Chapter 9
illiam begrudgingly allows Jonas to accompany him back to Artur’s to pack his things, meaning I am left to spend my first fullW day with my sister in our family home. It should have been a joyous occasion, one spent wandering through the different rooms, recalling memories and moments from our childhood and talking about our parents. Discussing our next steps, our future. But she has already claimed a future as a wife and mother, and I have no idea what mine contains, though I doubt it will be a long one if I can’t get my powers under control.
The way William mentioned the ice on the window causes me to shudder.
Does he know that what he saw was enough to get me killed? Surely he must? So is that why he mentioned it, to show he has a secret of mine, too?
After all, that is the Wrohelm way. But the way he questioned, it felt more intrigued than threatening.
Did Kay even notice what I did? Does she realise what dangers I’m harbouring within my veins?
Either way, I need to get answers, which is why I start in our family library.
The last time I was here, there were shelves that I wasn’t allowed to touch. Ancient tomes stored behind glass or on the topmost levels that my parents promised they would look through with me when I was old enough.
Well, I’m old enough now.
As I reach up and take the first one down, I can’t help but think how different it would be to have them here with me now, flicking through these pages together. A knot rises in my throat and I swallow it down with effort.
Wallowing won’t get me any answers. Moving forward is all I can do.
I work my way methodically, scanning through the pages as quickly as I can, and I’m more than a little relieved when Benny turns up. ‘Hey, how did it go with the newlyweds?’ he asks. ‘I couldn’t hear any creaking beds upstairs, so …’ ‘Urgh. Don’t.’ I gag. ‘Jonas isn’t here, thank the Gods. Here, make yourself useful.’ I toss him one of the books, and he catches it despite the terrible throw. ‘What am I looking for?’ ‘Anything that might be useful. You know, to do with my ice powers. I figure I might as well start here before I head to the High Hold library and bother Caroline.’ The scribe’s name causes a deep throb behind my ribs. I know I need to see her. Now that I’m out of the Retterheld, there’s really no excuse not to – apart from the guilt, that is.
I’m still here, but the woman she loves is dead. Because of me. The knowledge eats at me.
Benny immediately tosses the book aside and grabs another. With his power of being able to see the truth, see to the heart of things, I don’t know why I even bothered to start reading myself. It’s easier having him do it, with his speed-reading ability. And no doubt more accurate, too. ‘Anything?’ I ask impatiently as he moves on to his fourth book. ‘Well, I’ve got an interesting blood vow here, if you want to stop people from ever spilling a secret, and that first book had a whole section of myths and folklore, including Myrkrs, krakens and vätte.’ ‘Krakens?’ I reply. ‘In a myths section?’ Krakens are very real, as the Retterheld taught me, but I guess there was a time when people weren’t so sure. ‘What does it say about them?’ He shrugs. ‘Big, scary … if there’s one in the water, you should stay out of it.’ ‘Yeah, well, we already know all that,’ I snort.
I try not to remember waking up in bed after my kraken encounter, try not to remember the love and heat between Kyor and me. Lies. All lies. ‘I guess
we just keep reading.’ ‘By we …’ he teases. ‘Oh, yeah, I mean you. This is all on you.’ We keep going for another couple of hours, and I do read through some
books myself, even though I’m infinitely slower than Benny.
My mind goes back to the blood vow more than once.
Maybe I could put one on Jonas to ensure he doesn’t mention William to anyone.
And then a darker thought whispers, Maybe I should use it on Kay.
My parents taught me to protect my siblings no matter what. I’ve spent my life protecting Kay, so what does it say of me that I’m actually considering making her take a vow?
I guess it tells me that I don’t trust her judgement right now, which given everything she’s done seems fair enough. And William … he deserves my protection too. Should have had it this whole time.
Every time I hear a creak in the hallway or a noise from the floor above, I jolt and then move my eyes to the door, wondering if perhaps Kay will walk through it and offer an apology for everything she’s put me through over the
last forty-eight hours.
But it never happens. ‘You know, you could always go and talk to her?’ Benny says.
I immediately shake my head. ‘I can’t. If she can’t even see why she needs to apologise, then there’s no way I’ll be able to keep my temper.’ Besides, as long as she’s upstairs, I don’t have to worry about her. ‘At least the house is big enough to make it easy to avoid one another.
Although I still haven’t got all the gossip on you and Ruben. You kept him quiet for a reason.’ My mind flickers to Noleen. To her lack of magic. To her fading state. ‘No, not really,’ I say firmly to Benny. ‘He’s just a friend.’ A smirk rises on Benny’s lips. ‘So if I were to shoot my shot there, you wouldn’t mind?’ A pause. ‘Would he mind?’ As a real laugh rattles from my throat, I can’t help but be grateful for Benny being here. Somehow, whatever shit is going on, he still makes me smile. ‘You know, I do think he’s dated a couple of guys in the past …’ I say of Ruben. ‘But he’s going through a lot, and he doesn’t need to be messed around. Besides, he lives in the third and you’re a future duke with obligations.’ Benny arches an eyebrow. ‘I’m still not hearing a no there?’ ‘Just read, will you!’ I say, throwing him another book, which he lets hit him squarely in the chest. When he catches my eye, I see the love that’s in
them, and I realise that all he wanted was to make me forget this crap – of which he only knows a fragment – for just a minute. ‘Thank you for never letting me down, Ben,’ I say softly. ‘I do my very best.’ He winks.
By the time we’re done in the library, dinnertime is upon us and we’ve learned nothing of use.
Summer already asked where we’d like to eat, and given that the dining room table seats twenty, which feels a little excessive, I told her the kitchen.
I’m surprised to find only two places laid when we arrive. ‘Kay hasn’t gone out, has she?’ I ask, feeling a sudden lurch in my chest, thinking again about that vow. ‘No, she requested her food in her room. I’ve already taken it up to her.’ Of course she has, I think, gritting my teeth.
Her family home’s been restored and we have our brother back, and yet she chooses to sulk on her own.
Still, when I go up to bed several hours later, I can’t help but knock lightly on her door. When there’s no answer, I push it ajar and see her there, sprawled like a starfish on her bed. I have never seen her sleep like that.
Normally we are huddled together, and despite everything that’s currently wrong between us, I cherish the sight.
Her chest rises and falls softly as she sleeps. Warm and safe.
Exactly how I want to keep her.
How I want to keep both my siblings, but doing it on my own feels like an impossibility.
So maybe it’s time I reach out for some help with that.
THE NEXT MORNING, I awaken before dawn with one goal in mind: to learn more about my magic. And there is only one person I can go to to do so.
Once again, I check in on Kay, and once again she is fast asleep, but I’m not too disappointed. I don’t want to start the day with an argument, and right now, that feels like it’s all we’re capable of doing.
Still, I tell Benny that she isn’t to leave. Maybe it’s unfair of me to put that kind of responsibility on him, of holding a grown adult hostage in her own home, but I can’t have her wandering about. Not until I know what I’m
going to do.
Leaving the house early and alone, I grab a carriage without issue. No longer do I need to hitch a ride or cling desperately to the side of a passing vehicle. Instead, the leather seat hums faintly beneath me with the rhythm of the horses’ hooves, and the simple fact that I am inside the carriage, paid for with my own coin, sends a thrill of satisfaction through my spine.
Thanks to the speed of the horses, it’s barely mid-morning when I arrive in the third and am dropped off directly outside my intended destination: Etta’s temple.
Rather than heading through the temple doors, I move around the back towards a lightly coloured brick wall. Other than one incident where I snuck in via the sewers, this is how I have always called for Dinah in the years both before and after my mother’s death. Not that I called on her that often after Mother was gone. The memories were like old wounds that would open up whenever I glimpsed this part of Mother’s past, and so I struggled to visit.
Still, Dinah visited us, even in the slums. More than once her arrival was nothing short of lifesaving, coming right when we were most desperate, having run out of food, resources, and options.
Maybe someone else would have thought that Dinah was the Goddess’s way of watching over us, even then. Back in those dark days, I assumed we’d been forgotten by all the Gods, and it was merely Dinah’s kindness and love for our mother that brought her to our door time and time again, but now I wonder. Did Etta know, even then, that I would become the gifted? The idea is an unsettling one.
No, surely not. It was my choice to enter.
Mine and mine alone.
As my hand hovers beside the brickwork, I think about the last time I came here, when Dinah gave me the dagger that is currently strapped to my thigh. A blade with unknown magic of its own, just like me. No wonder we are so well matched. Two weapons, equally as dangerous and unpredictable as the other.
I press my hand against the stone wall and speak the priestess’s name. ‘Dinah Poltick.’ How long it takes her to come to the calling varies, but within minutes I am pacing, anxiety creeping up with every footstep. It has only been a matter of days since she was the avatar of Etta, hosting the Great Goddess in her human body. And while it is an honour, it comes with a toll.
As time passes I cannot help but picture Dinah in my mind, frail and weak, lying upon her bed, still ravaged by the Goddess’s presence. What if she’s hurt? What if being the avatar of the Gods causes something worse than mere weariness? What if it’s not an honour one even survives?
The thought tightens my chest, making each breath feel shallow and laboured. ‘Rose?’ I spin around to find Dinah standing behind me. She is dressed in her usual blue priestess’s garb to match the blue stone embedded in her forehead. Her eyes are tired, but warm.
A smile lifts her lips at the sight of me. ‘I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting. I was performing a blessing in the temple. I could not leave.’ She wraps her arms tightly around me, drawing me in. ‘Is everything all right?
You’re stone cold,’ she says, clucking her tongue at me. ‘I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go?’ I ask her. ‘Somewhere private?’ ‘Of course.’ She releases me from her warm embrace. ‘Follow me.’ Dinah parts the stones of the wall with a sweep of her hand and ushers me through the divide and into the Goddess’s Garden. Being in the priestess’s presence is enough to ease my anxiety. Dinah will have the answers – she always does.
Inside the garden, I cannot help but get distracted by the beds full of herbs and flowers. The Goddess’s Garden was my mother’s favourite place, and it was from here that I once pilfered a deadly poison without Dinah’s knowledge or consent.
I still do not regret my actions nor do they haunt my conscience. Rula, who ran one of the slum’s protection rackets, used the poison to kill a rapist and murderer, the victims of whom included one of the few friends Kay had in the slums.
Not that Kay ever found out the true cause of her friend’s death. Back then I told her Talia was killed in a bar fight, and she believed me without a moment’s doubt.
I’ve always protected Kay, even from the truth.
But now three rings adorn her hand, and I have learned what I should have known all along: that I cannot protect her from herself. From her own poor choices.
Part of me still refuses to accept that this marriage has taken place, although I can admit to myself that Jonas is a far better choice than Artur.
The fact that he has kept William safe all these years should earn him more of my respect, even if it’s the very same reason that anger bubbles in my veins. I do not know how to forgive him for his deception.
It’s only when I see the way Dinah is looking at me that I realise I have stopped walking. Rooted myself to the ground, mired in my own fears.
With a nod of my head, I force a deep breath in and expel the fear that only moments ago had gripped me. It is not possible to live that way.
Anticipating danger around every corner. Always imagining the worst.
Always primed for attack.
It was the way of the slums and the Retterheld. But now that needs to change. Whatever perils may await me in my future, I will fight them head- on when they arrive, but I will not give them the space in my mind before then. I owe myself that much.
After all, if being the gifted can’t save me from the unravelling of life, then being stuck inside my own head surely won’t.
As we continue through the Goddess’s Garden, I spot the hemlock plant that I stole leaves from before another plant grabs my attention.
Slowing slightly, I look at a deep purple bud, trying to recall its use.
Cravenwort, my magic whispers to me. The berries are toxic, but the leaves can be steeped in milk to make a tonic to cure inflammation. And with a little magic, it can calm a blistering infection in minutes.
Did I know that before? I’m not quite sure, but I don’t believe so. It’s clear that this magic – my mother’s magic – holds far more power than I ever realised.
No wonder she adored these gardens. To her it must have been a veritable catalogue of rare plants and herbs and their myriad uses. ‘Just through here,’ Dinah says as she opens a gate into a small courtyard.
The space offers a degree of privacy, with no one else around, but the fence is relatively low, only about seven feet, and made of thin wood. Someone could easily stand behind the feeble fence and overhear our whole conversation. ‘It’s warded.’ Dinah effortlessly reads my dubious expression. ‘You don’t need to concern yourself, Rose. No one will be able to hear what we say.’ ‘What about see?’ I ask. I have heard of those who can read lips.
She shakes her head. ‘The courtyard always appears empty,’ she explains. ‘That is part of the ward. For all we know, there may be plenty of other people here at the same time as us, also discussing private things.’ I reach out and swing my arm around me, twirling in place to see if
anyone is within arm’s reach. Thankfully, no one is close enough for me to make contact with, and my nerves settle a little further. ‘Come,’ Dinah says with an indulgent smile at my antics. ‘Sit with me, Rose.’ A smooth bench appears where I swear there wasn’t one before. I hesitate only a moment before taking a seat beside her, enjoying the impossible warmth of the stone.
Dinah watches me with a cautious look I recognise all too well – the kind reserved for situations that must be handled carefully, delicately. Does she know what I am going to ask of her? If so, then she must have some knowledge to impart, and that gives me hope that I may walk away from this encounter a little wiser than when I first entered it.
I study the older woman, her face still clear of lines, making her appear ageless. She raised my mother, yet her appearance remains almost as youthful as my own. Her eyes are open and ready, but the warm smile has been tempered.
She is the Goddess’s servant first and foremost, and my faux grandmother second. It is a truth always worth reminding myself of. ‘Something troubles you,’ she says as an opening gambit. ‘I can feel it – your worry, your concern. What is it, my child? You may speak freely here.’ I draw in a long breath, and despite all her assurances of privacy, I still cannot help but drop my voice low. ‘It’s about my powers.’ ‘The ones the Holy Goddess restored?’ ‘Those,’ I admit, ‘and others. Powers that returned to me before the gifting. Powers that I discovered during the Retterheld, given to me during one of the trials. Powers I should not have, but which are still here.’ She stills. She is not startled by this admission – she’s never startled – but she is alert in a way that tightens the air around us. She knows. ‘Which trial?’ she asks, and I suspect she is giving herself time to think. ‘The third, on Follen Lake.’ Dinah exhales slowly. ‘Where the Issen spirits roam.’ I instinctively lower my voice further still. This secret could see me dead.
Kay and William, too.
But I have known that since I killed Oke. The only way to keep us safe is to control it. ‘Yes. My new powers … one of them is ice, Dinah.’
