. ‘Though she’s gone upstairs to clean some more rooms for us now.’ ‘Her cooking is incredible,’ William comments. ‘The meat pasties are the best thing I’ve ever eaten,’ Jonas agrees before taking a bite of a second one. ‘So,’ Kay says impatiently, looking directly at me. ‘Where have you
been?’ ‘I went to speak to Dinah.’ ‘And? Did you find out anything helpful?’ ‘Sort of.’ My eyes shift to Jonas. ‘But perhaps we should speak alone.’ Her nostrils flare and she straightens her back. ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of my husband. It’ll save me repeating it again later. We have no secrets from each other.’ She beams up at him, and it takes every inch of my willpower not to gape at her. No secrets from one another? I doubt he has told her dozens of things, like how he was going to let Zara kill him at the end of the Retterheld because he was too afraid to use his power again. Does she really think he’s told her everything? If so, she’s even more absurdly naïve than I thought. ‘This is about family, right?’ William says, breaking the tension with his question. ‘Yes, it is. Family,’ I repeat, with a glare at Jonas.
‘Well, if you try to make me leave, I’ll just eavesdrop again.’ William shrugs as he speaks matter-of-factly. ‘I deserve to know the truth too.’ ‘You’re right, you do.’ For a moment longer I consider whether I should insist Jonas leave, but I can’t deal with another fight. Not with what I’m about to tell them. And it’s not like he doesn’t know part of it already.
Besides, this affects William too, and Jonas has already proved he’ll go to any lengths to ensure my brother’s safety. After all, if the Goddess hadn’t told him that I had to learn the truth about my brother, he might still be holding that secret. Whatever my reservations are, he has proved he can be trusted with William’s secrets.
And so, reluctantly, I take a seat and tell the group everything I learned from Dinah.
I speak slowly, trying not to miss a single word from her whispered suppositions, including her hints about our mother’s heritage and the details about the dagger.
Kay’s cheeks pale and her hand slides down to rest on her abdomen. Her child may be part Issen too, I realise. But is the blood diluted enough that they won’t show it? ‘The health tonic Mother made us, that I carried on making us in the slums … it suppresses Issen magic,’ I tell them when I reach the end of my conversation with Dinah. ‘When I stopped taking it in the Retterheld … well, it showed up.’ I draw in a breath, trying not to reveal that my sister’s entire future might rest on the next answer she gives me. ‘I made you plenty of the tonic before I left. Did you take it while I was in the trials?’ Please. The word echoes in my mind. Please, please say yes.
She nods. ‘I just thought, I may as well, you know? So I did.’ Relief floods me, and my shoulders loosen for the first time all day.
‘When was your last dose?’ ‘A few days ago.’ ‘Okay, that’s good. That’s good. I can brew more.’ I pat the laden wicker basket. ‘Lots more. If we can keep your powers from ever showing up, then you can’t lose control of them.’ ‘What if …’ William’s voice is small, drawing my attention to him.
‘What if you already have them?’ Dread knots within me. ‘William?’ I leave the rest of the question unspoken, and it is Jonas who
finishes it for me. ‘William, you can tell us. If something has happened, you must tell us.’ My brother chews on his lip. ‘I … well … I …’ Rather than continuing to speak, he reaches for the glass of water before him, and we all watch as ice forms in it.
As William’s eyes meet mine, a deep ache rolls out through my chest. If I ever doubted that he believed he was our brother, that feeling is long gone.
What he just showed us could get him killed, which means, in spite of everything, he trusts us.
Pride and happiness flood me, tempered with anxiety and fear. He has Issen magic, just like me. ‘How long have you been able to do that?’ I ask carefully. ‘Since I was old enough to know it wasn’t a good thing,’ he admits. ‘Something told me I had to keep it hidden.’ I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but my sympathy and grief for my baby brother deepen even more. Not only was he stripped of his family and raised by a man who lied to him day in and day out, but he was also forced to keep this a secret. He must have been terrified living with this.
‘And no one else knows?’ I press. ‘Not a soul.’ ‘William, you should’ve said something to me.’ Jonas’s voice is tight with hurt; evidently, he wasn’t lying when he said he thought of William as a true brother. ‘I wouldn’t have told anyone.’ ‘I did consider it,’ William confesses quietly, ‘but I didn’t want to put you in a bad position. And, well, I thought … I thought my mother …’ He shrugs the words away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ While he was never truly Lorathin’s bastard son, he was, however, correct in suspecting his ice magic came from his mother. ‘Thank you for showing us this, William.’ I try to smile, but my lips don’t seem to work. ‘Thank you for trusting us.’ Still chewing on his lip, he rubs his thumb into his palm before looking at me with new nervousness. Given what he just showed us, I can’t possibly imagine what he might still be reticent to tell us, but I wait until he finds the courage to keep speaking. ‘I explored the house alone a little earlier. I found a painting in one of the rooms here. I look just like our father.’ His voice cracks. ‘I could see myself in his eyes, his jaw, the shape of his face. I knew then. Really knew. I am
your brother.’ I swallow. ‘You are, and you do look like him.’ My voice wobbles. ‘So much. I can’t believe I did not see it before.’ ‘You weren’t looking for it. Why would you?’ ‘I suppose.’ A small spark of hope ignites within me as I look at the still frozen glass of water. Maybe I don’t need Dinah’s advice after all. Maybe help is far closer to home. ‘Can you teach me?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Can you teach me how to control it?’ If he can, I need not travel to face the Issen at all. Need not endanger myself with a trip that can’t possibly end well.
But as William’s face falls, I know he’s not going to give me the answer I desperately want. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and I can tell he means it. ‘I wish I could, but that’s all I’ve got. I can cool a drink for you, but none of what you did. Jonas told us how you stopped him from breathing. I can’t do that. Nor the ice flung everywhere thing. Your powers are different. Stronger. Far stronger. And honestly, I can’t even tell you how I do this. I did it by accident once and practised a couple of times, but then it occurred to me that practising was a very bad idea. After that, I tried hard to never ever use it. I didn’t want to encourage the magic to grow.’ It’s sensible, though utterly disappointing.
We both look at Kay. She shakes her head. ‘I’ve still got nothing. Not just ice magic. I’ve still got no magic at all.’ I frown. That shouldn’t be so. When Etta returned all of my magic, she was supposed to return Kay’s, too. Everything should have been as it was. ‘Maybe the pregnancy is affecting things,’ I guess. ‘I’ve heard it can do so.’ ‘Maybe,’ she says. She shrugs one shoulder as if she couldn’t care less about magic, and maybe she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what it’s like with magic. Doesn’t know the hole it left when it was ripped from us. She was so young that her magic hadn’t yet come in when we were stripped and cast out. ‘Ruben is upstairs,’ I say, changing the subject. I quickly explain his change in fortune and standing, and Noleen’s subsequent downward spiral in health, leading to today’s admission into the temple. ‘Poor Ruben,’ Kay murmurs, eyes soft. ‘He deserves so much more.’ She turns to her husband. ‘You’ll like him. He’s a good man.’
Jonas offers a stiff smile. ‘I’m sure I will.’ ‘He needs to sleep, to rest. But I need answers. Benny and I looked through the library here yesterday, but there was nothing to help. But maybe in the main one …’ ‘You’re going to ask Caroline? Can you trust her with this?’ Jonas says, as if I had actually invited him into this conversation rather than allowed him to remain in order to keep the peace. ‘She doesn’t need to know the details,’ I tell him. ‘Just enough. And I’m not going to tell her about William,’ I say with a glance at my brother. ‘The fewer people who know about him, the better.’ When Jonas nods, I just about manage to stop myself from rolling my eyes. As if I need his approval.
Kay lets out a sigh. ‘You’re going to the library now? Straight away?’ she says in exasperation. ‘I was hoping we could talk about the ball. You know, where the king will announce our marriage.’ She pointedly laces her fingers with Jonas’s.
Fucking hell. Unless she wants to know exactly what alcohols I’ll be drinking to get through the night, I’m not really sure what she thinks I’m going to add to the discussion. ‘Later,’ I promise. ‘I need to go to the library now. See if I can find out
anything about our powers.’ ‘Be careful,’ Jonas warns.
This time I do roll my eyes at him. ‘I survived the Retterheld. I think I’ll be okay withdrawing a book.’
THE GROUND around me is littered with deep puddles as I head to the library, although it’s not until I’m outside of the courtiers’ arc that I realise something is different.
It’s no longer raining. There’s not a hint of a peridot cloud in the sky.
Instead, it’s a blazing azure. Bright, pure, and cloudless.
So it took the prince all of two days to get past his broken heart. Well, fuck him. It’s not like I’ve been weeping into my coffee with everything I’ve had going on.
Pushing him back out of my mind, I fill it instead with thoughts of where
to start my research – so much so that I don’t see him until he’s there,
standing right in front of me.
Kyor.
My feet stop on the soaked earth, my body not sure if it wants to run to him or away from him. Instead, it chooses neither. It’s as if he has the power to paralyse me utterly. He’s not seen me yet because his eyes are very much elsewhere – on the petite redhead who has her arm threaded through his.
As I stand there, frozen and mute, she throws her head back and laughs as though the prince has said something hilarious. I scowl. Kyor is many things, but funny isn’t one of them.
My breath catches at his answering smile.
So that explains the end of the rain clouds, if they were even for his broken heart in the first place. No, it was probably just another of his fucking games. A way for him to toy with me without even being close.
I would laugh, but I’ve lost the ability to breathe properly.
He’s not even trying to pretend what we had was real, but maybe that’s because it never was for him. Not the way it was for me.
It’s only when the redhead’s gaze shifts away from him that he finally looks in my direction. The effect is instantaneous. Clouds boil in the sky and lightning flashes overhead, the bolts so bright they light up the sky. And the roar of thunder that follows is enough to shake the ground beneath my feet.
Water pours.
Perhaps he’s not so unaffected after all, I note smugly.
And yet, I still don’t move.
As a second low rumble follows, I’m suddenly aware that the pair are not alone.
Elska pads down the path by his side, huge and dripping from the sudden onset of rain. That second rumble wasn’t thunder at all; it was a growl, and one almost certainly directed at me.
Nice to see you too, Elska, I think sarcastically, only for the dire wolf to continue her growl and then bare her teeth at me.
With a sniff, I turn back to look at her bonded human, wishing my eyes weren’t drawn there so instinctively.
Kyor’s dark hair is loose around his ears, falling in artful waves. His shirt is open to an obscene point on his stomach, exposing hard, cut muscles that look as amazing as I know they feel.
The clear expression on his face suggests that the rain he’s summoned
since our separation is nothing more than an artful performance, and I doubt my certainty that seeing me has affected him. Surely his face would show some evidence of heartbreak if that was truly what he felt? Dark eyes. Sallow skin. Something.
But he is perfection, just as he has always been. Physically, anyway.
Anger and hurt swell in my throat. He said he loved me, and then he left.
Just like that.
He toed the line set down by his father without a hint of hesitation or remorse.
Maybe moving on to the next woman was as easy for him as walking away from me had been.
I’m still glued to the stones, unable to move, when I realise he and the woman on his arm are heading straight towards me. ‘Gifted,’ Kyor greets me evenly, and his use of the title makes me feel as though he’s spat in my face.
Never have I wanted to hear Thorn fall from his lips more, and I hate myself for it. Hate myself for still wanting him when he tossed me aside like everything we had was nothing.
I can’t make myself reply. Can’t utter a response. Can only watch as he walks away for the second time in as many days.
Elska prowls closer. Her white-ringed eyes lock on mine and I try not to look away. Try not to show just how nervous I actually am. But I know I’ve failed when her top lip curls upward, exposing a flash of pearly white teeth.
As she trots past, the side of her hip knocks against me. It’s not a barge as such, just a reminder of her presence, but the stones underfoot are treacherously slippery, and my foot catches on a loose edge. Before I can right myself, I tumble to the ground.
My hands smack against the stone, the sting reverberating up my arm. ‘Too much celebrating, do you think?’ the redhead says loudly, most likely for my benefit as the only other person near us is the prince. ‘I hear her
father was just the same.’ Bitch!
My head snaps around to look at them, just in time to see Kyor’s step falter, his eyes glancing briefly in my direction before they turn back to the redhead, and he continues on.
Tears sting my eyes. Tears of anger as much as humiliation. How? How could I think he actually wanted to be a better person? How could I have
believed that I was the only person to really see who he truly was?
I fucking hate him for this.
And I hate my traitorous heart for breaking all over again.
Swallowing down tears that I refuse to let fall in public, I pick myself up and force myself to turn away from him.
I am here to learn about my magic, and seeing Kyor flaunting his latest lay isn’t going to derail that.
Seeing Kyor isn’t going to derail anything ever again.
But why did the bastard have to look so damned good?
As another flash of lightning crackles above me, I push my shoulders back and march towards the library. I manage a strut that lasts long enough to get me safely inside the building, where I turn down the first empty aisle and
promptly dissolve into tears. ‘Rose?’ I recognise the voice, even over my sobs. ‘Caroline?’ I look out through the glaze of tears to discover that my hiding place isn’t quite as private as I hoped. There, at the end of the aisle, my friend sits at a table with Rohan, the elderly blind man who frequents the High Hold library, normally with Caroline scribing his ridiculous fantasies.
At the sight of me, crumbled and broken, Caroline casts him a glance before pushing back her chair and standing. ‘We’re finished for the day, Rohan,’ she says, sliding her books across the table towards him before rushing to my side. ‘Rose. What is it? What’s happened?’ I offer a watery smile. ‘Same shit, different day.’ There are no more questions. Not here. Instead, she slings an arm around me and walks me to a quieter part of the library. Among the tomes and the tables, she sits me down and takes a seat opposite. ‘Talk to me, Rose,’ she entreats.
I scrub my eyes. There are so many things I could complain about. Kyor breaking my heart, Kay ruining her life, my brother being found yet being in
so much danger … ‘I can’t … Not here …’ I manage.
She nods. ‘Don’t worry. I know somewhere we can go.’
