Torn: Bound Trilogy Book Two (17 page)

“He’d settled down by then,” Xaven said. He rose from his chair and prodded the logs in the fire with a long iron. “If you’d seen him when he was younger, and I mean by a century or so, you’d see where Severn gets his headstrong and power-hungry nature from. Ulric was much more reasonable about his foreign relations than Severn is, but he didn’t like to be told what to do, either.”

“Do you think Severn will mellow with age?”

“Perhaps. But I don’t think there will be time for that.”

“Then you agree that I should find my father.”

Xaven breathed out hard. “It’s not the worst thing that could happen, I suppose. Unless you can think of anyone else who might be interested in taking the position.”

“Absolutely not.” I was neither interested nor qualified, in spite of the strength of my magic.

“It was only a thought,” my uncle said. He leaned on the mantel and watched the flames flickering behind the iron grate. “Yes, I think bringing him back is a good plan, if he lives. You know, your father was a hard, cold man, but there were a few years when that wasn’t so.”

“Because of my mother?” My heart skipped, though I couldn’t say why. Anything I thought or felt about that part of my past had been long since walled away. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Hmm.” Xaven turned his attention back to me. He seemed troubled. “You know about their situation?”

“Little enough, I suppose. Were you there when she lived in Luid?”

“No, I never met her. I heard things later, some from your father. He cared for her quite a lot.”

“If he cared for her at all, he wouldn’t have killed her, would he?” I said, more harshly than I meant to. It seemed everyone I spoke to on my journey had a way of opening old wounds. But I wouldn’t let the walls crumble.

Xaven cleared his throat. “He didn’t kill her.”

“Fine. He wouldn’t have had someone else do it, then.”

My uncle raised an eyebrow. “No, I mean he didn’t.”

I struggled to make sense of his words. Surely he didn’t mean…

His eyes searched mine, and then he sat down and pulled his chair closer. “I don’t know whether he told anyone but me. I think I only know because he got too deep into the wine cellar when he last visited. He probably didn’t remember that he’d said anything.”

My skin prickled. “What did he tell you?”

“That he sent her away.” He paused, observing my reaction. I realized my mouth had opened, and closed it. “Her and your sister. He knew that his position was in jeopardy if he didn’t get rid of them, and he couldn’t let the throne pass to Severn then. He was only a boy, impulsive and irresponsible. So your father sent them north, to the dragon-occupied country. Cressia.”

My stomach dropped, and I felt glad I was already seated. I’d never questioned the fact of my mother’s death. It had devastated me at the time, and I’d fought to leave it behind me. My father’s insistence that no one speak of her had been so complete that I’d thought perhaps he felt some measure of shame or pain over killing her. This was too much.

It can’t be true.

My uncle rested a hand on my arm, and I realized my hands were shaking.

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Your father would have had my head, and you seemed to have moved on. It wasn’t my place.”

I barely heard him, trapped as I was in my own reeling thoughts. It seemed an odd question to have to ask. “I have a sister?”

“Twin sister. She was a well-kept secret. No detectable power at birth, or before they were sent away. What did they call her, now? Ava? No. Avalon, it was. Family name, though I don’t expect there’s any official record of her birth. Our family is superstitious about twins, did you know that?”

I shook my head to rattle my thoughts into some semblance of rational order. “Something about power being divided?”

“Doesn’t seem to have been a problem for you, but your father couldn’t afford rumors.”

My pulse pounded in my ears.
I lost so much. Grieved so deeply. Lived a life of emptiness and pain in Luid, and she was…
I fought back the bile that rose in my throat. It should have been good news. It was. But all I could understand in that moment was what I’d lost.

My heart slowed.
Focus on the issue at hand. Nothing else matters.
“So my mother is alive?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that she was, and your father deeply regretted sending her away.”

“You think he went to find her.”

“It’s a possibility. I don’t know, though. Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he did, and died on the way. It seems he’d have come back by now if he could have.” He sighed. “I’m afraid it’s all I have to offer in the way of information.”

“It’s more than I expected. Thank you.” My voice sounded like it came from someone else.

My uncle nodded. “I’m glad I could help a little. You look…” He leaned in closer. “Will you be staying with us tonight? You look like you could use another meal, a hot one, and a long rest.”

“I think I will.” I rose and shook his hand.

Morea returned to show me to a guest room. She chatted amiably as we walked up the stairs, but I found afterward that I couldn’t remember a single thing she’d said.

What’s done is done,
I reminded myself as I lay on the bed.
You can’t change it. Eyes on the future now.

If only I could dam the flood of memories. My walls had been shattered. All I could do now was try not to be crushed by them.

M
y captors were
in high spirits after our night at the inn, chatting and laughing with each other as they tacked and loaded the horses outside of the stable. Not one of them so much as looked at me until I loosed my hold on my magic, if only slightly. That earned me suspicious looks as a few hands went to weapons.

I quieted it again, and found it obeying me more readily than it had before. Perhaps my attempts to connect with it were helping something, after all. I wouldn’t know until I tried to use it.

We rode through the morning, passing through a vast and quiet forest. The men watched carefully for danger from outside of the group now as much as within. Callum wasn’t speaking to me. I couldn’t say I minded, but there were a few things I still needed to know.

“What about my parents?” I asked after lunch, quietly enough that no one else heard.

Callum frowned at me. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and I took comfort in the thought that his night had been as wretched as mine. “They’re not expecting you.”

“And my mother’s letter?”

“That was genuine. I offered to have it delivered for her, but that’s the only contact I’ve had with them recently. She sealed her letter in an envelope with a suggestion in the postscript that you be cautious of me. I removed that, of course.”

The ripped page. “Of course you did.”

“I doubt they’d have welcomed you. Do you know how much pain you’ve caused them? If this has been hard for me, imagine how much worse it’s been for them. No one believes that they didn’t know what you were. And your father a magistrate, too.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t. You didn’t think about what your little adventure would do to anyone here, did you? You just met tall, dark and evil and followed him out of the country, not once thinking about your family. Or me.”

“That’s not fair, Callum.” A few soldiers looked at us. Callum waved them off, and I lowered my voice as we mounted our horses. “It’s not as if I had a better option. The magic would have killed me if I had stayed and married you. You’d have lost me either way.” I’d have said more, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere by aggravating him. I turned my thoughts forward, toward the city.

“What about Felicia?” I asked. “You said you spoke to her.” I’d sent her a letter as well, and not heard anything back. I didn’t want to drag her into this, but if it came to me needing a friend in town…

Callum shrugged. “She’s living on Pine Hill in Ardare now. Nice part of the city, in a pretty blue house like she says she’s always wanted. She’s expecting a baby, but keeping it quiet for now.”

My heart leaped in spite of my own circumstances. It had never been something I wanted, but Felicia had always desired a large family. She was her parents’ only surviving child, and she said she wanted to spoil them with grandchildren. I closed my eyes and prayed silently that the child wouldn’t be like me. It would meet an early end if it was. Nothing would change in Darmid, and Felicia had married a magic hunter. No child of hers would be safe.

“It’s too bad about Robert, though,” Callum continued. “Bad business.”

He didn’t provide any more information, so I had to ask. “Her husband? What’s happened to him?”

“A dragon happened, that’s what.”

I resisted the urge to reach under my scarf and touch the pendant that hung there. I only knew of one dragon in Darmid.

“We went hunting it, and it killed him. This was nearly two months ago. Felicia’s holding up well, though I’d say you’d find her changed. She’s being taken care of, anyway.”

“That’s terrible.” I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “Had it been attacking people?”

“Close enough. It was attacking livestock, eating or stealing cows and horses, carrying some of them away. We had to stop it, of course, and we knew it had young hidden away somewhere. We were searching in the mountains, following what trails we could find, and it attacked us from behind. Most of us survived. Robert was caught. We couldn’t save him.”

I thought of Ruby’s massive claws and curving teeth, and felt ill. She wasn’t what I’d call a friend, but I’d spoken to her, and I’d seen her three dragonlings. She was an intelligent creature and devoted to her young. If she’d thought that humans were a threat to them, she certainly would have attacked.

My heart broke for Felicia. She’d been so happy when I last saw her, bubbly and lively and excited for her beautiful future. “What did it look like?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Big. Terrible. Red as hellfire. Hideous.”

I hadn’t thought Ruby hideous. Terrifying, but her glowing scales were beautiful, and there had been an odd grace to her sinuous neck and body that I’d noted even as I feared she would eat me. But it was certainly her.

“Is she—is it dead?”

“Not yet.”

In spite of the terror the dragon had brought me when we met, and the fact that I’d nearly met the same fate as Robert, I felt relieved that she still lived. One more piece of magic surviving in Darmid, fighting back against the hunters.

“What about Ashe?” I asked. “Have you seen him?”

“He’s with your parents. No change in his condition.” My heart sank. Even if I could have trusted Callum to deliver it, I’d lost Emalda’s potion when I left Florizel. Everything was probably in a heap on the forest floor, or wherever she’d dumped her disguise.

He watched me, monitoring my reactions. I took a lesson from Aren and tried to keep my expression neutral.

“He wasn’t aware of much when I was there,” Callum added. “It’s probably a blessing. He was as upset as I was when you disappeared. I think he blamed himself for what happened after. Thought he should have been able to stop you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to digest the idea that Ashe might be ashamed of me and suffering for what I’d done.

No, suffering for our people’s beliefs about magic
. I couldn’t let Callum make me blame myself. That would get me nowhere.

There didn’t seem to be anything else to talk about after that. I watched the road, noting landmarks and how the landscape was changing around us. Though we passed through a variety of landscapes, no opportunity for escape presented itself. As the sun crossed the sky, I felt an invisible noose tightening around my neck.

Act now
, part of me whispered.
You’re dead if you don’t.

And dead if I do too soon,
I answered. Surrounded as I was, my only hope was to somehow release a blast of magic that would kill them, as I’d done the night my binding broke, and I had no way of knowing whether I could manage it. If I failed they would kill me, and the thought of success filled me with cold horror. I couldn’t kill, even if they were willing to do the same to me.

Coward.

We kept going until evening and stopped at another inn, this one quieter, with dirt-tracked floors and with the sharp stink of burnt meat in the air. The room the innkeeper showed us to had a large window, and my mind raced as I made my plans. But Callum shook his head, and the innkeeper led us to a garret room with only a tiny window that let in barely a stream of light.

Killing Callum seemed like a potential plan, but I knew I couldn’t do it. Magic was too uncertain, and if I missed my first chance, I wouldn’t get a second. Even if I succeeded, the guard outside the door would be on me before I could make another move.

I wished I’d had time to work on some kind of physical fight training at the school. Surely Griselda knew something about it. Or Aren could have, had we been allowed more lessons and not had to focus so much on magic. Too late now.

I took my necklace off and tucked it into the toe of my boot when I had a moment to myself, then wrapped my body in a blanket, cocoon-like, before Callum joined me in bed. I lay awake for hours, waiting to be sure he was asleep, heart pounding every time I thought of moving. When his breathing became slow and deep, I propped myself up on my elbow to see where he’d stored his dagger. I spotted it clenched tight in his fist.

Damn.

When I turned my attention to his face, his eyes were open, watching me. He smiled and motioned with the knife for me to lie down. I did, and had no sleep that night.

We reached the outskirts of Ardare the next morning, and my heart crept into my throat at the sight of the stone walls. I closed my eyes and fought for calm. Narrow streets, if I remembered correctly. Alleys. A marketplace. Though I was hardly familiar with the city, I had to hope it would provide some opportunity for me to slip away and hide.

I tried to bring the name of Felicia’s street to mind and felt a flutter of panic as I realized it had slipped from my exhausted mind. It had been an option of last resort, true, but if it came to that…
Elm? Birch Path?

Callum let out a cough, and I opened my eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop now. They’ll go easier on you at the prison if you cooperate.”

I could have made a good guess at how full of excrement that statement was, but I didn’t speak. My voice would have trembled.

The capital was the largest city in Darmid, the jewel in our culture’s crown. No danger of dragon attacks here. Though I’d noted the decrease in magic before, it was nothing compared to what I felt as we neared the city. It seemed to disappear completely. The fields outside of the walls showed a faint haze of green overlaying rich, brown dirt, but everything felt empty and lifeless. And I had never felt it. I’d been so cut off from that part of myself that I hadn’t been aware of the land’s ambient magic at all, or noticed it in other people.

Anger flared in me, hot and sharp.
They’ve already taken so much from me. They won’t have my life, or my magic.

I shivered, and nudged the fragment of dragon scale with my toe.
Remember what Griselda said.
My magic felt constrained here, held back in a way I never managed on my own, but it was there, and strong. Its time would come soon, whether I was ready or not.

“Cover that hair,” Callum ordered. “Drawing attention to yourself will make things worse. We’ll reach the complex soon enough.”

“And then what happens?”

He shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “That’s for my father and the magistrates to decide, I suppose.”

“You’re going to let them kill me?” Even now I hoped he might change his mind.

Callum’s eyes grew colder than I’d ever seen them. “That’s the penalty for using magic here.”

“My magic is only here because you brought me back. Do you really hate me that much?”

A look of uncertainty passed over his features.

“Callum, please.”

He only shook his head as his expression closed off again.

I wrapped my scarf around my head and pulled my hood up. Callum nudged his horse toward the city, and mine followed. Callum’s magic hunters left us at the gates, leaving only the soldiers.

Ardare is a city of winding roads that intersect each other at odd and seemingly random angles. I doubted I’d be able to find my way out even if I had the opportunity. If I didn’t try, though, I was as good as dead. I’d never have a chance to master my magic. I’d never see Aren again, or Florizel, Celean, or Griselda.

I noted landmarks, but the tall buildings all looked the same to me, and I found the street names difficult to remember. Nothing in this section of town was familiar. I tried to track our direction by the sun, but lost track as we turned through the streets. I broke out sweating, and my heart raced faster with every block.

Don’t panic. Eyes open.

We headed down a narrow side-street with the men leading their horses single-file and me riding. My heart continued to pound, but with excitement. I was no longer surrounded. The soldier directly behind me had his sword drawn, but he kept letting it fall to his side as he scratched at a red rash on his neck. A weak link in the chain.

Now.

“Callum?” I called, letting weakness come into my voice. “I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“Give me a minute. I need to throw up.” I swung my leg over the horse’s withers and slid to the ground, gagging for emphasis.

The soldier behind me looked away, disgusted.

“Stay there!” Callum yelled. He let go of the horse he was leading, but it backed up beside mine, blocking the road. I lost sight of him. “Rowan, don’t you dare move! Steef, grab her!”

The big soldier hesitated, and that was all the time I needed. I ignored the fearful pounding of my heart and focused instead on the flame of magic within me, on accepting it as a part of me. It flowed through my body, concentrated and growing.

A cistern sat not far away, filled with rainwater. I had no time to think what I could do with it. As long as my magic did
something
and didn’t kill me in the process, I would be happy. Magic flowed more easily than it ever had before, flashing through me like a river, tingling through my muscles and over my skin.

Not the oneness that Griselda had described. I didn’t care. It was beautiful.

The barrel burst, spraying my horse and Callum’s with freezing water. Mine reared and cut off Steef's approach, and I bolted down the long alleyway next to me.

“Rowan!”

The street behind me erupted in confusion.

Heaps of rubbish crowded the alley, and I nearly tripped over a skinny black cat that hissed as I passed. A wooden gate blocked the end of the alley. I scrambled over it and kept running.

I crossed the tiny yards behind the buildings and entered a wider alley that opened onto what I took to be a main street. A few pedestrians gave me odd looks, but I kept moving, trying to look like I belonged in the crowd despite the unfashionable clothing I wore and the hood I held tight to my face. I cut through side streets at random as I came to them, running when no one seemed to be looking, not bothering to try to remember where I’d turned. I was already lost. It didn’t matter where I went, as long as I didn’t turn back.

They would expect me to run toward the gate we’d come in. They wouldn’t find me there.

Yelling and clattering sounded behind me, several streets away. I found another narrow street criss-crossed by clotheslines and packed with carts and boxes. I wound my way past them and emerged on another wide road.