I am about to tuck her in when she stops me.
“You have to tie my feet. And tighten the bonds on my hands. I promised them you would.” Her mouth, the only part of her face I can see, is a grim, determined line.
Silently I bind her feet with the chamois rope, then tighten the knots at her hands – firmly, knowing if I don’t she’ll complain. When I’m done, she lies back and looks up at me.
“I killed someone,” she says.
I blink, momentarily stunned. “Oh.”
“A guard,” she continues, as though we were in the midst of talking about it. “One of Aurek’s men. While we were escaping. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I strangled him.”
I exhale slowly before I reply. “Well, it sounds like if you hadn’t killed him, he’d have either killed you, or taken you back to Aurek. You had no choice.”
“That’s what Merek said.”
“Merek is very clever.”
“I just. . . I wanted you to know.” She pauses. “Does it. . . Does it ever go away?”
“What?”
“The feeling.”
And she doesn’t need to explain, because I do know. Even though I never actually killed anyone, I still have the guilt, like a scarf, like a noose, hanging around my neck. The feeling that I took something that wasn’t mine, that I have something because I denied someone else. No matter that I didn’t truly take a life; I watched people die believing I’d killed them. People died because of me.
“Yes,” I lie. “Eventually you make peace with it. You won’t forget it, but it won’t haunt you.”
Her sigh is soft. “Thank you.” She rolls on to her side. “Goodnight, Twylla,” she says, and I cover her with a blanket.
“Goodnight, Errin,” I say softly. I listen as she drifts off to sleep, still awake when Nia comes in a little later and climbs into bed without moving her things. Soon the room is filled with their soft, sleeping sounds, little huffs and snorts, and it should be a comfort. But I can’t settle. It’s a long, long time before I drift into an uneasy sleep.
The following morning I rise early to take Merek and Errin on a tour of the commune. We’re the only ones in the refectory, though Ema, and Breena, on rotation as her assistant that day, have been up baking for two hours already, as evidenced by the fresh rolls still steaming in baskets along the wooden tables.
Errin and I sit in sleepy, companionable silence, tearing hunks of bread apart and blowing on our fingers when the steam lightly scalds them, before dunking the pieces into golden-yolked eggs and gobbling them down. Errin’s hands are still bound, loosely, but that’s not stopping her devouring her breakfast.
“Where does all this food come from?” she asks, wiping her bread in a smear of yolk that escaped the shell.
“The Sister’s stores. There are cellars beneath the compound that have enough food in to feed a small army. Literally, as it turns out. Flour, grain, oats, hams, sides of venison. There are chickens, goats and sheep, all around half a mile away, in a pasture, owned by the Sisters. They were set up to be self-sufficient, so they didn’t have to rely on outsiders for anything.”
“Like the Conclave.”
“Exactly.” I hesitate before asking, “What was it like at the castle?”
“Foodwise?” she asks, and I nod. “For me, all right. He made sure I was fed. I dined with him whenever he told me to, and he certainly didn’t ration his own table. There was meat, and wine. Silas looked well, too, in terms of food, at least. He wasn’t starved.”
“And for the others?” I mean Merek, and she knows it.
“Not so good. We never spoke about it, but. . .”
“The results speak for themselves,” Merek says, entering the refectory on bare feet. He looks a little better than he did yesterday – the purple stains beneath his eyes have faded – but he is so thin, almost gaunt, the too-sharp planes of his face advertising how mistreated he’s been. He’s dressed in a pale blue tunic – the material looks soft, well-washed – and brown breeches that are faded at the knee. Like the pink homespun gown Errin wears – the twin of my green one – his clothes will have been scavenged from those left behind by the alchemists and their families when they fled. Simple, homely, well-made garments, designed to last. I’ve never seen him in anything so normal-looking. And from the way he shoots swift, curious glances at me, I assume he’s thinking along the same lines. I smile to myself and concentrate on my breakfast for a while.
When I next look up, at Merek tearing into bread as though he hasn’t seen real food for weeks, and Errin, oblivious to the hint of yolk at the corner of her mouth, it strikes me how very young we are, and how unfair all of this is. Why are we the ones doing this? Why didn’t the Council of Tregellan fight back? Why didn’t the Lormerian lords and ladies muster armies from their tenants? Why has it fallen to us to fight Aurek?
Merek points out the yolk on Errin’s face, and instead of blushing and wiping it away, as I would, she leans over and dips her finger in his egg, wiping yolk on his face too. His mouth falls open, aghast, and Errin crows with laughter. He shakes his head at her, and I see him trying desperately not to laugh too. My heart catches, as though on a thorn, and I sigh without meaning to.
Merek looks over at me. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Of course,” I say. Again I search for the right thing to say, the words that will be the key to allow me to join in, that will unlock an easy, joyful place for me in their friendship. Again my heart aches, because I want to be part of this, so, so badly, and I’m not, and I don’t think I ever can be. Neither of them are like this with me. Of course they like each other more than they like me. Who wouldn’t?
I’m jealous, I realize. Not of them, but of him. Of the way he’s walked back in so easily and slotted in, when I always feel like I’m the wrong shape, or size. This is how it will be for him once we’ve defeated Aurek. He’ll stride victoriously back to the throne, while I hover in the doorway, not knowing whether to stay or go. Waiting for scraps from the table.
And I can bear it no longer. “I have to go,” I say. “I’m sure Kirin will be happy to show you around. I’ll have him sent to you.”
“Twylla?” Errin says. Her face is concerned, and I hate myself then, for doing that to her.
I take a deep breath and force myself to smile. “I just remembered I had some business to see to before the council this afternoon. I’m sorry. Stupid of me, to forget.”
Errin looks at Merek, who turns to me. “Of course. Can we help at all?”
I shake my head. “You still need to heal. I’ll see you at lunch.”
I don’t give them time to reply, almost running from the room. My eyes sting; I can feel my chest and face reddening, becoming blotchy, and I try to decide where to go until this has passed.
“Twylla?” Hope steps out of the corridor to the women’s quarters as I rush past.
“I’m fine,” I say, but my voice cracks.
“Like hell you are,” I hear her mutter, then the sound of her wooden shoes on the flagstones behind me.
“Please leave me,” I sob, unable to keep the tears locked down.
She grabs my arm gently and pulls me to a stop, and I twist away, not wanting her to see me like this. She spent so long thinking I was weak, I don’t want her to think I am again.
“Come with me,” she says, leading me back to the courtyard, then down a short passageway and into the gardens. I go without hesitating, too tired to fight.
At this time of year the earth is bare and frosted, ice glittering over the soil. Hope told me when we came that the potatoes and beets we’re now eating were harvested from here, and that come spring they’ll begin to grow again, but you’d never believe there was life waiting down there to look at it.
She leads me down paths between squares of earth, all slumbering until the weather turns, until we come to the small orchard. It’s as bare as the gardens are; the branches look forlorn and naked without their leaves.
Beneath a large app
le tree is a bench, and I think she means for us to sit on it, despite the fact I have no cloak, but we walk past, approaching a stone archway around a wooden door, and then she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small keychain that jingles softly when the iron keys on it dance together. She opens the gate, which tellingly doesn’t squeak, and then beckons me through into another small garden. And at the far end of it is a tiny cottage, like something out of a fairy tale.
It’s wooden, with ivy climbing up the sides, the green vibrant compared to the muted winter palette around me. It is a little lopsided, the chimney squat, the door too wide. It’s incredibly charming. She walks down the path towards it, and I follow, realizing with sudden certainty that she’s brought me to her own cottage, where she lived, once, before she became a Sister. Where she raised Silas.
I follow her to the door, which she unlocks, and then we enter. As I’d suspected, the air isn’t stale, and even though there is little furniture, just a chair and a small table, it has the feeling of somewhere used. And loved. The floors are swept free of dust; the wooden chair gleams.
“It’s my secret,” Hope says. “But a secret is always better shared,” she adds pointedly.
She busies herself at the small hearth, kindling a fire, and then reaches back into the recess of the wall, pulling a pot and two tin mugs out and hanging the kettle over the smouldering wood.
“I’ll make some tea,” is all the explanation she gives.
When the metal kettle begins to whistle, she wraps her cloak around her hands and pulls it down, adding the tea leaves to it and swirling it around. As she moves, practised and sure, my awkwardness begins to creep back in and I wrap my arms around my knees. When she’s deemed the tea done, she pours it into the two mugs and sits in her chair.
“Tell me,” she commands.
“I’m not weak,” I say.
“I know that.” She rolls her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I feel. . .” I pause, then turn slightly, so I’m talking to the leaded window, rather than her. “I don’t know. I feel strange. I feel uncertain. Off.”
“Since when?”
“Yesterday.”
“When Errin and Merek arrived, or before?”
“It’s . . . hard. Seeing them together.”
“Together?” Her voice sharpens.
“Not romantically. Errin loves Silas, I know that.” Hope says nothing. “But the two of them being here. . . Merek was part of my world before, and she’s part of the new world I know. A world I built. And I don’t. . .” I trail off. “All I wanted was to rescue Errin and Silas, and defeat Aurek. I hadn’t thought about what would happen next. And I know that’s stupid, because if we win there will be an after, and someone will have to be in charge of it all.”
She nods. “Merek is the deposed former king, from the only ruling family Lormere has ever known. Now he has returned, he can take his rightful place and rule. As someone has to.”
“Yes.”
“And you want it to be you instead?”
“No!” I say without thinking. But then I pause. Do I want it to be me? “No,” I say again slowly, testing the words for truth on my tongue. “I don’t want to rule Lormere, not really. But I don’t want to lose what I’ve built here, and it feels . . . shaky to me at the moment.”
“Because Merek is here?”
I nod. “He’s. . . What I was when he knew me is so different to who I am now. I don’t know how to reconcile the two.” I smile sourly. “The helpless princess, and the leader.”
“Why do you have to?”
I shrug. I don’t know. I reach for my tea, and at the same time feel hands in my hair. I turn, and Hope holds out a small twig.
“I think you got a little too close to the trees,” she says, and I turn back, allowing her to pluck the rest out.
“What if. . .” I say, relaxing as her fingers comb through my hair. “What if Merek being here will change things, change the way the people see me? What if they stop listening to me? What if they look to him as their leader now? Or Errin? Because let’s face it, Hope, I’m not exactly popular. I’m not charismatic. I don’t have anything witty or clever to say. I’m good at giving orders to people. But now a real leader is here—”
“You are a real leader,” Hope says sharply, pulling a little too hard on my hair. “Who rallied them in the woods? Who made them follow her here? Who organized soldiers, scouts and rebels? Who set a watch on the children? Who cleaned with them, trained with them, and promised them a better life? That was you, Twylla Morven. And yes, you had help, and support. But so does every leader.”
“He’s their king.”
“So what? We already know kings come and go.” She pauses. “I don’t think this is about Merek, not truly. Is it?”
“I just feel. . . When will I be sure?”
“Sure of what?”
“Of me. Of who I am. Of what I’m here for. When will I know?”
Hope laughs. “Never. You never will. No matter what happens. You will always have those moments of doubt and you will always make mistakes.”
I turn around to look at her.
“And it will only get worse. As you age. As there’s more to lose. Lovers, friends, children. You think I’m always sure of my path?”
“Are you telling me you’re not?”
“I was sure you would be as intractable and officious as your mother, Gods keep her in peace. I was sure Errin was in league with her brother. I was sure coming to Lormere was a terrible idea. I was sure the Rising Dawn would get us all killed.”
“It still might.”
She chuckles. “It might. But that doesn’t mean I was right to assume it.”
“You always seem so sure.”
“And that, my girl, is the secret. Quake all you must on the inside. But on the outside you must be stone. And you never know; with enough practice it might become the truth.”
She cups my face for a moment and then reaches for her tea.
“Two last things: firstly, I doubt Merek wants to take this from you. And secondly, even if he did, I think the people would follow you over him anyway.”
I scoff.
“You said it yourself; you built this world and you gave it to them when they had nothing else. That kind of currency goes a long way, Twylla. Deeper than you know. I’m sure they’re all glad Merek’s alive – he’s an asset to us – but I don’t for one second think they’d welcome him as their leader. Because he hasn’t earned it. You have.”
Her words make my eyes burn. “I hope you’re always around to remind me when I’m being a fool,” I say.
To my immense surprise, she leans forward and kisses my forehead. “You are your own worst enemy, Twylla Morven. Now, that’s enough,” she says, seeming surprised at herself. “You have a council of war to open.”
“Thank you. For this. And for showing me this place.”
“I know you won’t tell anyone about it. After all, you’re not exactly popular,” she smirks, and I smile. “You’re you. And that is quite good enough.”
I help her bank the fire, and rinse the mugs in a water butt at the rear of the cottage, before we make our way back. I let her go on ahead of me, pausing in the gardens to think. I keep expecting this to get easier. But maybe what I need to do is acknowledge that it won’t. That there will always be something to battle, small or large. And that’s all right. I just have to keep fighting.
“My lady?” Stuan appears. “We wondered where you were.”
“I’m here,” I say. “After lunch, could you gather Hope, Kirin, Errin, Nia, and His Majesty and have them come to the council room?” He nods, and bows, and I make a snap decision. “And I’ll need you there too. But no one else is to know.”
He looks surprised, and pleased, puffing out his chest. “Yes, my lady. As you wish.”
Chapter 19
Though I trust every single soul at the commune, there is a lot riding on us taking Aurek by surprise. Our resources ar
e too finite to engage him in direct battle until we absolutely have to.
There are a lot of ifs our plan replies on: if Aurek doesn’t know that Lief gave Errin the recipe; if he doesn’t know that Errin has found me; if he doesn’t know that I’m in the mountains behind his ruined castle. All these ifs that I’m hoping will buy us the time we need to collect the ingredients, assemble the deconstructed Opus Magnum, and place our people where they need to be.
“I need to put together three scouting parties,” I tell the crowd in my room. Stuan stands in the doorway; if someone approaches he’ll let us know. Merek, Nia and Errin sit on Nia’s bed, with Kirin and Hope on mine, as I lean against the small wardrobe. “One to go to Tregellan, to the Conclave for Sal Salis; one to Tallith to the quicksilver mine; and one to go a little deeper in the mountains to collect the asulfer.”
Stuan half turns and frowns at the unfamiliar names, and I meet his eye. He looks back, unwavering, and nods, before scanning the corridor once more. Hope, Nia, Kirin and I all agreed that it would be best to protect the secrets of the alchemists as much as we can. Our people know that rescuing the alchemists is a priority, but we’ve never clarified why, allowing them to assume it was because the gold would be useful to us. No one has mentioned Silas’s abilities, or our hopes for the Opus Magnum. That it’s the only weapon we have against Aurek.
“We don’t have time for the same group to go to all of the locations. It has to be three teams, simultaneously. And it has to be people who know what they’re looking for, and where to go.”
I see the flat look on Nia’s face as she understands what I mean. “Nia, I need you to return to the Conclave for the Sal Salis. I’m sorry. I really am. But no one knows it like you do. Kirin, I want you to go with her.”
Nia closes her eyes and I feel terrible, because I know what I’m asking. I know what she’s going to have to face going back there. I was there when we left, and her grief then was unbearable. Three months down the line, she’ll face horrors.
[Sin Eater's Daughter 3] The Scarecrow Queen Page 21