Anathema - The Song of Eloh Saga, Book 2 (17 page)

Roc turned his head to look at me for the
first time, tears welling up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Reychel, I’m so sorry,” he said.
He shook his head back and forth, grabbing at his hair. With wild
eyes he glared at Ivy.

“I don’t understand,” I looked from Roc to
Ivy to Mark. Mark’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Roc, his right
hand grabbing the hilt of his sword.

“You betrayed us,” he snarled at Roc. I ran
to his side and with my bound hands, pushed his hand away from the
sword. He was focusing on the wrong enemy.

“I couldn’t help it,” Roc pleaded. He
pointed at Ivy. “She came to me in my cell. When she touched my
arm, my worries about leaving Bree and the kids dissipated. She
talked to me with such kindness and I confided in her.

“She found out I was part of The Sons. I
told her you and I had met.” Roc turned away from Mark’s accusing
eyes. “She knew you were coming here. I told her our plan.”

“And she found a way to use you to get back
at Reychel,” Mark said.

Roc nodded his head. He wouldn’t, or
couldn’t, look at me. Despite everything he said, I wanted to reach
out and hug him. This hulking man, a warrior in a secret band of
rogues, had been bested by Ivy’s gifted manipulations. He sat
beaten as if he lost an entire army on the battlefield.

“Did you ever find out what your gift is?”
Ivy asked me, apparently done humiliating Roc.

I stared at the girl who had once been my
best friend and I couldn’t find one familiar thing about her. The
kindness in her eyes, gone. The sparkle of her personality that
drew everyone to her, gone. Nothing remained but darkness and
anger.

“I did,” I said, holding my bounds hands out
to Mark.

“Reychel, don’t,” Mark unsheathed his sword
and cut my bindings loose. “Don’t tell her.”

I tossed the ropes on the floor, kicked them
to the side and rubbed my wrists. The skin wasn’t rubbed raw, but
it was red and tender.

“Does everyone know?” she asked, surveying
the three of us.

“Aren’t you a little concerned about your
own safety right now?” Mark asked her, raising his sword until the
point was touching the hollow of her throat.

“There are plenty of soldiers outside the
door in the hallway. If I so much as sniffle, they’ll break down
the door and kill you all. I don’t think that’s how you want this
to end,” she said. Mark held his sword steady, pushing slightly on
her neck. Ivy gasped quietly but didn’t back away.

“Put it down, Mark,” I said. “She’s right.
We don’t have the advantage here.”

He lowered his sword to his side, but did
not sheathe it. A small drop of blood dripped from Ivy’s neck. She
wiped it away as if it were only a harmless drop of water, leaving
a faint pink mark.

“Now, about your amazing gift,” Ivy said,
turning back to me. “Tell me, my friend. Just like when we were
little girls giggling under the blanket at night.”

“My gift is deception,” I said, staring into
Ivy’s eyes. “The spark in my eyes glows brighter than everyone
because I want it to appear that way. My storytelling was all about
lying and so were my feelings for Mark.”

“Deception?” Ivy asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Interesting, but I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I don’t really care what you believe,” I
said. We stared at each other a moment longer, neither of us
willing to back down.

“What are you going to do with us?” Mark
asked.

“For now I’m going to put you all in the
dungeon. After all, I have a wedding to attend,” she laughed. “Once
Kandek’s castle is mine, I can begin my ascent to power.”

Ivy snapped her fingers and the door burst
open, six guards spilled in the room. I counted two for each of us.
No one could accuse Ivy of not being prepared.

One of the guards snatched Mark’s sword
before he could fight back as the others bound his hands. I
struggled with the two assigned to me, but fighting back was
useless. They were bigger, stronger, and more heavily armed. Roc
stood with no resistance, merely following his guards out the
door.

“Oh, and Reychel,” Ivy said. My guards
stopped and forced me to turn around and look at her. “Don’t even
think about your good friend Tania coming to rescue you. I’ve
already got her stashed away in a cell and her special cloak is
safe in my room.”

The guards pushed me out the door and I
could still hear Ivy’s laughter echoing as we were forced down the
hallway. Tania captured, Mark and I captured. My pounding heart
sank into my chest.

“What do we do now?” I whispered to Mark,
who was only a few steps ahead of me.

“Quiet, slave,” the guard said, knocking me
on the back of the head. I glanced around, woozy from the impact,
unable to focus. The guards grabbed my arms, dragging me along
behind Mark.

As my vision refocused I looked down the
hallway. It was the same walk I’d taken after angering Kandek the
morning of my birthday. Kandek, I remembered suddenly, knew my
secret, my gift. He knew my gift and yet he hadn’t shared it with
Ivy if she was asking me about it. Obviously her skills weren’t as
powerful as she thought.

I didn’t struggle as a guard shoved me into
a cell, one that was already occupied.

“Reychel?” I heard a voice whisper. “Oh
Eloh, Reychel, it is you.”

I felt myself enveloped in a hug. Even in
the dark, I recognized Tania’s grip, strong and sure. I pulled
back, looking into her face. My friend’s eyes were heavy lidded and
her mouth turned down. Sadness, an expression I never thought to
see on her face.

“How long have you been here?” I asked,
squeezing her shoulders.

“Just a couple of days. It was after Mark
brought Roc in. Ivy must have sent them after me,” Tania said. “Did
she tell you she took my cloak?”

I nodded.

“I think she forgot that I
have two,” Tania said. “When the guards stormed in, they demanded I
bring the cloak with me. Not wanting to meet the sharp side of a
sword, I agreed. They only said to bring the cloak, not the
cloaks
.”

We sat down on the damp stone bench. I could
feel the coolness seep through my gown as goose pimples sprung on
my arms.

“What about Jon?” I asked. “Where was he?
Couldn’t he stop them?”

“He’s been gone this week,” Tania answered.
“I don’t even know when he’s supposed to get home. Some secret
mission with Nemison.”

“So he won’t know where you are?” I
asked.

Tania smiled.

“If he gets home before the wedding, he can
help us,” she said.

“But how?” I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
Yes, Nemison knew where Mark and I were headed, but he didn’t know
any of us had been captured. How would Jon know any more than him
if he

hadn’t seen his wife all week?
“Jon’s gift,” Tania said. “It’s very unusual, but it gives him the
ability to see what happened in any given place as long as there
are trees nearby. It’s like reading someone’s memory, but instead
he’s reading the memory of trees.”

“Trees have memories?” I asked, shaking my
head.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,”
Tania said, “but in a way, yes. The important thing is that Jon
will come for us. If he gets home in time.”

I looked at the optimism shining in Tania’s
eyes. I felt we’d already had too many good breaks, was it
ridiculous to hope for another?

“Which one of you is Reychel?” a guard
bellowed through the grated window high in the door.

“I am,” I sighed.

“Come with me,” he said.

Tania squeezed my hand as I rose and walked
to the open door.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Where are you taking me?” I asked the
guard.

“Slaves aren’t supposed to talk to guards,”
he grunted, squeezing his grip on my arm tighter.

“I’m not a slave anymore,” I said. It was
true. Maybe I was a captive, but I knew in my heart I would never
be a slave, not like before. There would be no more long days of
acquiescing. I would fight with everything I had to be free again
instead of accepting my lot in life.

“We’ll see what you say after this
conversation,” he snarled, a cruel smile spreading across his
face.

He led me to Kandek’s chambers again. This
time I found Kandek alone in his chair, just like the many times
I’d visited him over the years. The clouds were gone from his eyes.
I wondered if he was out of Ivy’s spell for the moment.

“Where’s Ivy?” I asked, looking around.

“Off getting ready for the wedding,” he said
with a sigh.

“Does everyone know you’re marrying a
slave?” I retorted.

He shook his head. “No one knows who she is.
She fooled everyone to get her way in here. Fooled me too at first.
Once I realized who she was it was too late.”

“Too late?” I asked.

Kandek waved his hand in the air, dismissing
my comment.

“Why did you come back?” he asked, cocking
his head to the side. “I’ve been after you for months. Why
now?”

“To free the prisoners you’re holding,” I
said. “Your proclamation said you would set them free if I was
turned in. I assume you’re still a man of your word.”

“They weren’t my words,” he said.

“Ivy?”

Kandek nodded, his head falling into his
hands.

“I don’t understand,” I kneeled at the side
of his chair. Forgetting all the cruel things I knew about Kandek,
I only saw the man who had been kind to me and listened to my
stories. “Can’t you tell me what hold Ivy has over you?”

Kandek lifted his head and looked me in the
eyes. He took my hand in his.

“Don’t you see it?” he asked me.

I studied his face, looking for the clue I
knew must be there somewhere. I looked at his eyes, the only part
of him I ever found any emotion in. His dark, amber eyes.

“Oh Eloh,” I said, stumbling backwards. All
those years I hadn’t noticed what was right in front of me. I had
no cause to, but now it all made sense. “Your eyes.”

“So like my daughter’s,” he said. “I’m
surprised it took you so long to see it.”

I closed my eyes, picturing the color of his
eyes and the color of mine. It was unmistakable. Nothing else gave
way to a resemblance of any kind. His hair russet, mine jet black.
His nose small and thin, mine pert and upturned.

“How?” I asked, my hand running through my
hair. I found comfort in the curls, my mark of freedom. “My mother,
where is my mother?”

“She’s gone,” he said. “I knew you were
mine, but I couldn’t claim you. I was just beginning my career. I
visited you as often as I could, brought your mother money, that
sort of thing. She was a slave, a Serenian. It was against the law
for me to associate with her on a personal level, much less
impregnate her. It was when you began to talk that I could see what
you were capable of.”

Kandek paused.

“I discovered your gift before anyone
else.”

“What happened to my mother?” I asked again,
anger filling up every part of my being. “I was always told she
died. Did she die? What happened to her?”

Kandek only looked me in the eyes,
unspeaking. I saw tears begin to form in the corners.

“What did you do to her?” My hands shook,
followed quickly by the rest of my body.

“He killed her, Reychel,” Ivy said, walking
into the room unannounced.

“Is this your big secret?” I screamed,
whipping around to face Ivy. “How long have you known?”

“Years,” she said. “Kandek was the first
person I learned to soothe. It happened by accident when I was
brought to the household. I was introduced to him and as I took his
hand to kiss his ring, he mellowed considerably. I felt it too, but
quickly withdrew my hand from his. It was my moment of revelation
that I was special. But I had no idea I was gifted until Tania told
me that day in the market.”

“How did you find out? What happened?” I
asked, trying to control my anger. I had to know now. I needed to
know everything.

“Days later, I served him his dinner. In
handing him his bowl, I touched his hand and smiled. Later he
invited me back to his quarters for the evening. It didn’t take
much time to learn why he treated you the way he did. Why do you
think I was your best friend? Your only friend? Who do you think
started all of those rumors about his intentions towards you?” Ivy
laughed.

I felt rooted in place. My heart pounded as
my world crumbled around me.

“Why did you kill her?” I roared at Kandek,
allowing my emotions to take over.

“I knew what you were and what you could do.
You made my career. You made all of this,” he said, holding both
arms in the air. “I wanted to share it with you, but how could I
explain your presence?

“If I told anyone you were my child, you
would have been killed. Procreating with a Serenian is against the
law,” he said. “They would have killed me too.”

It was true. Malborns were not allowed to
mingle with my people. He saved me and doomed me at the same time.
I glared at Kandek, who still sat in his chair. But my anger was
rising and it wasn’t Kandek who would bear the brunt of it. I
turned to Ivy, who stood by with a smirk on her face.

“How long have you been planning this?” I
asked through clenched teeth.

“Years.”

“And our escape,” I asked, “how did that fit
in your grand plan?”

“It didn’t,” Ivy said. “That was just a
fortunate coincidence. It enabled me to find out what I was and
what I was capable of. It also put me in touch with some very
interesting people.”

“Who?” I demanded.

“I assume you met that council Johna is
in?”

I gasped. “How did you know about them?”

“I spent a lot of my time in the shop going
through Johna’s things, of course. You were stuck in the back
bedroom away from everyone and I was free to roam about the
cottage. I found some very interesting books. From there it wasn’t
too hard to contact a few people.”