For a brief moment, I felt fear wash over me again. Was this the same group Shezdon had warned me about, the group he accused of having caused my accident? Nazarie had saved me before, but she wasn’t here now. I only had myself. With shaking hands, I felt around the bottom of the wagon for something I could pick the lock with. Two little pieces of metal and I'd be free. A splinter pierced my skin. I bit back the urge to cry out. I continued to feel around for something slim and metal. I went back to the splinter. There wasn’t time to find anything better. I picked it out from the wagon, broke it in half, and used the two pieces to try to pick the lock. It snapped. Now a little piece of wood was wedged into the locking mechanism, holding the tumblers even more securely together.
I swore under my breath, anger bubbled inside me. I felt along the ground with my bare feet. I could see slightly in the last vestiges of the day’s light that came through the wagon. I felt sweat trickling down my brow, but I tried to ignore it. My foot hit what felt like an old fork. I scooted it closer and wriggled around to get it into my hands. It felt like little more than rust held together by bits of metal. I easily snapped off one of the prongs and bent another. I put them both into the lock and tried to squeeze out the trapped splinter.
The clip-clop of approaching horses made me stop.
“Sir Jorias!” the man called. “We have found your Dark Weaver for you.”
“Let's see what he looks like,” another man said.
“He?” My captor’s voice trembled slightly. “It's a young woman. S... She was at The Edge.”
The back panel opened again. Two men stared in at me. One of them I immediately determined was related to the girl, Kynna. Same pale hair and similar skin tone. He was either a much older brother or a father. The other man towered over him and wore the purple sash of the Warrior Weavers.
“Jorias, can you tell?” my captor asked. “It's a Dark Weaver—isn’t it?”
“You've the ward up?” The man called Jorias asked as he glared intently at me. I looked over his shoulder, trying to act like I couldn’t see him. “I can't tell with the ward up.”
“Should I take the ward down and you test?”
“That’s what we’ll have to do. I'll give the signal. She can’t see,” he said, and I smiled wolfishly since I could see clearly despite the sack over my face. “Take it down for a second and put it back up immediately.”
I reached out for the Mist, which slipped through my grip, but I kept pulling it toward me waiting for it to stay within my touch. Anger, hate, and frustration boiled to the surface. The Mist came to me, and I pushed against it. The wagon exploded. Scraps of wood flew through the air like arrows. I fell to the ground and landed on the dirt. I had pushed with such velocity that none of the wagon remained beneath me. Over a dozen large, wooden spikes of wagon debris pierced the chest of the man who had initially captured me. I realized with sick fascination that I had aimed the shards toward him. Tears sprang to my eyes, but then I remembered my danger, and I ran. Over the roots of the trees and through the forest.
“I felt it!” Jorias shouted. “She's a Dark Weaver.”
“Papa!” Kynna cried out in horror, but he did not answer. I could feel that the life had drained from him. I swallowed a feeling of joy at his death and plunged into the forest.
I suppose only a Dark Weaver could feel joy from killing a man.
I huddled behind a tree, the sticks and dead leaves scratching my bare feet. A lone tear traced its way down my face. No creatures stirred in the forest. The silence pressed in around me. Pieces of wooden shrapnel from the wagon were wedged into the ground and the tree around me. Each seemed to point up at me. I had no idea how I could have thrown all these pieces so far. Euan and Altis said that I’d been asleep since yesterday morning, but I felt like I’d not slept in days and days. There was no way I could survive a duel. I put my finger up to the sharp point of one of the wagon-splitters and wished that I had my daggers with me, but they were still in my boots.
Slowly, I stepped out from behind the tree. “I'm not a Dark Weaver,” I yelled. “I'm a Journeyman Mist Weaver. There’s been some mistake.”
The man cast a crackling purple orb of Mist Lightning toward me.
I held up my hands, disintegrating the Lightning, feeling the last bit of my energy leave me. “I repeat, I'm not a Dark Weaver,” I called out. “Stop it!”
A purple bolt shot from his hand, toward my feet. I jumped behind the tree and peered out from behind it. He sent another bolt at the tree, igniting it immediately with a purple, unnatural flame. I screamed and jumped backward onto a large splinter from the wagon. I cried out profanities into the night.
The fire jumped and swayed from side to side, it hopped from tree to tree until the whole area encircling me blazed angrily. I was trapped. The man rose in the air, his white cape flung to his right side, flapping like a flag in the wind. He shot bolt after bolt at me. I tried to block them, but I was too exhausted. Everything went dark again as I collapsed onto the forest floor.
# # #
When I came to, I was in a damp cell. It was the type of cell they tell children about in parables meant to frighten them into obedience. But this wasn’t a story, and I’d no idea what I’d done to deserve it.
Chains held my arms above my head, not allowing me to sit. The chains held the same Mist-blocking quality that the ones in the carriage had. I couldn’t do anything to pull myself free. Moldy water seeped into my nightgown. The man, Jorias, studied me through the bars of my cell. After some time, he pulled out his keys. I tried to shrink back into the wall, wishing that I could become invisible, but I stayed stubbornly in reality.
He slid the key in the lock and pushed the heavy cell door open with his shoulder. It moaned a low, deep rumble as old hinges moved and the door swung outward. He left it open and guards gathered around the entrance, gawking and laughing.
“Who are the other Dark Weavers? Who taught you?” the man asked.
“I’m not a Dark Weaver,” I tried to explain, but I could tell that he didn’t believe me. “I’m a Journeyman Mist Weaver. I was on a mission and some mistake must have been made.”
He shocked me with a bolt of his purple Mist Lightning. “Once you are broken, I will find out.” He grabbed my jaw in his cold hand and leaned in inches away from my face. “Remember, I can make this all stop. I can make it all go away. Don't you want that?” I could smell his sour breath—a mixture of tobacco and beer.
“I'm not a Dark Weaver,” I whispered. He tossed my face to the side, and my head struck the jagged stone wall. Blood trickled down my neck.
“Jorias!” another man outside the cell hissed harshly. Jorias man spat at me and left the cell to talk to the other man.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Jorias said very quietly. I shouldn’t have been able to hear him, but all my senses were heightened. They had been since I’d been thrown into the carriage.
“I recognize this girl. She’s Nazarie’s niece.”
“Then what is she doing outside of the Keep?”
“That’s exactly what we need to find out,” the other man said. “Either she is truly innocent or has been fooling her aunt for a decade.”
“We must proceed cautiously,” Jorias said in horror. “We can’t risk angering Nazarie.”
“The situation is too dangerous. We have to figure out what this Dark Weaver knows,” the other man said, cracking his knuckles. “I will see to it personally. Nazarie will understand.”
“Are you sure, Your Grace?”
“Nazarie won’t retaliate against a duke. Besides, if she has been sheltering the Promise, she’s been compromised. We need to figure this out.”
I must be hallucinating. My mind reached for any semblance of a recognizable pattern. There was no way that Nazarie could know these people. The two men continued to talk as they walked further away. Their voices melded into the silence. I was alone, but I could feel, despite the leagues that separated us, the red eyes watching, waiting, and listening.
For what, I did not know.
Chapter 14
Without the rising and setting of the sun, I couldn't tell how much time had passed. Every hour seemed to drag into the next one until the duke, I heard someone call him Kael, came to demand I tell him information I knew nothing about. He didn’t mention Nazarie again. I didn’t understand why they thought that I had fooled Nazarie, but I didn’t ask. I shouldn’t have been able to hear their conversation, and I didn’t want them to know that broken Mist fueled my senses. The Edge had augmented my ability to weave; a fact that would only cement Kael’s certainty in the evil he believed me to be.
In my cell there was a thin pallet and a chamber pot, but my chains kept me confined to the corner. They’d been loosened just enough to allow me to sit. How kind.
The darkness from The Edge was the only thing to keep me occupied. It clung to the Mist around me, dragging skeins of it toward me. Today, it was so strong, I could taste bile in my mouth, but it was only the evil inside. I poked at it. Played with it. Examined it. But it did not react. Perhaps the book could explain what this was. I needed to escape and find the book. Whatever had infected my Mist wasn’t good, but it was a part of me now.
I was given a sort of soup to eat. It was mostly water with a foul taste. Every time the same. Right after receiving the soup, Kael came in. He removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The beginning of our daily ritual. He looked down at me, his lip curling and nose wrinkling as if something stank. It probably was me.
“Who trained you in the ways of the Dark Weavers?” he would ask.
“No one. Just like I’ve told you every day.”
“How many of you are there in the Keep?”
“Since I’m not a Dark Weaver, I don’t know.”
Every day it was the same. I’d have expected him to change tactics or at least ask different questions. Instead, I changed tactics. I faked more weakness than I felt. I refused the feeble soup. They didn't know that the darkness was feeding me.
After he asked his questions, his hands lit up with purple crackling power just like they had the day before and countless ones before that. “Seriously,” I said, too sick of the routine to worry about his reaction and knowing that it couldn’t be worse than the torture he had planned. At least it might be different. “Don’t you have any other ability besides that? It’s a bit showy.”
He smacked me across my face. I pushed the darkness out from inside of me. The Mist block in the chains didn’t hold it back; it was too strong. It was a tidal wave against a sand wall. The dungeon shook. I realized that if I kept this up, I could topple the whole building down on top of us. At least it would end the torture. It would end the monotony. I was ready. Ready to die. My chains pulled free from the wall. The guards outside my cell scattered like pigeons, running in fear. I shouldn’t have been able to pull free of the chains, but they did not realize my new strength.
“Stop!” I heard Altis yelling. Perhaps I was losing my mind. But then he was beside me. It startled me. I stopped pulling the walls. The building’s shaking subsided, but dust that had shaken free from the stones churned in the air.
“What madness are you teasing me with?” I yelled, coughing. “You can’t stop me. I will bring this whole building down if you do not let me go.”
Altis knelt before me. “It’s me, Hailey. I’m here.” I knew it was Altis and not a trick of Kael’s. The darkness inside was surprised. Altis had come for me. I stopped fighting and collapsed into his arms. The red eyes blinked in confusion. Had it never experienced loyalty? Friendship? For a moment, I felt sorry for the eyes and whatever creature saw though them.
“He barged in,” Jorias explained, wringing his hands. “He’s a prince. I couldn’t—” Kael raised his hand and Jorias ceased sniveling.
Altis gave Kael the same belittling gaze that I’d seen him use so many times before. There was no doubt who outranked who. Even in this dungeon in the middle of Kael’s duchy, Altis had no fear. “As Lead Initiate of the Mist Weavers and a prince of Gryshelm you will release my Journeyman or risk assuming a charge of treason. My aunt knows we are here, so don’t try anything stupid.”
“Your Highness.” Kael bowed. “Surely you would not begrudge me questioning a prisoner?”
“Not if you held a legal prisoner.”
“She is accused of murder.”
“She was kidnapped,” Altis growled. “Anything done was in self-defense.”
“That’s all I am trying to ascertain.” Kael’s face twisted into a smile. More soldiers had filed into the tiny cell, waiting for orders. For a terrifying moment, I worried that Kael would retaliate and lock us both up. “But if Your Highness vouches for the young lady.” Kael was as slimy as the mold that coated the walls of the cell. His actions reminded me of the day Meena had sparred with Altis and the Warriors. She stayed harmless and unassuming for as long as possible in order to survive. And that’s what he was doing.
Kael waved his guards away and stepped back, allowing Altis to scoop me up into his arms. Altis barked orders as he carried me from the grimy garrison's prison and into the main part of the building. Was it a castle? I wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it was huge. White-faced maids in black-as-night pant suits scurried back and forth like squirrels preparing for winter, chirping the latest gossip to each other. Altis parading my broken body through the halls as Kael glided after him gave them much to chirp about.
Within minutes, we had been ushered to a suite of richly appointed rooms. But even our forest campsite would have seemed opulent in juxtaposition to the prison. A warm bath had been drawn. Altis placed me on a chair next to the robin’s egg-blue claw foot tub. He started to pull away, but I wrapped my arms around him, fingers interlocked behind his neck. He knelt down before the chair as I sobbed into his shoulder. After some time, I pulled back and wiped my face with the ragged sleeves of what remained of the nightgown I'd been wearing the night I'd raced after Altis into the arms of Kynna and her father. The man I'd killed.
“You ready to get cleaned up?” Altis said as he smoothed my knotted hair back from my face.
I nodded. Altis stood up. “Wait!” I called out frantically. “Don't leave me.”
He immediately knelt back in front of me. “I won't,” he promised. “I'm going to stand around the corner so you can get washed up. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said as he walked a few steps away and turned around so that his back was to me. Shakily, I tried to raise my nightgown above my head but my arms weren't quite cooperating. One of the two maids attending helped get it off, wrinkling her nose at the stench.
I ran my fingertips through the bubbles and over the top of the water. It felt as lush as velvet. I dipped my foot and the rest of my body into the water. The warmth felt heavenly against my skin and the bubbles smelled of lavender. I thought of my mother. Brown hair flowing in the wind, green eyes sparkling with life. I touched a particularly large bubble. It shattered at my touch.
The maid gasped, which made me jump. Altis spun around, his hand clenching the hilt of his sword.
“Dirty!” The maid said with a horrified tone. “Out!”
I looked down at the water. Through the bubbles, the water looked as murky as the slime on the stones in the garrison prison. I obliged and cloaked myself in the fluffy towel as more water and a new towel were brought in.
We had to repeat that another time before the maid was satisfied and allowed me to be scrubbed with a vanilla-scented bar of soap.
After the bath, I was told to lie on a table so that I could be massaged and oiled, but touch hurt too much. I bade them to all leave me alone. Altis tried to Heal my injuries, but they were too copious for him, so he made Kael provide us with his personal Healer. I recognized the Healer as one of the men who had been there when I had destroyed the wagon.
“Only the person who had given the order would be culpable for past actions,” Altis said and glared firmly at the Healer at the word “past.” The Healer’s face blanched, but he quickly rega
ined composure and proceeded to work on me, mouth moving, muttering nearly silent incantations to pull the Mist and coax it to fix me.
It was fairly obvious by his curt manner and the way his eyes narrowed when they met mine than he resented mending what his master had broken. And if a Healer found it this sickening to help me, I could only assume that many of Kael’s other Weavers didn’t take Altis at his word and perhaps truly believed that I was some sort of Dark Weaver. I wondered how many of them felt a closer loyalty to Kael than to Altis. Of everything, this concerned me the most. Why would any Weaver have a loyalty to anyone but the Lead Initiate? Even Nazarie would never undermine Altis so blatantly. I asked Altis after the Healer had left.
“It’s just the Weavers of Tabor,” Altis said dismissively, as if it didn’t matter.
“And?”
“That’s how they are. But Kael will obey and the others will follow. I don’t care if they are happy with it.”
“Wait. I’ve heard of Tabor. The library’s history is legendary. During the Dark Ages, they used a hidden exit to transport hundreds of books to safety. It’s one of my favorite stories and why this library has so much knowledge. Even Nazarie has traveled to research in this library.”
“I’m surprised you’d never met Kael before. Nazarie and Kael are supposedly very… close,” Altis said.
I recoiled. “That can’t be right. She would never associate herself with someone as vile as Kael.”
Altis shrugged. “It’s the rumor.”
“Well, it’s obviously false. Nazarie would have told me,” I fumed. She couldn’t have carried on an affair in secret. She had told me on several occasions that she didn’t have time for men. Her work kept her far too busy.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. It is just a rumor.” Altis smiled down sweetly at me. I could swim in his gaze forever. I felt safe. He was stubborn and arrogant, but I knew it was a disguise to cover his insecurity. For the first time, I found it charming. His cheeks reddened slightly and he broke eye contact. “You really need to rest,” he murmured.
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