“And what if you claim your magic? Do you think we’ll be free to be together, that it’ll be the end of our troubles? Kes, if you have magic, how can there ever be any future for us?”
“There can’t.” I hated hearing the words empty from my mouth, but they had to be said. “This is where we end. Saving my life with magic will destroy us. If I refuse magic to save us, Endrick will destroy me.”
Simon stepped closer and now the sadness in his eyes reflected what surely was in mine. “Let’s worry about the future when it comes. We are here tonight. Can this be enough?”
I drew in a sharp breath, trying to hold in my emotions and failing miserably at it. It didn’t help when he closed the gap between us, his hands running up my arms, awakening new emotions within me.
“Let’s start again,” he said. “Tell me something that you remember.”
I searched for a memory I trusted, desperate to prove that my mind could overcome Endrick’s magic. “I have some memories. Random pieces, here and there. Scattered fragments of a puzzle, and no idea how to put them together.”
“Do you remember anything of us?”
A chill went up my spine. “The way you’re holding me now. We’ve been here before.”
“Yes.” Something in his expression set my heart pounding. Why did he look at me like that, as if I were all that existed, as if we’d known each other forever and were only just meeting?
With his eyes trained directly on mine, he said, “I know you in ways you no longer know yourself. You’re my first thought when I wake and you follow me into my dreams each night.”
I shook my head, a pathetic attempt to calm the flutters in my stomach. “You’re just saying that. It isn’t true.”
He drew a line up my jaw with his finger. “I know the very place where this bone curves.” Now he cupped my cheek in his palm. “The brown in your eyes warms in the sunlight, bringing out tiny flecks of green. And when you’re angry, your right brow presses lower than your left.”
I knew I should back away, but I didn’t. The stroking of his thumb along my cheekbone kept me locked in place, caught in his arms, wondering what would happen if I stayed, if I risked letting myself be with him.
“This is dangerous,” I said. “We shouldn’t dream of the impossible.”
He kissed my cheek, softly, like a whisper against the skin. “Something only becomes possible when you dare to dream of it.”
“I poisoned you!”
He leaned back and grinned. “After I kidnapped you. We’re even.”
I smiled, and let go of my worries, let go of everything but his gentle touch, the beckoning of his eyes. When his hand slid to the small of my back, I leaned into him, letting the flutters in my belly build, so much that I had to remind myself to breathe.
He said, “You see me as a threat, but the truth is, you are far more dangerous to me than I ever could be to you.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. My heart is in your hands.”
Barely able to breathe, I said, “And here I am, in yours.”
He smiled and tiny lines formed at the corners of his eyes. He was closer to me now, or maybe I’d moved closer to him.
I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to feel on my lips what he’d so often expressed with his eyes, to understand in his touch what he wouldn’t speak aloud. I suddenly wanted these feelings for him to be real.
Almost automatically, my arm curled around his neck. His fingers returned to my cheek, asking me again to look up.
“If you don’t—” he began.
“I do.” I kissed him, a cautious, timid kiss. I didn’t know what would come next, what should come next. I only knew that I wanted to find out.
I started to pull back, but I caught the expression in his eye, felt the tug of a thousand invisible threads drawing me back to him. He kept his face close, his eyes searching mine for … something. When he found whatever he was seeking, he kissed me again, but this was different. Where I had been wary, he was committed. His mouth pressed against mine in a sudden desperation. I felt his kiss throughout my body, echoes of his touch vibrating down to my toes.
Something deep within me must have remembered him—the softness of his lips, the rough tips of his fingers against my cheek, his faint scent of leather—because this stirring within me, this hunger for more of him, felt like an awakening. Like I was alive again.
When we finally pulled apart, I smiled as his fingers traced lines across my cheeks. With a kiss near my ear, he whispered, “I never thought this would be possible, not after the way we began.”
I sighed with contentment. “How did we begin?”
He leaned back, chuckling. “You’d probably be glad to have forgotten this. Trina and I forced you to enter Woodcourt, to find the Olden Blade.”
Something clicked within me, like a sudden flash inside my head, recalling a memory I did not want. No, not a memory. A command.
At the first pinch on my heart, my eyes immediately filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Simon. I’m so sorry.”
He noticed my tears and wiped them away with his thumb. “For the poisoning? It’s all right, I understand why you did it. And it ended well.”
No, this would not end well, being here with him now. He had unwittingly answered a question I didn’t even know I had, but now that he did, I couldn’t hold back the sharp tone of Lord Endrick’s voice inside my head, commanding me, Find the Corack boy who brought you into Woodcourt and kill him. Fail to do this, and you will die.
The words exploded through me, more than a passing thought or a casual memory. It was an order that had been placed deep within my heart to ignite at the moment of his confession. This was the reason Lord Endrick had let me live, the reason he had taken that piece of my heart. He wanted revenge on Simon for having breached the walls of Woodcourt, and had given me a week to make it happen.
“How many days?” I asked. “How many days since you took me from Woodcourt?”
Simon mumbled words beneath his breath, counting on his fingers as he did, then said, “Seven. Why?”
I stifled a cry and Simon let me bury my head in his shoulder. I dug my fists into his back, feeling the constriction of my heart. Jolts of pain shot through my chest, down my arms and legs. I drew back, but I couldn’t let Simon know how bad it was, or why this was happening. If he knew, he would sacrifice himself to save my life, I knew he would.
“Talk to me,” he said. “What’s important about seven days?”
“You have to leave now. Something terrible is going to happen.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” I grabbed his arm and tried to push him away. “I don’t know, but you must go, please!”
Endrick must have had a sense of what I was doing, because the punishment he shot through my heart forced me to my knees. He knew I was refusing his order.
And for that, there were consequences.
With that thought, that defiance, Endrick must’ve squeezed on my heart so fiercely that I nearly fainted. Simon rushed to my side. “What’s happening to you?” he asked. “Please tell me!”
I barely heard him as Endrick’s order echoed again in my head: Find the Corack boy who brought you into Woodcourt and kill him. Fail to do this, and you will die.
“No!” I shouted. Not that it mattered. What I heard was an echo of my past. A memory I wasn’t meant to remember until now.
Simon held up his hands, looking utterly helpless. “Tell me how to help you.”
“You can’t …” I struggled for words. “Why did it have to be you who forced me to retrieve the Olden Blade? Why did it have to be you, Simon?”
He reached for me. When I gasped for air, his eyes grew wild with panic. “Is it the necklace?”
“It’s you. I won’t hurt you again!”
“What are you talking about? Kestra, you’re not making sense.”
I stumbled to my feet. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
Then, from outside the gap, a
dog began barking. Tillie’s dog. My attention flew to Rutherhouse, and without words, without any reason for the fear that suddenly swept through me, I knew what had raised the dog’s alarm.
As fast as I could run, I burst out of the gap, blinded by everything but the few lights still burning inside the home and the shadows that passed in front of them, numb to everything but the barking dog and the high-pitched, fluttering call of oropods.
The Dominion had come.
If I could get there first, I had a chance to convince them that I was alone. Whatever happened to me afterward didn’t matter. My fate was already sealed.
Except I wasn’t there first. Tillie was inside, with them. I was too late.
Kestra had nearly escaped the slot before I realized why she was running.
The dog’s barking.
Normally, that wouldn’t have alarmed me, but after Kestra’s strange behavior just now, I knew something was terribly wrong. And despite still recovering from the poisoning, I found a new strength in me to follow her.
The back side of Rutherhouse came into view and my gut instantly knotted. A prison wagon with green and black markings was parked at the side of the home. I counted eight oropods total. Horror sent a chill through my bones. The Dominion was here.
“No, no!” I breathed.
If this was the Dominion, then why was Kestra running toward them? Would she try to attack?
No, she intended to surrender.
I finally caught up to her when we were within a few paces of Rutherhouse. I put my arms around her waist and pulled her to the ground, then clamped a hand over her mouth as I dragged her behind a tree, almost directly beneath an open window at the back of the house. It became all too easy to hear what was happening inside.
“This is your last chance, woman!” a man shouted. “Where are Kestra Dallisor and your son?”
Kestra locked her widened eyes on mine, asking for a confirmation of what she’d just overheard, and shaking her head in hopes that the soldier was wrong. But I nodded back at her, already feeling the wound splitting my heart. Yes, Tillie was my mother.
Kestra tried to get up, but I kept one arm around her waist and locked her legs down with mine. As I did, I felt my breaths coming in harsh bursts.
What was I supposed to do?
Tillie answered the soldiers, “I’m alone here—” Her voice was cut short by a piercing cry, and I flinched. What had they done?
Kestra struggled again and I tightened my grip on her, though my hands trembled and this moonlit night was blurring in my vision. In my entire life, nothing had ever hurt the way this pain was swelling within me.
“Stop,” I hissed in Kestra’s ear, not sure whether I meant for her to stop, or if it was a prayer that the soldiers would stop whatever they were doing. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know. All I had with me was a knife, and a body in no condition to fight off eight or more Ironhearts.
Kestra tried again to get away, but I continued to hold her, even as everything within me crumbled apart.
“Lady Kestra was under orders directly from Lord Endrick,” an Ironheart said. “She failed, so he is calling her back to face her punishment.”
Kestra went still, and suddenly, her odd behavior that ended our kiss made sense. She said she would not hurt me. Those had been her orders, and in anticipation of her disobedience, these soldiers had come for her. But how did they know she was here?
“What sort of evil man uses a sixteen-year-old girl to carry out his orders?” Tillie’s question was immediately answered with something that caused her to cry out.
Tears streamed down my face, but if I went in, hoping to save her, they’d kill us both and then find Kestra out here.
If I didn’t go, I’d never forgive myself.
I whispered into Kestra’s ear, “You get on the nearest horse and you run away as fast and far as you can.”
She shook her head, but this time I released her, then stood and withdrew my knife. No sooner had I done so before the soldier said, “We’ll find her without your help.”
Another cry of pain followed, a final cry punctuated with the slashing sound of one of their swords. I heard my mother’s body slump to the ground.
And I fell back to my knees, wanting to scream out every emotion exploding within me, wanting to run into the home and do my worst against every man in there. With only a knife and a weakened body, I knew I was capable of slaughtering them all.
Kestra was kneeling beside me now, maybe crying too, maybe holding me as I silently sobbed, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t look at her, I couldn’t.
I choked on my sorrow until I almost couldn’t breathe and funneled that sadness into anger at everything and everyone around me. At Gabe, who was supposed to have been watching for this very danger. At the soldiers who had come here searching for Kestra.
At Kestra.
If she hadn’t left, I’d have been at home to defend it. If she hadn’t poisoned me, I would not have had to defend it. If she were anyone else, they’d never have come in the first place. This was her fault.
No, it was my fault. I’d chosen the life of the Infidante over the life of my own mother.
I couldn’t believe this was happening.
I shook off Kestra’s arm. I didn’t want her touching me or comforting me. I didn’t want her here, reminding me of what I’d just lost, and why.
In the bitter, awful silence that lay around us, I heard the crunch of autumn leaves.
“It’s not much, but it’ll have to do!” That was Gabe’s voice, returning from his hunt, calling into the home. Returning from the end of the house, opposite where the prison wagon was parked and the oropods waited. He wouldn’t see them. He wouldn’t know what was awaiting him inside.
Kestra stood, intending to warn Gabe, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me, as we’d been before. I felt the tears on her cheeks and wiped at mine. When she continued fighting, I whispered, “They’re here to kill you.”
“It’s supposed to be me,” she whispered. “Not you, or Tillie. Not Gabe.”
He was next.
A scuffle sounded in the home, and by Gabe’s shout of alarm, I knew he’d been caught off guard and that the soldiers had just attacked him too.
“We’re looking for Kestra Dallisor,” one of the soldiers said. “We know she’s with you.”
“She was,” Gabe said, quick to respond. “But she escaped this morning.” That was followed by a hit so hard that I heard it—and Gabe’s grunt of pain—from outside. Kestra shuddered within my arms.
“Lies!” an Ironheart said. “Your next one will come with a real punishment.”
My gut knotted again, as awful as before. My knife had fallen somewhere on the ground near me, but I felt around in the darkness and couldn’t find it.
“Where is Kestra Dallisor?” one of the men asked.
“She isn’t—oh!”
I wasn’t sure what they’d done, but it sounded as if Gabe had fallen to the floor. Then they kicked him, each strike eliciting a grunt or cry. I knew firsthand that kicks from an Ironheart’s boot were merciless.
“Give me a knife,” the Ironheart said. “I’ll get what I want from him.”
Kestra struggled again. “If they kill you,” I whispered, “Antora is lost forever.”
She shook her head, and I knew my words meant as little to her now as they had meant to me. But even if I hated them, hated what was happening because of those words, they were still true.
The soldier asked, “Where is Kestra Dallisor?”
Gabe cried out again, and in my distraction, Kestra elbowed my chest enough to loosen my grip. I reached for her, but she had already bolted to her feet and was running around the side of the house.
I felt around for the knife and found it, but was barely on my feet when I heard the front door bang open. She shouted, “I’m Kestra Dallisor. I’m the one you want.”
Heavy footsteps emptied to the front of the home. Toward her.
“Lady Dallisor.” The same soldier who’d been speaking before must’ve shoved her against a wall or door and she gave a cry loud enough for me to hear. “Lord Endrick demands you answer for willful disobedience.”
That was followed by another cry and an order to also bind Gabe’s hands, though an Ironheart asked why they should bother tying up an unconscious man.
“We’re taking them both,” the Ironheart replied.
“You only wanted me,” Kestra said, and then, obviously referring to Gabe, added, “He’s useless to you.”
“He’s valuable enough that you risked yourself to come in here.” The Ironheart chuckled. “I’m sure we’ll find plenty of use for him.”
By then, the front door opened again, and I ducked around the side of the house, peeking out to see Gabe’s still body thrown first into the prison wagon and then Kestra being forced outside, her hands bound in front of her, and her dress torn near the shoulder. I noticed she never looked around, which had to be a deliberate choice. She didn’t want to alert the soldiers that I was out here too.
She recoiled at first when they led her to the prison wagon, but the Ironheart pushed her inside and slammed the door behind her. “Oh yes, my lady, you have much to tell us, and you will.”
The oropods led the way from Rutherhouse with the prison wagon at the end of the line. I stepped out to see it go and noticed Kestra staring out from the bars at the back. In the darkness, I couldn’t see the details of her face and I wondered if she could see mine, but I felt her pain and she surely felt the flood of worry and grief and hopelessness in me.
In less than ten minutes, I had lost my mother, heard my best friend beaten to within a breath of his life, and was now watching the last hope for Antora be carried back to the enemy. I knew what fate awaited her. Thinking of it bored the final hole through my heart.
Ten minutes, in which everything that mattered to me in this life had been taken away.
And I was helpless to make any of it better.
As we drove away, Simon’s face nearly broke my heart—more than it already was broken. His final expression had been worse than disgust, worse than hatred. He had stared at me with utter indifference. In that instant, it seemed, I’d become nothing to him.
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