I try to open my eyes, but they’re crusty and pasted shut. After a few false starts, I finally succeed in pulling my lids apart. The light is blinding and knifes into my eyes.
There are people in the room, or at least the shadowy shapes of them. They’re talking in a dreamlike, slowed way and loose words float toward me, like so many soap bubbles.
Lupines. Escape. Full Moon.
I struggle to knit the words into a coherent thought with my sluggish brain. The world sloshes when I move my head from side to side, but the people start a slow pull into focus.
Several Gardnerian soldiers.
An older, white-bearded Gardnerian man.
Aunt Vyvian.
I blink repeatedly as the fuzzy outlines became sharper, the voices clearer, but I’m disturbingly unable to fully connect with my own body. I struggle to open my mouth, but it won’t budge.
“They left her behind,” my aunt is saying to the white-bearded Gardnerian, a stern-faced man with the Physicians’ Guild crest on his tunic. “She may not have any knowledge of this. Elloren, wake up!”
I try to speak again, my lips like heavy stone.
My aunt leans over to peer at me closely. “Where did your brothers go, Elloren?”
“She can’t answer,” the white-bearded physician says. “The poison hasn’t worn off yet. We’ll have to wait.”
“There is no time!” Aunt Vyvian snipes. The physician withers under her fierce censure.
Slowly, the previous night’s events seep back into my mind, each new thought like a fresh wound opening.
“Where did they go, Elloren?” my aunt demands. “Where?”
Again and again she interrogates me, not bothering to hide the threatening edge to her tone. My heart begins to beat more strongly, and a sharp fear washes over me. Danger. There is danger here.
All at once, reality slams into me with the force of a gale wind.
My head immediately starts to pound as if hit by a hammer over and over and over. I cry out in agony, my hands flying to my head. I force myself up, desperate for a change in orientation to lessen the pain, vertigo overtaking me as the room tilts. I drop my head between my knees and moan in distress.
“Where did you brothers go?” Aunt Vyvian presses.
Slam, slam, slam goes the pounding in my head. I try to hear around the pain, try to respond, but the pain is everywhere.
“My head!” I cry, clutching at my sweat-soaked hair, digging my nails into my scalp.
It all rushes back—everything that’s happened. And I remember that I have to focus. I have to lie to her.
“What happened to me?” I whimper.
“You’ve been poisoned,” the physician states in a carefully calm tone.
“Poisoned?” I ask, faking great disbelief.
“Yes,” he gravely affirms.
“By who? Aughh! Oh, Ancient One!” I flop down on my side, clutching at my head. They try to talk to me, to interrogate me, but it all fades into background noise again, fighting to be heard around the pain.
I catch snippets of what they’re trying to tell me as I grasp at my scalp: Fernyllia Hawthorne responsible, poison in the food, everyone sickened—Gardnerian and Verpacian soldiers, scholars, workers. Lupines gone. Rafe and Trystan gone. Vu Trin sorceresses and Elfhollen and some Urisk gone. Amaz horse-physician and his professor mother gone with stolen horses, all the rest of the University and military horses scattered to the wilds. Gone. All gone.
Fifteen Gardnerian soldiers are dead. The University groundskeeper is dead, viciously decapitated. The ears pulled clear off a group of Third Division Gardnerian military apprentices. All of this havoc wreaked by the savage Lupine female.
Fernyllia, executed this morning. The Eastern Pass shut down. Rafe and Trystan Banished. Never would have happened if they’d been fasted and raised by Aunt Vyvian instead of Uncle Edwin.
“Where are they? Where are they? Where are they, Elloren?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
And then, silence as I writhe in pain.
Oh, Ancient One, Fernyllia! You saved everyone and they killed you for it...
“Why are you crying?” my aunt snarls.
“The pain!” I lie, racked by the staggering loss of Fernyllia, each lie slicing straight through my heart like jagged glass.
“I don’t think she knows where her brothers are,” the physician says to Aunt Vyvian.
“Of course she doesn’t,” my aunt snaps. “Rafe and Trystan didn’t tell her anything. They were under the thrall of the Lupines. That’s why they let their own sister be poisoned.”
They question me for what seems like an eternity, while my head splits in two along with my heart. And then they leave me alone to wrestle with the pain.
Finally, I give up and pass out.
* * *
Hours later, I’m still shaking from the aftereffects of the poison, my skin clammy, my balance off. Lightning flashes in the night sky visible through the windows of my Bathe Hall lodging.
Aunt Vyvian sits before me on another velvet-cushioned chair, a fire crackling in the fireplace beside us. I clutch at the cup of bitter Borsythian tonic Aunt Vyvian had an apothecary brew for me, feeling hollowed out and broken.
“I never imagined your brothers would go so terribly wrong,” she rages, her emerald eyes searing.
Trystan. Rafe. Where are you right now?
Her cruel words skewer into my heart. I miss Rafe and Trystan so much already I don’t know how I’m going to bear this new Realm without them.
“Rafe was turning out to be a bad one,” she seethes, “running around with that Lupine bitch. But Trystan.” A look of wounded betrayal flashes across her features. “I never imagined.”
She looks to me, uncharacteristically distraught, as if there might be some clue in my gaze as to how things went so horribly wrong.
They’re gone. Almost everyone I love—gone.
The finality of it is too much to bear, and I’m not prepared for the force of my grief. I start to cry, letting the tears fall freely, knowing she’ll assume I’m crying over my brothers’ betrayal.
Aunt Vyvian’s face contorts into a hateful grimace. “It’s your mother’s blood. That’s what caused this.”
I look up at her, startled, her mention of my mother momentarily halting the flow of tears. Aunt Vyvian shakes her head and glares off into the middle distance, as if a terrible, perfect clarity has descended.
“Tessla Harrow.” She hisses my mother’s name with such venomous loathing that it stuns me. “That Downriver girl. Raised around Kelts... Urisk. You wouldn’t believe how Keltish she was when she first came to Valgard. And she never shook her low-class ways.”
She bites out the words. “And Rafe looks exactly like her. Trystan... He resembles your father a bit more, but the Downriver blood ruined him in the end.” She looks to me, her expression of hatred softening, her eyes glassing over. “But not you, Elloren. You look so much like Vale. And exactly like Mother.”
She nods to herself, as if affirming her own argument. “You have the blood of our line, not your mother’s. That’s why you’re good and pure, and your brothers are so bad.” Her expression turns bitterly rueful. “If only you had our legacy of power. But it’s in you, and it will manifest in your children.” She nods to herself again as if our salvation is assured. “You’ll fast to Lukas and you’ll redeem our family name.”
I inwardly draw back from her, stunned and outraged, a remembrance of my mother’s smiling face filling my mind, my father’s kind presence.
You witch, I silently rage. You cruel, elitist witch.
“Did you know your father fasted to that Downriver girl out of pity?” she snipes, a volcanic fury simmering in her eyes.
“No,” I force out in a wavering voice.
“Oh, yes. Sh
e was trying to whore herself out to a Kelt. No one else wanted her. So, my brother foolishly stepped in and fasted to her. That’s the type of blood your brothers have in their veins.”
“What...what do you mean?” I’m practically light-headed with confusion.
“Your mother wanted to run off with a Kelt,” Aunt Vyvian spits out. “At the same time the Kelts were rounding up Gardnerians for slaughter.”
What? No. You’re wrong. She loved my father.
“He’s a professor here, that Kelt,” she grinds out. “Or was.” Aunt Vyvian gives a small, hateful laugh. “But not anymore.”
“Which professor?” I ask.
Her lip twitches. “Jules Kristian.”
Shock blasts through me. No. That can’t be true.
“None of these heathens should be allowed to teach at a University,” she seethes. “You wouldn’t believe what our soldiers found in Jules Kristian’s office—proof of a web of illegal activity stretching clear across the Realm.”
“Where is he?” I ask breathlessly. “What happened to him?”
“They haven’t found him yet,” she answers, her face clouding with frustration. “But when they do, he’ll be arrested. And I’ll personally oversee his sentencing.”
Vertigo assaults me. Where are you, Jules? Could any of this be true? Why didn’t you ever tell me?
“I’ll never forget that man’s name,” Aunt Vyvian rages. “And I’ll never forget the night Vale fasted to that woman. That’s the type of trash your father brought into this family. And now look. Just look at what it’s wrought.”
A mounting anger takes hold.
My mother wasn’t trash, you wicked thing.
Aunt Vyvian rises to her feet and picks her black calfskin gloves up from the small table beside her, her eyes full of pent-up fury, her gaze boring down on me as I struggle to keep my face impassive.
“I have to leave for Valgard to try and undo some of the horrific damage your brothers have wreaked,” she tells me, her voice tight, barely controlled. “It’s going to be up to you, Elloren, to save our family’s legacy. You’re staying here. And you are to spend as much time as you can with Lukas Grey. I’ll be back in two weeks’ time, and you will have secured a fasting date and your uncle’s permission. No more waiting. No more of your uncle’s games.” Her gaze hardens with a malice that sends a chill racing down my spine. “You can inform your uncle that if you do not fast to Lukas within three weeks’ time, I am cutting you both off completely. What little funds he once had are gone. So, you’ll both be on the street if you do not obey me in this. Do you understand?”
I will defy you in every last thing, you monstrous hag.
I force my expression into a mask of somber obedience. “Yes, Aunt Vyvian.”
She searches my face, as if scrutinizing for a chink in my deference. Seemingly finding none, she looks me up and down, no doubt taking in my sickly coloring, rumpled hair and miserable expression. A trace of sympathy lights her gaze.
“I’m sorry your brothers did this to you, Elloren. They’ve been Banished from Gardneria and from this family. We’ll speak of them no more.”
She sweeps out of the room, and I jump at the sound of the door slamming behind her.
I wait and wait, gripping the edge of my chair as fire sparks along my lines. I wait until I can’t hear her confident steps anymore. Wait until I imagine she’s in her carriage and pulling away, my breathing constricted and uneven, anger cycloning around and around inside me. My rage rapidly overtakes my frail, poison-hammered body, straining like an avalanche about to give way.
In a heated rush, I spring to my feet, grab the vase of roses beside me and hurl it at the fireplace with a growling cry. The vase explodes into a crystalline shatter, glass and flowers flying everywhere, some of the blooms bursting into flames in the fireplace.
I stand there, fists clenched, not caring about the flaming rose smoldering too near the edge of the rug.
What am I going to do? I agonize, tears streaking down my face.
Gareth is gone, my fasting backup plan gone with him, and the mandatory fasting deadline is only weeks away. But I can’t flee while Uncle Edwin is sickly and needs my care.
My mind spins, grasping for a solution.
I’ll look at the fasting registry, I desperately consider. I’ll find a young man who isn’t in the military. Then I’ll get Uncle Edwin’s approval, and keep it from Aunt Vyvian somehow...
How? I argue against myself. She’d know immediately. The Mage Council offices are overrun with her sycophants.
Suddenly, it’s like the walls are closing in on me, and I can barely breathe. I can’t be here anymore, in this stifling Gardnerian place. I want the North Tower. I want to be inside its familiar stone walls.
Even if only the ghostly imprint of my friends and family remains.
CHAPTER TWELVE
EALAIONTORA
I stumble through the night-darkened University streets toward the North Tower, the poison-wrought anvil in my head reduced to a fuzzy, rhythmic discomfort that keeps time with my heartbeat.
At the base of the long, sloping field, I slow to a stop as lightning flashes in cloud-muted bursts, but still no rain.
The field is empty.
The Vu Trin are gone from Verpacia, and the Gardnerian soldiers have been stationed elsewhere, their scattered detritus littering the muddied earth.
The North Tower’s cold, dark silhouette is stark against the night sky—empty and forgotten. On its door is painted a bloodred Gardnerian blessing star.
Sorrow lances through me at the sight of it. And a knife-sharp sense of violation.
I’ve seen this mark before. On places Gardnerians have marked as spiritually polluted. Places to avoid because of the stain of the Evil Ones.
Outrage pierces through me as I press on up the rocky central path, a chill wind kicking up and cutting into me. I reach the base of the North Tower and push my hand against the door, which is slightly ajar. The hinges squeak in protest at my intrusion.
I step inside, the hallway pitch-dark, with only the occasional flashes of lightning to illuminate the spiraling staircase. Navigating from memory, I’m halfway up the stairs when the sound of murmuring from upstairs catches my attention.
I freeze as fear snaps through my blood.
Who could possibly be here?
I hear the muffled voice again. A male voice. I can just make out the High Alfsigr inflection.
My heart leaps in my chest. Cael?
I quietly pad up the stairs and through the upstairs hall, speeding up as I draw near our lodging, becoming overwhelmingly certain that it’s Wynter’s brother I’m hearing.
I peer inside the room and shock jettisons through me.
Wynter is huddled limply in a corner, her eyes vacant, her wings wrapped tightly around herself. Ariel’s raven is perched on the rafter above her, and Ariel is crouched protectively in front of Wynter, hissing at Cael, who stands before them. Slender Rhys hovers nearby, his look of desolation taking me aback.
Everyone turns to look at me as a whirlwind of conflicting emotions explodes inside of me. Overwhelming joy to see them again rapidly gives way to staggering fear.
They can’t be here. Verpacia has fallen, and soon it will take on the laws of Gardneria—laws that now mandate the imprisonment of Icarals.
“What happened?” I ask Cael, my heart hammering. “Why in the Ancient One’s name are you here? Cael, it’s not safe.”
Cael’s expression is ominously bleak. “My sister,” he says. “She has been shunned from Alfsigroth. All Icarals have been.”
I pull in a hard breath as Cael’s words crash home. I know what this means. If Wynter has been banned from Alfsigr lands, then she’ll be killed if she sets foot inside their borders.
“Our rulers are calling for a stricter adherence t
o our sacred texts,” Cael tells me. “And our sacred teachings call for the deaths of all Deargdul—the Winged Ones. Our High Priestess has always sounded the call for the casting out of my sister, but it was never acted upon until now. But with Realm-wide war on the horizon, our people grow superstitious. They have not only shunned my sister—they have also threatened to shun every Alfsigr who aids her. My parents and the rest of our kin have disowned her. It is like your people’s Banishment. I fear there will be a call for her to be hunted down.”
I feel myself blanching. “Sweet Ancient One... Cael...”
“If there is a formal call for her death,” Cael says, “they will send out the Marfoir.”
“The Marfoir?” I haltingly ask.
“Alfsigr assassins,” Cael says, stone hard.
My stomach quails as a dread-filled silence falls over the room. Cael looks around aimlessly, then sets his silver gaze back on me. “This is the only place we could think of where an Icaral could safely stay.” Cael’s brow creases, his words tinged with disgust. “I know your people will avoid coming to this ‘polluted’ place.”
Ariel shoots Cael an eviscerating look, completely missing the bitter sarcasm in his tone.
“Have you and Rhys been shunned, too?” I look toward Cael’s pale, quiet second.
“Not yet,” Cael says. “But it may come to that.”
I glance over at Wynter, who seems to be in a state of shock, staring out into nothing.
“Wynter, I’m so sorry,” I say to her, but she doesn’t respond. “I’ve never seen her like this,” I tell Cael and Rhys.
“She loves our people,” Cael says, his elegant voice breaking. “To the point where I believe she would give her life for them.” Sorrow lances through his expression. “She should be an Ealaiontora. Yet the Alfsigr turn their backs on her.”
I send him a questioning look.
“It is difficult to translate,” Cael tells me. “An Ealaiontora is...a great artist. And yet...it is even more than this.”
“An Ealaiontora is a prophet,” Rhys says softly, catching me off guard. He’s always been so silent, so watchful. His voice is gentle and heavily accented, all the sharp edges of his speech rounded off, like they’ve been smoothed by flowing water.
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