by Megg Jensen
This was beyond cruel. Beyond anything I’d ever experienced. Even Ivy’s manipulations hadn’t been this serious. These people kidnapped my dead body, supposedly severed me from my gift, and held me captive only to promise another death - this one real.
Tears were for the weak and I’d gone through too much to let myself fall to pieces. Every single time I’d been in trouble, I’d been bailed out by someone else. First Tania, then Mark, Ella, Nemison, Krissin, and even Eloh. No more. It was time for me to make my own plan and stand up to them. I’d gone along with everyone else’s plans for too long. Still, I was in trouble and so were my people.
I’d never roll over for anyone again.
I curled my fingers into a ball and closed my eyes. I couldn’t reach Mark and even if I could, I had nothing to tell him. I had no clue where I was, other than the chill in the air. The Northern Kingdom was huge. He could search for months and not find me. No, it would be too late. I had only myself to rely on.
The door creaked open and Ivy walked in, her eyes downcast. She’d always walked proudly, even when she was upset. This posture was so uncharacteristic. They’d done something to her here. I couldn’t believe Kandek would have employed the type of torture it would take to make Ivy act so submissive.
“Why are you back?” I didn’t hide the contempt in my tone. Ivy had destroyed any friendship we’d had when she plotted to have me captured by my father. I owed her absolutely nothing.
“I’ve been ordered to make sure you’re soothed at all times.” Her voice sounded weak, exhausted. Her eyelids drooped as she sank into the chair next to me. I waited to feel something, anything, but I didn’t. Ivy, the old Ivy who had been my childhood best friend, was dead to me. This woman in front of me was nothing other than another one of my captors.
“How about hydrated? Are you supposed to keep me alive?” I pointed to the jug of water by the window. “Can you fetch me a cup of water?”
Ivy sighed. “Have you even tried walking? You can do it, you know. I’m not your servant Reychel.”
I looked down at my legs, dangling over the edge of the bed, and flexed my calf muscles. To my surprise they moved up and down, feeling just as fit as ever. I looked at Ivy and she shook her head.
“Zuri’s gift makes you believe anything she says when you look her in the eyes. Your legs are just fine.”
I nodded, trying not to look too upset. Zuri had also told me I was severed. She’d been lying. I knew it. I just didn’t know why she wanted me to believe that when it wasn’t true. I slid off the bed and walked, on unsteady legs, to the jug of water.
Grabbing the wooden handle, I poured the water into a cup and took a tentative sip. “How did they feed and keep me hydrated while I was...” I traced my fingers over the cup’s handle “...dead?”
I hated using that word.
“They fed you and gave you water to drink. It was grueling for the servants. Zuri wouldn’t allow you to die so they spent hours every day coaxing your inert body to swallow. You haven’t eaten a lot of solid food until recently. It was very strange, Reychel. As if your body cooperated, but your eyes remained closed. I’ve never seen anything like it. There was also another gifted person in here healing you every day, so you should be okay.”
I filled the cup again and carried it over to the bed. I was tired and my body felt weak, particularly my stomach. It spun round and round as a bout of nausea spread through my chest. I sat down and took another sip of water, concentrating on a small speck of dirt on the floor. Over the course of a few seconds, the nausea abated.
“Oh good, you’re not going to throw up again,” Ivy said. “You threw up a lot for a few weeks. Zuri thought you might be dying for real. But here you are.”
“Don’t sound so thrilled,” I said. I tested my legs again and stood up. Steady this time. I didn’t feel a drop of nausea. It was odd, though. Usually when the nausea came on, it was related to an oncoming vision or one of the headaches that came after. My stomach fluttered as I gingerly stepped back to the bed.
“Reychel, I never wanted you dead. Despite what you may believe about me, I’m not nearly as evil as the people who are holding us here.”
“Us?”
“Yes, us. I’m not free to leave either. They took me from Kandek’s dungeon and brought me here to soothe you. None of them have my ability and they were afraid if you woke up angry, you might destroy them. With my gift I was able to ensure your cooperation. But it’s not like I can leave now.”
Ivy ran her hand over her head, just as bald as when we were children. Growing up, the two of us had shaved our heads daily, as a sign of our status as slaves. But when we’d escaped my father’s castle, we’d both had an opportunity to grow hair. I’d forgotten about Ivy’s new blonde hair, until I noticed it was gone.
“They’re keeping you as a slave?”
She nodded, her eyes downcast. I didn’t buy it for one minute. She’d fooled me before. Our entire childhood friendship had been a lie. It would take more than a shaved head and claims of slavery for me to ever believe anything she ever said.
“That alone should make you trust me, Reychel. You know what it’s like to be a slave and then taste the sweet fruit of freedom. Maybe I took it too far last year. I eroded any trust we ever had between us. All because of a boy’s affections.”
So few people knew how close Mark and I had become. Even less knew we had been bonded. I wouldn’t be the one to share it with her. My hand went directly to my finger, searching for the ring Mark had given me, but it was gone too. Somehow they took away our bond and our ring, but it didn’t change my feelings for him. They were just as intense as ever.
“None of that matters now,” Ivy continued. “We both have lost so much. It seems all we have left is each other, especially since your father is dead too.”
“Kandek is dead?” My heart dropped into my stomach. “When?”
“When Alia took the castle. He tried to fight her, but her gift was stronger than his steel.”
I glanced around the room again and strained my neck toward the window. “Where are we? Am I home?”
Ivy nodded. “Yes, this is the castle we grew up in. Alia took it for her stronghold.”
I couldn’t believe all of this happened while I’d been out. I wish I knew why Johna’s concoction kept me under for so long. Maybe if I’d come back sooner, I could have done something, or helped somehow. Anger coursed through my veins, screaming at me to hit Ivy, or worse, but I held it back. I didn’t want her to know my feelings. She would never be allowed to have the upper hand with me ever again.
“What I don’t understand is how you remember everything. They severed you. I witnessed it. They were all quite confident they’d felt something snap in your gift and they couldn’t detect it afterward. They warned me you wouldn’t know who I was or remember anything about our past. Yet, here we are, having a conversation that shows you clearly know everything about your past. Can you access your gift?”
I weighed my options carefully. If I told her I could, then she would most certainly tell them. It could be her ticket out of slavery. If I told her no, then I would buy myself more time to figure out how to get out of this situation.
“I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t tried. It’s not like my gift was ever useful anyway.” That much was true. I hadn’t tried yet, but somehow I knew I could reach it. My gift was stronger than ever. I just needed to be alone to try it out.
“And yet you remember everything. It’s strange.” Ivy started at me. “I won’t tell them, Reychel. Maybe we can find a way out of here together. You just need to trust me.”
“Do you promise to never touch me again?” I stared at her hands, the conduit of her gift. Without them she couldn’t control me. Simply touching me was enough for her gift to control my emotions, to make me trust her, to make me want her around. I hadn’t forgotten how she’d soothed two bandits in the forest during our escape. Her hands did not make any physical contact with them, but I never kn
ew if she controlled them from so far away because they were weak or because she was strong. Now that I knew I could feel her gift working on me, I would be prepared.
“I swear I won’t ever touch you again, Reychel. Not unless you ask me to.”
I snorted and cursed myself for not holding it back. I needed Ivy to trust me, and to trust my faith in her. Without it, I might never escape. I needed her as an ally, but I would never trust her again.
My eyes met Ivy’s. The hurt flowed from her downturned mouth. I wanted to laugh again. How could she even expect me to trust her so quickly? After everything she’d done to me, she should have considered herself lucky I even spoke to her.
“I don’t think I will need you to soothe me ever again, Ivy. If you want me to trust you, you must swear it again.”
“I swear on my life, Reychel. I will never soothe you again.”
Her blue eyes swam with tears. False tears? Perhaps, but until I knew what game she was playing with me, I needed her. I couldn’t escape alone.
Chapter Eleven
After Ivy fell asleep on a rug in the corner of the room, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed again. This time I was determined to walk around without unsteadiness or nausea. We’d spent the rest of the day in an amicable silence. I didn’t want to talk to her or hear what had happened to her since I’d ripped the wig off her head during her wedding to my father.
Nor did I care how she’d been treated in the dungeon or how she’d been rescued. If she’d been liberated from my father’s dungeon, surely it wasn’t his idea. There must have been a battle, or some kind of trickery. She’d made a fool of him and he couldn’t let her go on purpose without further damaging his political position.
When I found out he’d known my whole life that I was gifted and used me to further his career, I knew then that nothing came before his position in Serenia. He lived and breathed politics and rank. Nothing, not even his own daughter, was more important than how he looked to the rest of the country. But now I’d never know for sure what his intentions were.
He never would have let Ivy go. Never.
As I stepped across the floor, trying not only to steady myself, but also to keep from making any sound that might alert Ivy, I talked myself into not shaking Ivy awake and begging her for any information about my father. He’d used me, but it was the only way he could have protected me too. My heart wanted to believe that deep down, somewhere inside his black soul, he loved me.
I crept past Ivy, her palms together, tucked under her pillow-less head. For a moment I felt sorry for her, but I quickly brushed it away. She was probably treated better up here than down below in my father’s dungeon. I’d spent time in there, a small amount of time, but enough to know that a room with carpets and fresh water far exceeded any hospitality he had offered to prisoners.
Moonlight broke through an errant cloud and I stood, surrounded by its unearthly glow. My stomach gurgled, but I didn’t feel a trace of nausea. I placed my hand over my abdomen and smiled. Perhaps I could beat the nausea after all.
I sat down on a plain wooden chair, flanked by the window and the small table. I poured a mug of water and relaxed into the back of the chair as the cool liquid streamed down my throat. I greedily took another drink. Building up my strength wouldn’t be easy, but I needed to be sure I was completely rehydrated. Anything less and I couldn’t perform at my best.
Staring out the window at the cloud that just uncovered the moon, I set the mug back on the table. No one could prove I’d been severed. Even though I’d rarely been able to call my gift, I needed to try again. I felt it; I felt something.
I steadied my breathing, in through the nose and out through the mouth, and focused on the cloud. It lazily floated across the blackened sky, illuminated only by the shine and sparkle of the moon. I stared at the cloud, my eyes slack and unfocused, willing a vision to come.
But there was nothing. I couldn’t reach inside to that part of me that held my gift. I could still feel it, coursing through me like a river, but I couldn’t quite grab a hold of it.
I sighed and placed my hand on my stomach again. For a moment, I wished for the nausea that always came hand-in-hand with my gift since I’d travelled to the Southern Kingdom. Again, nothing.
Pulling a blanket off the back of the chair, I wrapped it around my shoulders and snuggled into it. I knew by the chill in the air that I was home, back in the Northern Kingdom.
The Southern Kingdom had never seen snow. Krissin complained enough about moving the army north to what she called the “barren farthest reaches of civilization, blanketed by the most horrible cold white snow.” I tried to correct her, telling her that snow was the one thing I’d wanted to see most of my life, but never experienced due to my confinement.
Ivy once brought back a bucket filled with snow after an errand. We made snowballs and threw them at each other in the slave quarters until it melted into puddles of water. We laughed as we cleaned up the mess before the other slaves ventured back for the night. It was one of those moments I’d always believed Ivy and I had been closest. I glanced back at her on the floor and the expression on her face tugged at my heart.
We’d shared a bed as children and known each other’s deepest secrets. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night and memorizing each line on her face, knowing that it was the face of my best friend, my greatest ally. For so many years, Ivy was the only person I’d ever believed in, ever trusted. To have all of that thrown in my face so cruelly destroyed any love I had for her.
I shook my head, reminding myself of everything she’d done to me. I knew I couldn’t trust her. I knew it in my bones and in my heart. As a child, when nightmares plagued me deep in the night, I had woken up, scared and confused. Ivy held me in her arms and stroked my head. She told me everything would be okay, that the demons would never get close to me while she was around.
I just didn’t know it then that she was the demon and I couldn’t let myself forget it now. Reconciling the two had been easy when I was far away from Ivy. But now that she was here with me again, my resolve wavered for a moment. I let myself see the young girl who had brought me daisies and told me how it felt to walk in a rainstorm.
Right before she tried to marry my father, she told me she’d known for years that I was the Prophet and that Kandek was essentially holding me prisoner. She told me she’d used me. Jealousy drove her to pretend to be my friend, to get close to me so someday she could use me.
And she did. She ripped my world to pieces and nearly destroyed my friends. All because of jealousy over my gift. I was the Prophet and she wasn’t. If she knew the curse I’d suffered because of it, the weight I bore for a gift I’d never asked for, never wanted, maybe she would have felt differently. All of those moments we shared could have been the cement that kept us friends forever. Instead it was all a lie.
I had never considered Kandek’s castle my home. Ivy had been my home. She had been my anchor in a turbulent life. I’d defeated her once and now, here she was, asking me to trust her.
Never. If I did and she betrayed me again, the curse of my gift and its possibility of making me insane would be nothing compared to the anguish I would feel after another betrayal from Ivy.
I stood again and walked back to my bed. Staring out the window so late at night had hastened my exhaustion. I’d been asleep for so long, months if I believed Zuri and Ivy, that I had no desire to ever do it again. I laid my head on the pillow, feeling the comfort and softness of the goose feathers inside. I knew the tangy smell, I’d slept on them my whole life. There were no geese in the Southern Kingdom. Their pillows were made from scraps of cloth stuffed inside a case.
I snuggled into the pillow and glanced at the window again. I saw the clouds from bed. I squinted, trying one more time to bring on a vision.
I threw myself against the door to my cell in the dungeon. Sickening smells assaulted me from all directions and I tugged at my hair again, pulling out a clump. I threw it on the floor n
ext to the others.
“Let me out of here!” I screamed, raging against the stone walls. Dragging my ragged fingernails down the stone wall and leaving a trail of blood in their wake, I wailed once more. “Let me out!”
I threw my back against the wall, and slowly, slid down to the floor, resting on my bottom. I glanced up at the small bars in the door and saw a pair of eyes staring at me. They were sad eyes, and eyes I recognized, but couldn’t place.
“I’ll let you out again when the madness subsides. It always does, Reychel. Please don’t forget. Please come back to us.”
I jolted up and pulled the covers up tight around my chin, fear creeping through my body. I’d gotten the vision I’d tried so hard for, but it wasn’t anything like the others. Was that really what I’d be like after the madness set in? Outside of the vision, I recognized those eyes. Mark’s. While in it, all I felt was the despair, the horror, the feeling of being undead and lost to myself. I couldn’t live with myself if that was my true future. I had to find a way to stop it.
As I drifted off, I noticed a small fluttering in my stomach. Of course I was nervous. Anyone would be after a vision like that. I repeated over and over to myself, It’s not real. I can change it.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning I awoke to the smell of steamed porridge and freshly baked bread. I sat up slowly, the nausea back again. Ivy rushed over to my side with a chunk of bread in her hand.
“Here, eat this before you get up. It’ll make you feel better.”
I nodded and smiled, pushing away the turmoil of my thoughts from the night before. I resolved to pretend to trust Ivy. I needed to. Even if she was a snake, she was my only ally. If it was true that she was also being held captive, we might be able to trust each other long enough to escape.
Ripping off a bite of bread with my teeth, I let it soak in my mouth before chewing it. Ivy was right. It did help my nausea abate somewhat, at least enough that I could push myself up to a seated position.