Armand skidded to a halt in front of her and dropped to his knees, his sword hand still firm on the hilt of his sword while his free hand hesitated midair as he noticed the deep gash on her hand.
His strength almost left him as she lifted her head, exposing her face. Blood. There was so much blood on her lovely features. Her nose was swollen, dribbling fresh blood on top of the crusted one covering her lips and chin. Dirt glazed her cheeks and every inch of skin that wasn’t covered by her gown.
“What happened?”
He was still waiting for an answer when the servant girl joined him on the ground. To her credit, she didn’t hesitate one second as she noticed Gandrett’s injuries, but reached into the pocket of her dress and extracted a handkerchief. “It’s clean,” she commented as Armand gave her a doubtful look and grabbed Gandrett’s sliced-open hand to bind it with the cloth. Then she took Gandrett’s other hand, which, to Armand’s horror, was covered in countless little cuts and scratches, and she made Gandrett apply pressure on the bound wound.
“I think I killed him,” Gandrett whispered and glanced over her shoulder into the open cell behind her.
Armand froze. There were boots visible from his angle. Familiar boots.
He jumped up, leaving the girl to tend to Gandrett’s wounds—“Wait here.”—and made his way to the cell, a looming dark hole behind her, to find out who she had been speaking about.
Joshua’s motionless body lay sprawled over a heap of gravel, his dark tunic and pants covered with dust. But what held Armand’s attention wasn’t the fact that Joshua didn’t move but the burn marks encircling his throat. The stench of singed flesh filling the small cell made Armand cover his mouth and nose with his free hand.
Beside Joshua, a long chain sat on the ground, part of it incinerated.
What had happened?
He darted to the Brenheran heir’s side and gently nudged his shoulder. It couldn’t be. If he was dead, all his efforts, all the efforts of his mother would have been in vain. All those years—
If Joshua was dead, there would not be a true king of Sives.
To Armand’s relief, Joshua’s chest was slowly rising and falling, but his injuries looked bad. He needed a healer before the wounds could get infected. As did Gandrett.
“Can you hear me, cousin?”
Gandrett held her breath as Joshua’s groan drifted from the cell. Alive. He was alive. And she wasn’t a killer.
Her heart beat a bit more lightly but remained the same darkened lump it had turned into the moment the dagger had started to glow.
Magic. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend how it was possible that magic had erupted from her hands. Never in her ten years at the priory had she ever had a spark of magic—a sword-wielder, yes, the best one, but magic? Vala had not bestowed that gift upon her.
So how could it be possible that the blade had heated in her hand, that it had burned Joshua, that the chain around his neck had seared into his flesh?
She was remotely aware that Addie had returned with Armand. A welcome rescue under different conditions… But not with magic involved. The magic that had run through her hadn’t been the calm stream of the Vala-blessed water mages but something different. Hot and angry magic. Some rogue energy that had saved her from Joshua Brenheran. And yet, it had damned her. If anyone found out, her fate would be to be exiled to the dormant forests of Ulfray to live her life in the wilderness of the Fae lands… if she was lucky. If she wasn’t that fortunate, she would meet her end through magic-haters before she ever made it to the borders of the Fae territories.
She knew that when Armand returned from that cell, there would be questions, and she wasn’t certain if she could find plausible answers to any of them. He would know something was wrong.
And once Joshua woke up to tell the tale…
Her face stung as Addie dabbed the fresh blood off her lips, but Gandrett didn’t complain. She was still trying to make sense of what had happened in that cell, the slightest of hope remaining that she might have hallucinated.
“We must get Joshua somewhere safe.” Armand appeared at her side, face weary. “And you need a healer.”
Addie had stopped torturing her face with the cloth and folded her hands in her lap, bloody cloth and all. “We can hide them somewhere in the higher levels of the north tower,” she suggested quietly as if embarrassed to speak at all.
When Gandrett looked up, she found a silent understanding between Armand and Addie as if they both knew exactly there was something more than just their recovery at stake. For Gandrett knew, the wounds on her would heal once she could clean up, get some water to drink, and then rest for a day or two. Joshua would most likely survive if a healer tended to his burns, or so she hoped. But her hopes of ever dragging him back to Ackwood had been incinerated when she realized just how strong he was.
He wouldn’t go willingly. And she wouldn’t have the strength to make him.
“People will start looking for him,” Addie noted. “We need to hide him.” Some ghost of guilt crossed her features that Gandrett didn’t understand.
Armand touched Gandrett’s shoulder with a light hand. “Can you get up and walk?”
Gandrett studied him for a short moment. He was wearing night-blue silken pajamas and boots. Under different circumstances, she would have made a joke about it, but now, she just nodded. It didn’t matter if she could stand and walk. She had to in order to get out of here.
So she pushed herself up and set one wobbly leg in front of the other until she swayed. Addie caught her around the waist, not commenting on the wet stains at the back of her dress. Gandrett hid her embarrassment and made a silent promise to reward Addie for her aid later.
Beside them, Armand appeared, Joshua Brenheran’s limp body draped over his shoulders.
“Not in the north tower,” Armand said to Addie. “Gandrett goes back to her room, and Joshua we’ll hide in plain sight.” Gandrett felt his gaze on her as she stumbled along, mouth too dry to say a word, head spinning. “I’ll keep him at my own chambers for now.”
Riho didn’t bring news when he returned at first light, instead, dropping a corn-seed in his hand, he cawed by way of greeting. It was the third day without news from Gandrett. If it took another night, Nehelon swore, he would go to Eedwood himself and turn the castle upside down until he found her.
He had even prepared a message for her, saying exactly that. Riho cocked his head as Nehelon tied the tiny scroll of parchment to his leg. He was just finishing up as it hit him like a surge of wind running through his blood. Magic.
Clear and bright like a bolt of lightning. He hadn’t felt something this strong since—
He didn’t allow himself to go there. It had been over a century…
“Did you feel that, my friend?”
Riho cocked his head to the other side in a silent question.
“Magic, Riho.” Nehelon leaned back against the tree, probing through his system for a trace of the sensation he had just experienced.
But it had already subsided. A bright light in a dark world that had flickered for but a moment and had left the darkness that came after even more blinding.
With a sigh, Nehelon sent Riho in the skies. “Find her,” he told the bird even if he knew it was out of his hands.