by Ellie Margot
“What’s going on?” asked Mekhi. The mirth was gone, and his voice showed nothing.
“Riette said she saw something.”
“Should we go ahead?” asked Guy. “Maybe we turn back.”
“We didn’t come this far to turn around,” said Corin. “Right?”
“We’re not turning around,” said Riette. “I was just put off by it. Let’s keep going.”
She led the way again, and they found the top of the hill quickly. She kept her eyes trained on forest line, and then she saw it. One of her mother’s men. Blaine.
“Fuck me,” said Riette, under her breath.
Cassian stilled. He raised a hand, but Blaine did nothing. His mouth was in a stern line, and he walked to them, with others flanking him on either side.
“Who are they?” asked Trinity.
“My fan club.”
“Shit, must you have enemies everywhere?” asked Guy. “Even here?”
But Riette didn’t answer him. Blaine was already to them, and the tingling on her shoulder told her she was in danger before he even had the opportunity to open his lips.
When he did though, Riette felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time: surprise.
“Riette, daughter of Alluette, you’re under arrest,” said Blaine, and she saw his eyes squint in the smile he wouldn’t let show on his lips.
“Nice to see you too,” said Riette.
Chapter 28
Vines wrapped around Riette’s wrists. They coiled tighter against her until she felt like they were coming between herself and her own skin.
She struggled against it, but the more she did, the more the vines seemed to keep her. They were different from the ones on the hill. These were the vines of the Vitan trees. She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t win against them, but the tattoo on her shoulder burned all the same.
Blaine pushed against the tattoo, urging her forward.
“Don’t even think about pulling some shit.”
There was a sizzle noise at the contact.
The others were behind her. She could hear them pushing against the guards that kept them back, Cassian more than anyone, but what they were saying couldn’t be heard.
She swallowed at what she heard in Cassian’s voice.
“Where are you taking me?” She refused to cower to him, but talking to him was the only way she would know what was going on.
“Your mother has placed you in protective care.”
“With you?”
“Don’t be so surprised. Your mother and I have grown leaps and bounds closer in your absence.” Blaine leaned in and put his lips close to her ear. “If you only knew how close.”
Bile clawed up her throat and threatened to leave her lips. “She would never be with you.”
Blaine pushed her again to keep walking. “A weeping mother, a helping hand. They found their way to each other.”
“If you hurt her—”
“Hurt her? You should be more worried about me.”
Riette took her foot and kicked back hard against his thigh. She turned and found him on the ground, holding it as if he needed to hold his leg together.
“You fucking bitch,” said Blaine as he gritted his teeth.
“You seemed to have forgotten who you’re fucking with.” She stood over his body and smiled at the lines that were etched into his face.
Blaine got up slowly. His leg was stiff, and his movements were awkward.
Riette fought the urge to step on his throat and pin him there. She also wanted to set his hair on fire, all of it, and watch him struggle. But she also had the sickening feeling that he might not have been lying about her mother.
What did she not know about her? Could she be with Blaine? Would she do that?
Blaine stood to his full height and got closer to Riette.
“I forgot how enjoyable it’s going to be for me to watch you fall from such a self-imposed height.”
“You get off on punishment, don’t you, you fucker?” Riette spat.
Blaine narrowed his eyes, and part of his lip pulled back to reveal his teeth, not unlike a dog snarling. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
Blaine grabbed her wrists and made the Vitan tighter. Riette stilled her features and didn’t let herself react. They were far enough from the others that trees stopped her view of them.
“Get to your cell before I drag you there,” said Blaine. She looked at him, and he focused in on her eye. “What the fuck have you even done to yourself?”
“None of your concern,” said Riette, and she turned around, but he grabbed her shoulder and turned her back. He moved his face closer, and she reared back, but he grabbed the back of her head.
“Release me before I fuck up the only part of your body that you think with,” said Riette.
Blaine looked down and then back up at her before letting her head go. He shoved her shoulder, and she stumbled and turned around to walk.
The tattoo burned like the sun was inside of her, but she wanted to fight smart. She couldn’t kill Blaine and talk sense into her mother. Not without making the conversation all the more difficult.
They walked in silence for what felt like a few years. He was walking her around the territory. She could see the edges of the world she knew, the tree houses towering above them.
Riette saw a man being taken into the air by the Vitan vines wrapping around him.
She shifted until the bag righted itself on her back, and then Blaine spoke again. “You know you weren’t bad looking before you went and fucked yourself up.”
Riette tried to not to speak. Words burned like acid on her tongue.
“Who’s going to want you now with the fire eye? It was hard enough to get past your fucking ego. I mean, a lot of guys would still fuck you if they didn’t know who you were or how rotten you were on the inside.”
Riette cracked her neck and kept moving ahead, but she felt the fire being summoned at her fingertips, even as she struggled to find some semblance of control.
When she opened her mouth, her voice was lower, and it came from a place deep down in her stomach. “I wouldn’t want to be with anyone who shared any level of brain length as you. You are a soldier. A shit one. You are fucking nothing, and you hate me because I’m everything you are working for but you’ll never get.”
She didn’t look behind her to see how her words landing, but even though she kept walking, she didn’t hear Blaine’s steps with her for several moments.
Riette heard him swear under his breath, but they continued the walk in silence until they got to the tree where Riette knew they kept criminals. She stopped and waited for Blaine to continue through the process.
Blaine stood next to her and raised his hand to summon the vines. One came to her, and Blaine watched as it wrapped around her body. She was used to having her hands free during the process, but the vines covered her hands and chest, wrapping down her legs and then back up to the point where very little of her showed through.
The process was quick, and Blaine went through the same.
The vines lifted them and raised them into the structure that she knew by heart but could barely see from the ground below. She tried to look at the village during her ascent, but without her hands to guide her movement, she was at the mercy of the vine transportation.
The wind whipped through her hair and onto her face as she was placed on the perch. Then the vines slowly unwrapped her as she watched Blaine land a few feet away. The process was repeated with him, and then he moved quickly to her, his face contorted with words he wasn’t saying.
He grabbed her arm and pushed her ahead to go inside the holding center. There were barred rooms inside, but a quick glance showed that she would be the only inhabitant.
“I’m alone.”
“The others have been dealt with,” said Blaine as he shoved her again.
Riette stumbled but found her step just in time to not fall inside the cell she was being placed in. She whipped arou
nd to watch Blaine close the bars in front of her, keeping her in.
“What do you mean, ‘dealt with’?”
“Ask your mother.”
“I’m asking you, you piece of shit.” She walked forward to stand right in front of the bars.
“Were you always this angry?”
“I’ve always hated you,” said Riette.
“Crushes on your teacher can be confusing for people at a young age,” Blaine said, tapping the bars.
“It was out of respect for my mother that I never used my strength to separate your head from the rest of your body.”
Blaine leaned in. “I’d love for you to try.” He leaned back. He looked her over. “Defense is a wonderful way to get away with things.”
“Where is my mother?”
Blaine looked over his shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be here eventually.”
“And the others?”
“Princess, you really think we’d let you have visitors? Are you naive or fucking dumb? I can never really decide.”
“They’ll fight to get in here.”
“Careful, princess. You don’t want me to kill them preemptively.”
“You cannot touch them,” Riette spat as she pushed her body against the bars. Energy coursed through her veins.
Blaine watched her, smirking. “They’re calling you a traitor.”
“The people would never think—”
“They don’t think. They’re not supposed to. They serve. They obey. Your problem was always thinking that there was more to it.”
“Get the fuck away from me before I burn you where you stand.”
“You’ll have round the clock guards. The cell is power proof. I left you cuffed because you’re fucking stupid enough to think you can try something, and if you do, not even Mommy will stop me from ending you.”
Riette stepped back and laughed. Blaine’s face scrunched at the sound of the broken notes that made up the noise that was leaving her.
She closed her eyes.
And when she opened them, she saw what she was looking for in Blaine’s stare. His eyes didn’t leave her, and she saw the tremor in his body even from where she stood.
And then he left while there were still parts of him that could.
Chapter 29
From the window in her cell, Riette could see the world she once knew. In the timeline of her life, the weeks not spent there would seem almost insignificant. But the time away had changed her, and she looked out of the window into a world that had moved on without her and had changed into something she couldn’t pretend to have understood.
Fire appeared at her fingertips but flickered. She tried again, but there was the same result. She thought back to Blaine’s words about the cell blocking her energy, and she wondered how that was possible. What did the place do?
Riette lifted her hands to the window. There were bars there too, but they were living. Warped pieces of Vitan made up the bars that kept her from the outside, and beyond them, if she struggled to make herself taller still, she could see the edges of the universe she had once thought was all of the world.
And at the very edge was her grandmother’s tree.
The bag was still on her shoulder, and she knew the book was inside. She also knew that Blaine was an idiot for letting her keep it. Bark, she thought.
She spoke to him in whispers. Another guard had replaced Blaine, but he had paled when he had seen her, and his eyes never left her face and what he saw there.
After seeing her, he had chosen to spend his time outside, away from the demons that she knew he thought she was made of. That didn’t mean she could be bold enough to speak freely though. The last thing she needed was a spooked guard calling Blaine back and making things worse for her.
“Bark, move if you hear me,” said Riette, her voice barely above a whisper.
She felt the bag shift.
“You need to get out of the bag and help free me.”
Riette heard things shifting, and a grumble left from Bark’s lips.
“Please. I need you.”
Everything was still. Riette moved until her back was at the window so that she could keep a look at the perch where the guard was stationed outside.
Riette thought Bark was refusing, but then she felt him move again. Sharp points jabbed into her back, and she stood still and tried not to let the movement show on her face.
She couldn’t even see the guard from where she was in her cell, but she could see the light from the outside, slowly fading to the darkness of sunset and nightfall.
Her bag moved again and shifted, and then a stick pushed into her hair, followed by another.
Riette tilted her head to the side to let him have better access, and her bag shifted until Bark had fully unfolded himself from the darkness he had experienced inside of her bag. When he got out, Bark stood on her shoulder and looked around.
“Now get down and get these vines off of me,” said Riette.
She tried to look at him, but she also was focused on seeing if there was any activity that she could notice outside.
Bark grumbled.
“I know you want a minute to stretch outside of the bag. You’ll have all the time you want. You just have to help free me first.”
Bark made another noise as he settled onto her shoulder and dangled his legs down on her chest. He kicked them like he was sitting on a dock.
“What do you mean it’s refreshing to see me in a bind for once? Bark!”
She heard him scoff before he jumped down and stood in front of her. Riette saw the growth that she had noticed before, coming in thicker at the top of his head.
She held out her hands. Bark rolled his eyes and gestured for her to get on her knees.
“Right, sorry,” said Riette, and she got down until she was on her knees in front of him. She held out her vine-covered wrists.
Bark started to work on them, but it was hard for him to get a good grip since the vines themselves moved with the contact he made with them.
“No, the other way. Lift the—”
Bark grunted, and she snapped her mouth shut.
He pulled again, tugging one way and then the other, and at one point, Riette thought he was just messing with her and intended on keeping her stuck forever, but then she saw the first vine shift and fall to the floor, and then another after it, until she could see progress being made.
Bark grunted again.
“You don’t have to swear about it.”
He did another grunt and pulled until he pushed his legs against Riette’s arms and kicked his feet to get momentum.
The last bit of vine dropped to the floor, and Riette was free. She grabbed Bark and laid kisses on the smooth wood of his skin. “You’re my favorite lieng in all of the world. You know that?”
Bark snuggled against her, and a splinter worked its way into her cheek.
“Shit,” said Riette, and she tried to pull her head back, but Bark snuggled her face closer.
“You know I love you,” she said, and Bark grunted.
He released her, and she stood. Then she heard a noise. Someone had just landed on the perch outside. She heard the vines unraveling.
“Shit, get in the—” Riette started, but Bark raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay, you don’t have to get in the bag, but you have to hide.” Riette ran to the corner that was on the side of the uncovered cot and placed the bag there. “Get behind it.”
Bark looked at the spot and then back at her before grunting again.
“Yes, there is a big difference between being in the bag and being in front of it.”
Bark made another noise.
“Yes, I promise. Look, we can’t fight about this now.”
Bark made another short noise.
“I will fight about it later. I promise.”
Bark lumbered over, not unlike a teenager, and Riette fought against herself to rush him, even as she felt like someone was going to appear in front of her at any moment.
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sp; He had barely made it behind the bag when Riette watched as someone walked into the opening. She could hardly see him as night had fully fallen and there was no light to guide her.
When the figure came fully into view, she saw Cassian’s face appear against the bars as he wrapped his hands around them and looked at her.
Riette got up quickly. “Cassian.” He didn’t speak. “How did you—”
Cassian looked behind him at the opening he had just walked through. “We don’t have much time,” he said as he looked back to Riette’s face.
“But how did—”
“There was a female guard on duty.”
Riette stopped. “You mean you—”
“No, I didn’t say—We don’t have to get into it.” He paused. “She may have had a crush on me, and it worked to our advantage.”
Riette laughed for a second before covering her mouth as she watched Cassian’s stricken expression. “Sorry,” she said.
“What does ‘pimp’ mean?” Cassian asked.
“Guy explained it to me before. Basically, it’s when one person overlooks the selling of experiences with another person—”
“I’ve heard enough.”
“But you’re so good at it.”
“At being ‘pimped’? I’m flattered.” A ghost of a smile formed on his lips, but he lost it again as he gripped the bars of the cell.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said, and his voice was choked.
“Where are the others?”
“Mekhi and Corin are in your father’s house. They didn’t want to deal with having to explain things when they weren’t sure what they were able to tell.”
“And Guy and Trinity?” Riette touched his hand from her side of the bars, but Cassian stepped back.
“Trinity is safe,” Cassian said as he looked away. “She’s with Mekhi and Corin.”
“Cassian, where is Guy?”
He didn’t speak. Riette grabbed the bars harder. “Where is he?” She braced herself.
“They didn’t let him in,” he said, and his voice was barely heard over the wind that found its way into the cell through the window at her back.
“What do you mean they didn’t let him in?”