by Morgan Rice
Sophia, my love, he wrote, if this reaches you, know that I have tried all I could to get to you. I put aside my family, and tried to find a ship to Ishjemme, but my brother has seized me and locked me away in a townhouse in Ashton. Even if I never see you again, I want you to know that I love you more than life. Sebastian.
He finished writing it and passed it to Julia, who tucked it away carefully in the folds of her dress, hiding it as well as she could.
“If this gets to her,” Sebastian said, “she will be able to help us both. I know she will.”
The servant nodded, although she clearly didn’t share Sebastian’s certainty. “I have to go,” she said. “I didn’t think it would take this long.”
“I understand,” Sebastian said. He took her hand through the bars. “Thank you, Julia.”
She hurried away, taking the candle with her. Sebastian heard the barrels moving back into place. That was when he heard the one sound he’d been hoping he wouldn’t: the heavier tread of a guard. He heard Julia’s sound of surprise, and possibly pain, straining to hear the words that followed.
“What are you doing down here?”
Sebastian froze in fear at that voice, because it wasn’t a guard’s. Rupert’s voice came through the walls, and even though Sebastian threw himself against the bars, there was nothing he could do.
“Cook sent me to fetch vegetables, sir,” Julia replied. To Sebastian, the lie didn’t sound very convincing, but maybe that was just his fears talking. The world seemed to hold still for a moment.
Then Julia shrieked in sudden pain.
“Do you think I’m stupid, girl? What do you have there?”
“No… please…”
There was another sound of pain, and then the scrape of the barrels, followed by the flare of a light. Rupert approached, holding the scrap of paper Sebastian had written his message on. He had blood on his hands as he tossed it contemptuously through the bars.
“The girl is going to suffer for your actions,” Rupert said.
“This is my fault,” Sebastian said, “not hers.”
“And the best way to make you suffer is to hurt the people around you,” Rupert shot back. “You care about them too much. Besides, I wouldn’t hurt my own brother. Yet.”
Sebastian threw himself at the bars, reaching through them to try to grab Rupert. His brother just laughed and stepped out of the way.
“I wonder, if I offered you your freedom now, would you take it?” Rupert asked. “What if I offered you your little accomplice too? Would you promise to leave and not come back?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. He even meant it. Let Rupert have the throne. He just wanted to get to Ishjemme to be with Sophia. He wanted the people who trusted him to be safe.
“I actually believe you,” Rupert said. “But it doesn’t work like that. You’ll continue to rot here. This is your second lesson, brother. You won’t like it if there is a third.”
He turned and stalked away, ignoring Sebastian.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Enough, enough,” Emeline said, as she and Cora kept training. She stepped back, narrowly avoiding a blow from a training weapon, and raised her hands. “Keep going with Aidan if you want, but I’m exhausted.”
She stepped over to the side, where Asha was waiting for her. The leader of Stonehome’s fighters raised an eyebrow.
You’re doing well, Emeline, but you shouldn’t be losing to someone without your gifts.
I didn’t lose, Emeline pointed out. I’m exhausted, and anyway, if Cora is learning well, surely that’s a good thing?
Asha didn’t reply, so Emeline turned her attention to where Cora was now practicing with Aidan again. Even without looking at her thoughts, Emeline could see just how happy Cora was to be around him. She was laughing as she fought now, and even though she was losing, because Aidan had been training much longer, Emeline could see her getting better with the light practice blade.
“If you don’t have the strength for sword work,” Asha said, “perhaps you’d like to learn to use your gifts more skillfully?”
“You could teach me to do that?” Emeline asked.
She saw Asha nod. “Some things are about affinity, talent, or knack, but many of them are just about the manipulation of power. You were able to give power to the stones, but there are other things you could do. Wiping away some of the thoughts of another, for example.”
“That’s possible?” Emeline asked. “But why would I need to?”
“Well,” Asha said, “there’s the matter of some of the things your friend is thinking about Aidan there being broadcast to the world. You could tone those down a little.”
Emeline refused to be embarrassed. “Well, no one is making you read her thoughts.”
“And no one is stopping me, either. With practice, she might be able to learn to defend herself that way, of course. But until then, it might be wise to have someone around who can manage what’s there.”
Emeline frowned. “You realize how that sounds?”
She would never be able to leave without it, Asha sent to her.
What?
The other woman looked at her. I told you. Those who agree to keep our secrets can leave. But who can keep secrets if they can’t protect their thoughts?
“So you’d keep her here?” Emeline asked. “Or insist on wiping out her memory?”
“Only of our location,” Asha said. “It would be for her protection as much as all of ours. She can’t be tortured to give up what she doesn’t know.”
Asha made it all sound so reasonable, when to Emeline it sounded like the worst kind of theft. No, it was worse than that, it was like an assault on who someone was, a ripping apart of everything that made them themselves.
“Of course, there are other uses for such things,” Asha said. “If you can touch the mind of another so strongly, you can shield their thoughts from intrusion, or fight off anything trying to control them. There are even those who can control them, though that kind of strength is rare.”
Emeline smiled at that thought, because she’d seen the things that Sophia could do with her gifts. Asha seemed to take that as an invitation.
“It is easiest to feel this,” she said. “Vincente is better at it, but I can show you. You will have to let me into your mind for this, though.”
Emeline swallowed at that thought. She didn’t like the idea of letting Asha in so soon after she’d talked about wiping memories. Even so, she lowered the protections that normally surrounded her mind.
“First, you must build the connection,” Asha said, touching Emeline’s mind. “Then you build a wall around someone’s thoughts…”
Emeline felt her constructing it, felt the play of power there. Asha repeated it, once, then again.
“Now you,” she said.
Emeline tried to copy the feeling of it, but it seemed to be more complicated than that. Her first attempt fell apart like smoke, while Asha shook her head at her second, pointing out the holes.
“I’m trying my best,” she said.
“No, your best will be right,” Asha said, unyielding as a rock. “Again.”
Emeline sent her will out, locking it around Asha’s mind, forming a shield that held as the other woman pushed at it.
“That’s good,” she said. “Now, let it go.”
Emeline did so, grateful as she did, because she wasn’t sure how much strength she had after working to give power to the stones for so long.
“To remove memories, you would wrap that shield around them and then you would pull it away, taking it with you.”
She made it sound so simple, and so benign. Yet Emeline couldn’t imagine doing it to someone, to Cora. It seemed as bad as stabbing them with a spear, or cutting off one of their hands.
“And if you could take away my memories of having to watch those two, I’d be grateful,” Asha said, with a faint nod in the direction of Cora and Aidan.
They weren’t practicing anymore. Instead, they were sittin
g on the stump of a tree together, talking. Then more than talking, as Emeline saw Cora lean in toward Aidan and kiss him, holding tight to him as she did it. Emeline looked away, but only to give her friend some privacy, not out of the kind of embarrassment Asha seemed to be suffering.
“Is it so bad to see people happy?” Emeline asked.
“No, it isn’t,” Asha said. “Are you happy here, Emeline?”
Emeline nodded. “It’s different from how I imagined. There’s so much focus on defending Stonehome.”
“There are a lot of people who would see us all dead,” Asha said. “Sometimes we have to be harsh, so that there is still a place where we can be safe.”
She walked off, leaving Emeline to herself. She thought about going home herself, back to the little cottage near the edge of the community, so that she could leave Cora and Aidan to one another. As she looked back at them, they were still very much wrapped up in one another, still talking, still kissing, the two of them seeming to be unwilling to break apart. Emeline smiled and turned away.
A scream ripped through her mind, and Emeline realized that she hadn’t put up the kind of defenses she normally would have in the wake of her lesson from Asha. The scream was horrifying in its pain and its fear. Worse, Emeline recognized the mind behind it, because she’d touched it before.
It was Kate.
Kate? Emeline sent, and for a moment she thought that perhaps she was mistaken. Her words seemed to drift out into the world, with nothing there to connect with. Then, with an agonized tinge that made Emeline recoil, more words poured into her mind.
Help! Kate sent to her. I’m trapped. A witch has taken my body. She wants to kill Sophia.
Sophia’s in danger? Emeline sent back. What is this? Where are you?
Again, there was a pause that seemed too long before the next words came back.
Ishjemme. My body is in Ishjemme, but I’m not in it. I’m in a place… I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know if it’s real. I came here to try to break my apprenticeship with Siobhan.
Emeline’s breath caught at that. She could only guess at what space beyond the world Kate was caught in, and the sound of the witch’s name filled her with fear. If Siobhan was hunting Sophia, then her friend was in real danger.
Save Sophia, Kate sent to her, please. I can’t contact anyone else. Save her. Save her baby.
Her voice faded from Emeline’s mind, and for a second or two, Emeline just stood there, not knowing what to do next. Yet there was only one thing she could do, wasn’t there? Kate was calling her for help, and Sophia needed her help too. Emeline couldn’t stand by and let anything happen to her.
Could she send a message to Sophia, warning her? Emeline couldn’t see how. Unless Stonehome kept birds trained to seek Ishjemme, there would be no sending a message that way, and Emeline doubted that anyone there would have the power to send a mental message over that distance. That meant that any message she could send would travel at the speed of a courier, and would be far less certain than if Emeline did the obvious thing.
She walked over to Cora and Aidan, hating to interrupt them when they were just starting to get so close to one another. Even so, she needed to talk to Cora about this, and she needed to do it now.
“Cora, I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you. Sophia is in danger.”
Cora looked around at her, and Emeline could feel her shock, but also her readiness. When it came to helping their friend, there was no hesitation.
“What? How? How do you know?”
“Her sister called out to me,” Emeline explained. She explained about Kate’s message, and about the danger the witch possessing her body posed to Sophia.
“We have to go to Ishjemme, then,” Cora said, and Emeline could hear the determination there.
Emeline held up a hand. “Cora, maybe it’s better if I go alone. We’ve only just found Stonehome, and you…” She glanced across at Aidan. “You’ve found so much here. I can save Sophia and Kate.”
“What if you can’t?” Cora asked. She sounded indignant then. “Emeline, do you really believe that, with my friends in danger, I’m going to let you go off alone?”
“I just thought—”
“Well, think again,” Cora said. She turned to Aidan. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this. Without Sophia, I wouldn’t be here. I’d still be in the palace.”
Emeline watched as Aidan took her hand. “Then I think I probably owe her plenty, too. But do you know about what happens when people without powers leave?”
Emeline had the answer to that. “They take their memories of Stonehome. Asha was trying to teach me the technique while you two… sparred. They say you can’t protect your thoughts from having the location taken.”
“They’d take my memories?” Cora said. She looked at Aidan, and Emeline knew exactly which memories she was thinking of. It was one reason that Emeline had wanted to go alone.
“So maybe it’s better if you stay,” Emeline said. “I might be able to shield some of your thoughts, but I doubt they’d believe that I would be able to be with you all the time.”
Cora stood there, looking from Aidan to Emeline, and Emeline could see the hesitation in her thoughts. She wanted to help Sophia. She wanted to go to Ishjemme, but she didn’t want to risk forgetting about Aidan, and she didn’t like the idea of having her memories taken.
“I’m still going,” Cora said. “I’m not giving up my memories, though. Even if we have to sneak out, I’m not.”
Emeline looked over to Aidan. “Will you keep our leaving secret for a few hours?” she asked. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you, but—”
“It won’t cause trouble for me,” Aidan said, “because I won’t be here. I’m coming with you.”
Emeline frowned at that. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
He shrugged. “I’m sure I’d rather be where Cora is, and who knows? Maybe with both of us there, Asha will believe that her thoughts were sufficiently protected.”
Emeline wasn’t sure it would work like that, because she’d seen how protective Asha was of her community. Emeline doubted that she would believe that Stonehome’s secret was protected unless she saw Cora’s memories taken. Even so, she was glad that Aidan was coming along, and not just because of the look of joy on Cora’s face at the news.
When it came to fighting a witch powerful enough to defeat Kate, Emeline suspected that they were going to need all the help they could get.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sophia felt as though she were walking to her execution as she made her way down the beach toward the Master of Crows. Sienne stalked beside her, but even that protection didn’t seem like enough right then.
She put a hand over her belly protectively, thinking of what might happen to the child inside her if he chose to cut her down, but it wasn’t just him she was afraid of. The boats out on the fjord still had their cannons turned in toward the shore, and could still fire at any moment.
Shall I make things more comfortable? he sent over to her. The battles in the Dowager’s kingdom have given me power to spare.
He gestured, and the crows around him rose. He opened his coat, and more poured from it, joining with the others, until the space around him was black with them. They beat their wings, and the sand around Sophia rose up in answer to it, the dust forming a cloud that turned the rest of the world into shadows.
“I got the idea from something your sister did to my men,” he said, as Sophia got close to him. His tone was oddly formal, while his accent sounded like something that had been preserved from an earlier time. “Of course, when she summoned mist, she killed them in it.”
The fear within Sophia spiked at the threat contained in that, and she fought to push it back down. She put a restraining hand on Sienne’s head as the forest cat growled.
“If you’d wanted to kill me, you would just have attacked,” Sophia said, hoping it was true.
The Master of Crows regarded her the way one of his crea
tures might have looked at something, his head shifting slightly from side to side as if to get a better look.
“Perhaps I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t run,” he said. “Perhaps I’m more interested in letting the crows feast on you than in this little dukedom.”
“And are you?” Sophia asked. She looked around for a way to get clear if all this went wrong, but around her, all she could see was the swirling dust from the beach. It wasn’t even possible to see which way led back to the others.
That was bad, because she doubted that she could fight a man like this one. He was taller, stronger, and not weighed down with months of pregnancy, even without taking into account the part where he was well armed and Sophia had no more than an eating knife. Sienne might make a difference, but Sophia didn’t want to sacrifice the forest cat’s life just so she could save herself.
“Not yet,” he said, with a smile so brief it was barely there. “The crows will be fed better by you being alive. You will give them so many deaths, Sophia Danse, and each one will make me stronger.”
Did he think that the use of her name would intimidate her? Sophia stood up tall, facing him down the way she’d faced down everyone from rude noblewomen to bandits.
“You don’t get to decide what I do,” she said.
“Don’t I?”
She shook her head. “You’re making the mistake that some of the nobles here are making. That even my cousins are making. You think I have an interest in going back to the Dowager’s kingdom. You think I’m going to bring death and destruction to it for the sake of a throne I have never sought. I won’t do it. I’m going to find my parents instead. I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not.”