Kings of Deceit - R

[Mollianne]

There was little better, all things considered, than burrowing away in the corner of a room while nobles politicked and flattered. A book in hand, Jessa ignored them all. The Tremonts' friends did not even glance her way, aware of her old reputation, and so she read over forty pages. Without the tingle of curious eyes on her neck driving her to distraction, she had not even needed reread a single paragraph. It was freeing. She might even have found a way to impede the tracking power of her ring. She needed only to ensure that the compulsion on her brain would count it as the same ring if the magic was drained from it.

And it meant she wasn't obsessing over Irina.

The sitting room door was flung wide. It bashed against an empty side table, which wobbled loudly enough against the wood floor that Jessa was pulled from her reading. She looked up just in time to see a cloud of paper flutter to the floor. Behind it all was Nathaniel Tremont, his brown hair wet and dripping, rebelliously coming free of its ponytail. He was out of breath, as though he had run all the way from the council chamber in the castle. The doorman skidded to a halt behind him, clucking, "The floor! Please, just let me take your coat!"

There was quite a puddle beneath his feet. A few stray pieces of paper had lay victim to the mess. Jessa hoped they weren't important

"-Nayall really is - Nathaniel!" Lady Tremont cried, turning from the potential new allies to glare at her son.

Lucien, who had been nursing a drink in a corner until then, was on Nathaniel in a moment. "Lord Above, you know how to make an entrance," he said fondly, coming over to help gather the fallen papers. He kissed Nathaniel as they rose, but the councillor was distracted by searching the room. Just a little, Lucien deflated.

His gaze landed on Jessa and he widened his eyes, tilting his head back towards the door. Then, for the whole room to hear, he apologised to his mother for the lateness and declared he would return once he had cleaned up. He squeezed Lucien hand as he left, the papers balanced precariously in his other arm. Lucien glanced at Jessa, biting his lip as if it would prevent her from seeing his disappointment. The last thing Jessa saw as she left the room was Chetana, Ainesh's mother, patting Lucien on the hand and assuring him that Nathaniel would be back to his old, idle self any day.

The doorman, forcefully folding Nathaniel's coat over his arm and mumbling to himself, glanced at her and grumbled, "He's in there."

Inside, shelves full of music books and pottery lined the walls. At the end of the room, overlooking a wide window into the dark gardens beyond, stood a long sideboard draped with gold, pink and royal blue fabrics. Atop this was a book, opened and hanging onto its bindings by a thread, on an ornate plinth. Beneath it lay a bronze flute.

"Antascian shrine," Nathaniel explained. She swivelled to the corner of the room where he stood next to a baby grand piano. His papers were strewn across the mahogany lid. "The colours represent the three main aspects of Carantehna that they worship. For the Ranharais-" Ainesh's Antascian family name "-that would be family, health and peace."

Jessa could not take her eyes off the altar. A quietness settled over her.

"Didn't want to spend your evening politicking and flattering more nobles?"

"Sorry, what?" Jessa turned, pushing a hand through her hair and biting her lip as her cheeks reddened. She'd forgotten entirely about Nathaniel.

"Back there, you were reading."

"Oh. I already nearly messed up the first time. Probably best if any future potential allies don't hear me speak." Nathaniel laughed. Jessa shrugged. "Besides, there are plenty that have actually met Nayall by now who can vouch for anything I'd say better than I could."

She joined Nathaniel at the bench. Her fingers grazed over a stack of papers bound together with string. The edges were yellowed with age. It looked like a ledger. "You found something?"

"Possibly. I didn't know when to look, so I just started from the beginning and… hoped." Nathaniel rummaged through the fan of paper in front of him, producing one on thick ivory paper and handing it to her. It was a decree for a regeneration fund. "For some of the most poverty-stricken parts of the city. Partly it involved buying up abandoned buildings, renovating them, and renting them out cheaply." Nathaniel shuffled some of the papers and did not meet Jessa's gaze. "Mostly it helped locals set up necessary businesses, offering subsidies so they could afford rent, sell their services and products more cheaply, et cetera.

"At first, everything seemed above board, but then I noticed this." He pointed at one of the entries on the ledger, a grocery in the Rathbone region of the city. His finger trailed down to another entry, but unlike some of the other businesses Jessa saw in the interim, the grocer had received no payment in three months. She pulled the ledger closer, scanning the following couple of years. Sometimes, there was a rush of payments in the span of a few weeks, and other times there was nothing for months.

"I'm also pretty sure there's a landlord - the crown doesn't see to the daily running of their residential properties - in Freesia Walk who's involved. In fact, I think it might be the same family running both. Rickards is a common surname, but I doubt it's a coincidence that the grocer's wife's cousin shares it."

Jessa grimaced. "And they're on opposite sides of the city, near-equidistant from the castle and the outer walls." There were probably others, but this was enough to investigate. Had this something to do with what Irina had uncovered? She had spoken to the people who had shared an office with Irina as soon as she had walked out on Alistair. Of course, they had known little, but they had said that Irina had been looking at official-looking documents. Given everything Nathaniel had had to do to get these - become a councillor, suck up to the treasurer, spend so much time in the castle and sit mere seats away from Alrick - it seemed unlikely that Irina could have stumbled across it. She sighed.

When she looked back at Nathaniel, he was staring at her expectantly.

"Did you-?"

"I asked if you wanted to copy some of this down. I can't leave it with you."

"Oh, right, of course. Yes, thank you."

Nathaniel handed her a pen and a blank scroll of parchment that was mixed up with all the treasury papers. He left the room, claiming with a wry smile that he ought not keep his mother waiting. Jessa was alone.

Falling onto the piano bench, heavy with yet more confirmation that the kidnappings were real, Jessa scribbled down as much as she could. Her gut roiled like water in a mill. Her gaze slid to the Antascian altar. Family. Health. Peace.

Keeping an eye on the door, Jessa scooped up Nathaniel's papers and hid them in the compartment in the piano bench. She folded her page of notes and stuffed it up her sleeve. The corner of it dug into her skin, but there it was safe from wandering eyes.

Her fingers brushed the gold cloth draped over the sideboard, a hush falling over her ears. A heaviness in her heart warned her that this did not belong to her, so she dared not touch the book or the flute. Her touch remained light on the cloths. Family, health, peace.

Family.

Her hand pressed harder on the cloth, feeling its silky smoothness under her palm. Over her body - she was no longer in the Tremont's music room but another, silks rustling over her bare skin, sunlight warming her. Warming them. The heat had not stopped her pressing against him, his heartbeat in her ear, his kisses in her hair as he whispered secrets the room would never tell.

His hand curled around her waist and it was like home - like curled up by the fire reading a book. He laughed, warm like the flames, the sound all she could hear. Rhys in her head, in her heart. Rhys everywhere. Family. Why didn't he want to be her family?

She yanked her hand from the cloth, stumbling back. Her heart sputtered like fast the tap of a woodpecker's beak, the peace ripped from her soul as the bark from the woodpecker's tree.

She had no family.

"Oh, sorry."

Jessa spun around. A young woman, a long-sleeved peach dress wrapped around her body and contrasting with her brown skin and black hair, peered into the room.

"I suppose this isn't the party. Fool servant told me it was here."

"Just across the hall." Getting the words out was like pulling teeth. The lump in her throat was swelling, and any moment it might break. She wanted to be alone.

"Wait, are you... Jessa du Rene? The king's bastard?" The qualification was unnecessary, and there was a sharp bite to the woman's words. Jessa just raised her eyebrows. She was plenty used to people believe she was beneath them.

"Yes."

The noble ignored the 'go away' in Jessa's tone, coming fully into the room and closing the door. "Fascinating."

"I'm really not in the mood for company."

"Honestly?" The woman leaned forward, cupping her hands around her mouth, as though they shared a secret. "Neither am I."

And promptly sunk down onto the piano bench.

Jessa went still, her muscles tightening like a screw in a hole. It took all her will not to drop her gaze to the piano bench, where the incriminating papers lay ready to expose the Tremonts for their scheming. Jessa stuck her hands behind her back, her fists clenching. Her heart was in her throat. In those few moments, every thought has focused to a single point. Alrick's spy.

There was no other explanation for why someone would come to a party so late - everyone would leave within the hour - and then hide away without even acknowledging the hosts. There was no way the servant had told her the wrong room. The thoughts circled in Jessa's head, dizzying and heart-stopping.

Do not look down.

The woman lounged back against the piano. "I've always wondered, Jessa, what it is that makes parents abandon some of their children and not others."

Jessa's lips parted, but there were no words. What a question to ponder.

"Yes, it rather is a mystery, isn't it? Take you, for example."

"Me?" That came out squeaker than Jessa intended.

The woman smothered a smirk. "Yes. What makes you special?"

Jessa held back a scoff. Special, indeed. "He loved my mother."

"But why keep you around after she died?"

"I'm the last part of her." Jessa shrugged. "In any case, I was bounced around boarding schools until university. I was hardly around."

"He still paid for that. He supported you." Her eyes flashed. "He cared."

The spy punctuated her words by slamming her fist onto the piano keys. The sound, though muffled as the lid was closed, resounded in Jessa's ears, a dissonant ringing that matched Jessa's fear. This woman was dangerous. Her eyes were completely clear; if she was here on Alrick's behalf, then she cared deeply about Jessa's supposed offence. Or she was a very good actor. What was her father's game?

"I was luckier than many."

Silence. The rain thrashed the window, a rhythm battling Jessa's pounding heart. Thunder grumbled in the distance; even it did not want to wander Ovis' streets.

"Families should look after one another, shouldn't they? That's what they're for." Her fists clenched. "In my experience, that's never true. Either they fail to protect someone - a brother, perhaps - or they betray them. Or perhaps they don't love them at all. They may as well be strangers. And, I find, if someone does you wrong, you deserve vengeance. Family or not, because true family would never give you cause."

The woman stood, fiddling with her skirts - her body blocking what she was doing. Candlelight flashed off a metal surface. The woman turned, a dagger hanging from her fingers like an afterthought. Jessa sucked in a breath, as her entire awareness narrowed until the dagger was all she knew. She saw the ornate bronze hilt, the crossguard curling towards the blade like a dragon's wings. Blood red jewels glinted, a thousand evil eyes ready to seal her fate.

Her father was finally done with her.

She stepped back, her legs abutting the altar behind her. There was nowhere to go. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. Her eyes widened. A mage. A mage - she would kill her, dagger or no. Why a dagger?

The noble laughed at her fear. "I'm not here to kill you." She twisted the dagger with her fingers, over and over. Jessa could not take her eyes off it. "Have you ever killed anyone, Jessa? If you haven't, you should try it. There's not much like it."

Jessa heard the screams of a thousand men dying in her head. Red painted her vision. She might not have put a single blade to their necks, but she may as well have killed those Novarians.

The woman smiled, catlike, as she stalked forward. "You want to know what I will enjoy most when I use this?"

Jessa shook her head, not in answer to the question but as if denying this whole experience would stop it happening. The woman looked down at the dagger, touching the tip with her finger, her expression a sickening mockery of a mother watching their new-born baby. Jessa reached behind her for the altar, but the silks offered her no purchase, nothing to steady herself.

"Lord Above, calm down. I said I wouldn't kill you, and I meant it."

If the woman's words were meant to calm Jessa, they did the opposite. A heavy uneasiness settled over her, worse than before. Something in the back of her mind screamed at her. But she couldn't think. She couldn't think. Her mind was a blank piece of parchment, surrounded by scraps of paper that, once pieced together, would solve a historical mystery. She once thrived on such puzzles, and yet now she could make sense of nothing but the fear that froze her. Jessa pressed back against the altar until it dug into her legs. At least the pain meant she was alive.

"All I want is to meet the woman I will kill. To see for myself why he cares so much." She scoffed. "But look at you, you're weak. I could crush you like a bug."

The woman crossed the rug separating them, and all the while Jessa didn't move. She couldn't. She was weak, standing there and accepting her fate. Fight, her head screamed, but still she stood frozen.

The woman pressed the tip of the dagger against her finger and took one final step towards Jessa. In her personal space, Jessa finally felt the urgency in her limbs to run, but it was too late. The woman lifted the dagger, resting it casually against her own cheek like it was a soft toy and not a deadly weapon.

She leaned close and said, her voice sibilant as a snake, "What I'll enjoy most, when I finally use this, is seeing the light in the eyes of everyone they love die too."

She pulled back, flipping back her skirts to reveal a waist-high slit and a dagger-shealth strapped to a too-pale leg. It was hidden in an instant, but as the woman met Jessa's gaze, Jessa saw the challenge in those piercing, pale blue eyes. The woman smirked, and it hit her like a pile of books.

"Lord Above," Jessa breathed. All her senses seemed to dull - the world going dark at the edges, a fierce rushing in her ears mixed with the rain that seemed to hammer at her skull - as the full weight of the situation threatened to sink her into the floor. Her heart seemed to slow. The woman smiled wider.

"See you around." The woman flicked her fingers in Jessa's direction and sauntered from the room.

She knew it wasn't true calm she felt, but shock, easing all the sharp edges and leaving her staring unseeingly at the bookshelves across the room. For a moment, it was just her and the rain.

And then she pushed away from the altar to Carantehna, the silk slipping through her fingers, and the fear crashed back into her, crushing her ribs. She gasped in air as she ran out of the room. She looked both ways, but though it had only been a few seconds, the woman was nowhere to be seen. Jessa shot towards the sitting room, where the muffled cacophony of voices continued as if nothing was wrong. As if everything hadn't just changed. She burst through the door. Everyone turned to look at her. Though Jessa could barely see in her frenzy, none of them had pale blue eyes or a peach wrap dress.

They were staring at her. She stumbled back.

"Jessa?"

She tried to focus on Lady Tremont, but her gaze would not settle.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm… maybe I'm coming down with what Ainesh has." She rubbed her forehead. She needed to get out. The castle - maybe the castle was safe. She almost laughed. How twisted this was. "I think I should head home."

"Priti will go with you," Lady Tremont said, already gesturing towards her granddaughter. Jessa put her hand on the woman's arm, lowering it and shaking her head.

"No, I'm fine." Lady Tremont raised her eyebrows. "I'll… I'll come by tomorrow to…" She waved at her head. They'd had not had time yet to reinforce the memory block.

As she ran through the inner city streets, hood up in a futile attempt to ward off the torrential downpour, she noticed what she had not seen on her way to the Tremonts. It had been light then, and she had kept her head down against the rain. Now, she saw the rows of manors, usually dormant in the winter, glowing with light. She saw movement in some of the upper windows. The Spring Procession had arrived.

At the castle gates, there were double the usual number of guards. They interrogated her, and though she wanted nothing but to get inside, she did not begrudge them their questions. It meant inside might truly be safe.

Once inside, a servant divested her of her sodden cloak, and she thanked them - her voice was not shaking, she assured him. By the time she reached her room, a maid was waiting with a warm blanket. She accepted, remembering at the last moment to thank her too, and then she slipped inside her room. She shut the door with her back, and then slid down it. She burrowed her head in her hands.

She willed the tears to come, wanting the release of it, but nothing came.

What - or rather, who - she really wanted was Laurita. She would not come that night. She knew she and Ainesh were meant to be at dinner.

She leaned back against the door, pulling the blanket tighter around herself like a cocoon. It soothed her far more than it had any right to do, but Jessa appreciated it. She would find that maid and shower her with praise in the morning.

Jessa did not know how long she sat there on the floor, staring into the dark. It was cold without a fire, and eventually the blanket was not enough to prevent her shivers. Slowly, she stood. She took a few steps in the direction of the grate before turning on her heel and going over to the door adjoining her and Ainesh's room. Her fingers shook too much to build the fire, and Ainesh would surely have one going.

And wasn't he meant to be her husband? She could do with the company.

She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again. After a few more attempts, she sighed. He must be asleep.

She just turned away when she heard something smash. A loud curse followed it, and then a moan of pain. Jessa twisted back around and pushed through the door, glad it was not locked.

And stopped dead. Took in the room. Her mouth dropped open.

Ainesh lay in bed, clutching his bleeding hand. A wine glass was shattered on his bedside. And beside him - lying in bed beside her second false husband - was her best friend.

Laurita had the decency to look shocked, just for a moment. But then she grinned. "How was dinner?"

"Um."

"Close your mouth, Jessa. You'll catch flies." Laurita twisted her lips, clearly trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing. She leaned over Ainesh, checking his wound, and then got out of bed.

Stark. Naked.

Jessa quickly averted her gaze. But the only other thing to look at was Ainesh, the sheets falling off him, revealing his toned bare chest.

"Hey now, stop checking out your own husband." Jessa's cheeks reddened, mortified. A smile played on Laurita's lips when Jessa looked back. Still naked. Laurita's gaze drifted to Ainesh. "Not that I blame you."

They seemed quite to forget Jessa as they shared small, secret smiles. Laurita, who had been in the process of picking up a thin robe, let it drop from her fingers as she headed back to the bed.

"Oh Gods. I-I'll be…" She gestured behind her before shooting from the room, accidentally slamming the door closed in her haste. For the second time that day, she pressed her back against the door. What had just happened? What had she just seen? There was too much rattling around in Jessa's head.

She could hear them through the door, though - thankfully - it sounded like they were only talking. When she heard footsteps coming towards the door, accompanied by Laurita's voice saying she should come and check on Jessa, Jessa pushed away from the door and sat heavily on the bed.

Was that even her friend?

Before Laurita had taken two steps into the room, Jessa asked, "How did we meet?"

Laurita stopped, hand hovering over the doorknob. She frowned. "What?" Jessa repeated the question; this time, her voice wavered less.

"Erm, okay..." The door shut behind Laurita with a quiet snick. "Well, Odaren brought back a stray. Turned out she was actually a prominent noble, not that she told me at the time." Laurita widened her eyes in reproach. "You wanted me to disguise you, so you could go to the mage meetings in Asanos. After, we went to the display. Rhys was with that woman - she controlled him. I learned later he was your damn husband, you know, after trying to flirt with him. Not that he was having any of it."

Well, she sure sounded like Laurita.

"What's this a-"

"Favourite colour?"

"Green. Jessa, what?"

The smile had slipped from Laurita's face. Reality was creeping back into the room, dark as the shadows. Jessa wasn't ready to face it, or to ruin Laurita's happiness. Jessa's problems could wait.

"Oh, just wondering if a crazy person had taken over my best friend." True, regardless. She gestured to the door. "Really?"

"Are you really surprised?"

Jessa gave a breathy laugh. "No."

"I did want to talk to you first. But… well, we've been together a lot recently. Playing cards or chess, talking, drinking. Earlier today, one thing kind of led to another…" The corners of her lips lifted and she gave Jessa a wink. "Then, he realised you two had dinner with his family tonight…"

"Oh Gods." Jessa buried her head in her heads. She remembered Ainesh knocking on their adjoining door, slipping inside at her call. A sheen of sweat on his brow, looking flushed. "I guess you thought me naïve enough to believe he was sick."

"I mean, yeah."

Jessa groaned.

"Really we wanted to-"

Jessa shoved her hand over Laurita's mouth. "I do not need to hear that."

Laurita's eyes twinkled like stars. She pried Jessa's fingers away. "Oh, I think you do. Might loosen you up."

"I'm fine as I am." Jessa patted the spot on the bed beside her. Laurita sat down, all the while unable to wipe the smile off her face. Despite everything, Jessa found herself smiling too. She rested her chin on Laurita's shoulder. "Are you happy? With him, I mean. I know everything else is a disaster, to put it mildly."

"I am." Laurita dropped her head onto Jessa's. Her short black hair ticked Jessa's nose, but she did not move. She wanted to stay there forever. This was a closeness they had not shared in too long. "I can just... Be myself around him. Or, well, there's no expectation for me to be anything. He doesn't need my support or guidance. He just... listens, and I listen back. I can go to him when Odaren is at his worst, and I don't need to hold back my fear or anger." Jessa felt the vibrations of Laurita's laugh. "He always knows what to say, I don't know how he does it. He makes me laugh. He gives me somewhere to just be. He lets me forget, and just have fun."

Jessa smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. Somehow, though Laurita could not see her expression, her friend seemed to sense the change. She pulled back, taking Jessa's hands. "That doesn't mean I don't love you, so don't you dare start thinking that. And don't you give me that look - I know you, that's exactly what you were thinking. But, Jessa, we've been in such a weird place recently, and you have so much to deal with. Sometimes you can't take my pain, and I can't take yours. I don't have to be careful around Ainesh. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah..." The admission was a breath on the wind. Jessa didn't dare voice her envy - that Laurita had someone while Jessa had lost everything she thought she'd known. She was truly happy for her.

"I didn't mean for it to be your husband, though."

Jessa laughed.

Laurita winked. "You clearly just have impeccable taste in husbands. First Rhys, now Ainesh." A brief pause. "Oh Gods, I'm sorry."

Jessa waved her away, though she was unable to ignore the knife in her heart. Laurita bit her lip, clearly forcing herself to stay quiet. Jessa gave her a small, grateful smile.

With nothing else to say, the darkness crept back in. Back to reality. "I need to talk to you."

Laurita straightened in an instant, all business, the smile gone. "What is it?"

"Two things." She tugged the notes about the potential traffickers from her sleeve and handed it to Laurita. Better to get this out of the way while she still had a grip on sense. "First, we have a lead. When I can actually think, we need to come up with a plan."

As Laurita perused Jessa's hasty scrawl, Jessa found her thoughts wandering back to what had happened after. Her chest began to tighten. She saw the dagger, saw it pressed against her skin, drawing blood. Saw everyone dying. Saw that noblewoman, laughing.

Lord Above, Lord Above, Lord Above. Barichene. That's what her fear had prevented her from remembering. Lucien had uttered it only a few moments before she'd left the dinner party to talk to Nathaniel.

Every word the woman had uttered made perfect sense. How had she not seen?

"She's here. She can get to me whenever she wants. To any of us, probably."

She didn't realise she has spoken aloud, her words a whispered frantic jumble, until she felt Laurita's hand in hers. That warming comfort grounded Jessa, gave her something to cling to. And cling she did; Laurita winced, but did not pull away. Her eyes were wide and concerned.

"Jessa, what are you talking about?" Laurita spoke in a rush, edging closer to Jessa. Jessa shook her head, unable to voice it or do anything but focus on Laurita's hand, a single thread keeping her from falling to pieces. "Jessa, tell me!"

"I think I just spoke to my half-sister. She found me. Miriyam."

[Rosabeth]

“It shouldn’t be like this. It’s not the natural order of things.”

Rhys glanced up at his mother as he set the tray down on her lap. He’d taken it off the hands of one of his mother’s maids and dismissed her for the afternoon. Tristan needed – no, deserved – time. Time not wrapped up in some damned scheme. But Rhys knew waiting around that dark house would only drive him mad, and a certain duty nagged at the back of his mind.

“What is?” Rhys asked.

“You, waiting on your bedridden mother. I don’t like it,” she said. She picked up a spoon and began to gently stir the tea. “Children aren’t supposed to take care of their parents. At least, not until they’re old and grey and frail.” She wrinkled her nose, like it was a particularly unsavory topic.

Rhys grinned. “Well, you’re already partially grey, so you’re part way there.”

“Oh hush, you.” His mother slapped away at his hand, Rhys chuckling as he took a step back. He moved to the plush armchair beside the bed, lifting a hefty pile of parchment and letters before sinking down. His mother’s reprimanding look softened quickly, followed by a smile that crinkled the edges of her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, leaning back into her mound of pillows, quietly sipping at her tea. “It’s a bit silly, but I miss you when you’re gone.”

The words weren’t meant to hurt, but Rhys felt a pang of guilt. “It’s not silly. I should have been here. You needed me – father needed me – and I should have been here.”

His mother clucked her tongue. “I’m not your responsibility. I understand you have other worries, other responsibilities. I don’t fault you for that.”

“This family is my duty,” said Rhys.

“Family is your duty,” she countered, voice firm. Rhys could feel the intensity of her piercing gaze. He could not so much as glance away. “But family is more than blood.” His mother sighed, her fingers tapping against her tea cup as she set it on the tray. “You’re a man, Rhys, not a boy. When I was your age I had two small children and had been living in a foreign country for six years. You have your own life to live that’s not just an extension ours. These are difficult times and we’re all a bit stretched thin. I know you’re worried about Jessa…for more reasons than you let on.”

Rhys saw that spark in his mother’s eye, the ever-so-slight raising of her brow. He knew that look. He’d been raised on it. Confess.

“Anja told you,” Rhys finally said. It was not that he’d asked for any secrecy regarding Miriyam, but he’d hardly expected Anja to care enough about Jessa’s well-being to inform anyone of the danger.

“And Kieran, him too,” his mother replied. “Oh, Rhys, why do you always try to hide things from us?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d care,” Rhys said plainly. He hadn’t thought himself angry, but a surge of frustration swept over him, and he felt himself on-edge. “You yourself said just a couple weeks ago how you’d like to see the du Rene’s gone. What am I supposed to think?”

His mother released a breathy sigh and patted the bed beside her. Rhys followed, sitting down beside her on the bed’s edge. As he did his mother took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Do you think I want you to be unhappy?”

No. It was the right answer, the rational one, but some petty part of Rhys’ mind could not help but think of a moment last summer when his happiness surely hadn’t meant much. He remembered sitting stony faced before his parents, his stomach a sinking pit as they’d informed him in emotionless words of his betrothal. What care for his happiness had they had then? But it wasn’t a fair assessment, and Rhys knew that. It had not been a punishment or an act of malice. Rhys was a willing player in their political game of chess. That he’d let himself think his emotional ties to another would override his parent’s ambitions at a unique opportunity was foolishness on his part.

“No,” he said finally, responding with a squeeze. “But I also don’t think you’d be particularly thrilled by me doing something you’d probably classify as reckless for someone you,” Rhys paused, catching himself. No, that wasn’t fair either. His stomach knotted at the thought, but it was the truth. “Someone we thought was disposable not too long ago.”

Rhys felt a flinch, watched as his mother’s eyes downturned. “Yes, well, I can’t say I’m particularly proud of that, but business is business. Things are different now.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve shown loyalty and dedication in the worst of circumstances. If that’s not love I don’t know what is.”

Rhys stared. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Jessa is just as much your family as I am, and I think right now she needs you more than I do. And…” His mother smiled but it did not touch her eyes. It hid a pain she did not mask well. “I have a feeling you didn’t come home after all that time away with the intent of staying for good.”

If the guilt hadn’t already swallowed him, it would have then. Rhys opened his mouth to speak but could not find the words, pressing his lips tight instead.

His mother gave his hand a firm pat, letting out a low chuckle that almost managed to conceal the sorrow in her voice. “No, no, let’s not get sentimental. You don’t want to see that. All I mean to say is that if you’re going to run off again at least do me the courtesy of saying goodbye before you go. I wouldn’t want you to get into the habit of bad manners.”

Rhys laughed, more full and honest than he’d expected. He’d never thought the day would come that he’d find his mother joking about his own penchant for danger, or that he could speak openly about what he once went to lengths to conceal.

“I promise,” he said. He meant it, too, which was a strange concept. It was hard to imagine stopping by his father’s office for a quick goodbye. How would he even phrase such an encounter? Sorry, can’t stay to chat, I have a war to fight. Rhys brushed off the thought. It was not his concern. Not yet.

“Good!” Rhys’ mother chirped. With that, it was as if the conversation before was forgotten. With another sip of tea, his mother turned her attention to the pile of parchment Rhys had placed to the side. “Fetch me those, will you? I’ve been trying to keep up to date on things. Your father tells me not to worry, that him and Anja are taking care of things-”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t,” Rhys said, holding the papers aloft. His teasing was no match for his mother’s tenacity as she swatted at his hands until he gave in with a grin.

“I do not want to hear a word of that from you too. What am I supposed to do, sit here and stare out the window?” She asked, flitting through the papers.

“I think the idea is that you actually rest. You know, sleep?”

His mother looked almost offended at the idea. “Sleeping all day is for infants. I’ll get by perfectly fine, thank you. Aha!” She stopped her search, pulling one letter from the stack and offering it to Rhys. “Something else you forgot to mention?”

Rhys recognized Kieran’s elegant, practiced script immediately, though the wax seal gave him pause. Green. Since when had Kieran used green wax? Feeling his mother’s eyes on him, Rhys continued through the letter. It was noticeably void of Kieran’s characteristically long and exuberant tales, no endless questions of the goings-on in Jasrah. It read much like the letters Rhys had never had reason to be privy to, letters of business from an ambassador to his home nation.

Negotiations are taking place in Kolonis; they should commence within the week. Her Majesty seems amenable to my terms. I am doing my best to advise her on these matters and have confidence there will be agreeable results for both parties. Keep an eye out for more news to come shortly.

Though there was more to the letter it was largely inconsequential. He read over the main body again and again, afraid he’d overlooked some crucial detail.

“I wasn’t aware of this,” Rhys said, flipping over the letter and finding himself disappointed when there was no secret note. It was just a letter. No more. “When did it come?”

“This morning, actually,” his mother said. “It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, so I thought – given you were the last one to see him – that you’d understand.”

“No, but I can take a guess.”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t realize Kieran would be involved, but I had heard about the coup. It’s…less than legitimate.” Rhys watched as his mother slowly and silently raised her brow. “‘Negotiations in Kolonis’? It sounds to me like Aquena is joining in on the war.”

His mother dismissed the notion without pause. “No, your aunt would never allow it.”

“I don’t mean sending troops and ships,” Rhys said. “I mean behind the scenes. Supporting Novamor.”

“I didn’t realize we were such good allies,” his mother muttered. She was back to her other papers already, the matter not quite shocking enough to retain her interest with the option of full-fledged war off the table.

“Kieran certainly wants to be.”

Rhys heard the pause in the shuffling of papers before he saw his mother’s narrowed eyes fixed on him. “Is that so?”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if Kieran offers himself as a bargaining chip.”

Rhys’ mother’s laugh came out as something like a cackle that rung in the air. Her left hand jutted toward her stomach, grimacing as the laugh still shook her body. Even with the pain etched into her face, there was happiness there, a true amusement Rhys had not seen on his mother’s face in some time. He laughed too, reveling in the feeling. It was a brief moment, too fleeting, but in it he felt more whole.

“Oh, he’s always tried to punch above his weight, hasn’t he?” His mother chuckled. “Well, good luck to him. At least when it fails we’ll have something good to mock him for.”

As the afternoon dragged on the conversation dulled to a few words here and there, both lost in mountains of letters and ledgers. It was not something Rhys had thought possible, losing himself in menial work in the midst of everything, and yet only when his father and Anja appeared at the door trailed by servants carrying plates of food did Rhys realize just how much time had passed. A whole afternoon gone without dwelling on the thousand worries wrapped up in his brain.

For a moment there was guilt. Anxious, punishing guilt that he dared waste his day with small talk and business while Miriyam grew closer to her goal. No. Jessa wouldn’t want that. What use were those sorts of thoughts to any of them? Worrying himself to distraction would not get him answers any faster; it would not save Jessa’s life. So, somehow, Rhys allowed himself to relax.

It was a moment suspended in time. They sat for hours, all four of them, talking of everything and nothing. Inside those walls there was no war, no hostile threats, no remembrance of the gravity of the world around them but for the empty space at Rhys’ side where a 19-year-old should have sat. Somedays Rhys hardly thought of Dima, resulting in a strange double-edged sword of relief and horror that could not be reconciled. But here, surrounded by family, it was impossible not to think of him. His mother certainly did with every wistful glance toward Rhys and Anja. It was a sick sort of irony that in these stolen moments amidst all the grief and loss and fear that Rhys would feel closer to his family than he had in years.

As the night grew dark and the conversation dwindled, Rhys found himself thinking more and more of another sort of family, the kind not forged of blood. When he’d said his goodnights, finding quiet in a room he’d not slept in in days, Rhys picked up a pen and parchment and began to write. For the first time in some time, Rhys wrote of hope. It was not warranted, not in the slightest. Then again, that was the very point of hope, he supposed. To hope, against all odds, that things would all turn out fine in the end.

My dearest Jessa.

--

The morning felt lighter. Spring had finally settled over Jasrah and brought with it blue skies that stretched into the horizon. Rhys worked his way slowly toward the Tallus’ home, following close to the coastal paths around the city. It was greatly out of the way, but with that it served a purpose. The moment he stepped through those doors, Rhys knew this temporary peace would fade away. It would be back to reality, back to a thousand possibilities that terrified him to even think of. Here, in the glow of the morning sun with nothing but the gentle cadence of the waves, he could be at peace if only for a little longer.

It fell away, just as he knew it would. Still, even as Rhys entered the manor his good mood was not entirely sunk. That had to count for something. Nina sat alone in the dim, stuffy parlor, her legs slung over an armchair in her usual carefree pose with that damned pipe held between her lips, though Rhys was not even sure it was lit. She flipped absentmindedly through the book in her lap as Lord Tallus watched reproachfully from the opposite corner, his eyes fixed on the pipe. Rhys wondered whether the man was just too polite to say anything girl or if he feared the gangly 16-year-old. Probably both, by Rhys’ estimation.

The door to Tristan’s room stood open a crack, and before Rhys could put his hand up to give the door a gentle knock a voice from within called out.

“Come in!”

Tristan sat upright in a mound of pillows, a mountain of books piled up around him and splayed out on the bed. The only spare surface not covered in books and parchment was the sliver of bed where Venya lay curled up on her side, seemingly deep in sleep. Resting in the crook of Tristan’s left arm, propped up with a cushion, Asha slept as soundly as her mother.

“If this is a bad time-” Rhys whispered.

“No, no, come in! Don’t worry about them. Ven sleeps like the dead, and this one is surprisingly good.” Despite his words, Tristan spoke only fractionally louder than Rhys, looking down at his daughter between every other word.

As Rhys drew closer he glanced down at all the books, finding familiarity in their foreignness. “Where did you get these?” He said, picking up one off the top and turning it over in his hands. It was in Antascian, though Rhys didn’t recognize the words.

“Ven brought them. I think she could tell I was getting a bit restless. I’ve never been very good at sitting still if I don’t have something to occupy my mind. She, uh, filled me in on things. I think.” Tristan looked up sheepishly. “Is that alright? You look a bit…dazed”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I just…” Rhys sighed, pushing his hand through his hair. He looked around at all the books with trepidation. It hadn’t seemed quite so daunting when it had been him and five others, but to see one man practically buried in the tomes was another sight entirely. It was difficult to even know where to start explaining.

“I’m guessing Venya also told you what I’ve been looking for?” Rhys asked.

“I think so,” said Tristan, trailing off. He frowned, flipping a few pages in the book open on his lap. “She wasn’t incredibly explicit, though. I’m a bit hazy on all the details of what exactly it is you’re looking for. I’m guessing it got lost in translation?”

Rhys smiled, trying to hide the embarrassment that creeped up. “If I was good at Antascian I’d be doing this myself.”

“Right,” Tristan smiled and looked back down to his book. “That’s why I’m free, isn’t it? It’s why I’m here.”

Rhys’ mouth felt as dry as sand. Shame he’d tried to repress crept up, winding itself into his very core as he looked into Tristan’s gentle eyes. It had been one thing fighting with Selene over morality and intentions. It was another to admit it to the very product of his selfishness. “I’m sorry.”

Whatever melancholy Rhys had seen in Tristan seemed to disappear in an instant. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Tristan gaped, shaking his head. “You’re sorry? You saved my life! If it wasn’t for you I’d still be…” He trailed off, unable to finish that thought.

“It can’t feel good, feeling like you’re only a means to an end,” Rhys said.

“It feels better than not having control over my own mind,” Tristan said. His words stopped their conversation entirely with Rhys unable to know where to even begin to respond. “Besides, if I’d ever imagined being used for a Marinon’s ‘end’ it certainly wasn’t like this.”

“You know who I am?”

“My memories have been coming back bit by bit. I thought your name sounded familiar, but suddenly yesterday it just clicked. I’ve seen you around town. ‘Rhys’ indeed. I think you left out the more important part of your name.”

Rhys shrugged. “Having your reputation precede you isn’t always a good thing.”

Then, to his surprise, Tristan reached out and firmly grabbed his arm with a steely look. “I owe you my life. I’m in your debt.”

Rhys grimaced, pulling away from Tristan’s grip. “No. I don’t want anyone in my debt. Besides, I didn’t do anything. If you want to thank someone you should thank Nina. She did it.”

“Oh, I did, but that doesn’t make me any less grateful to you, or to anyone who helped for that matter. Because of you I have them,” he smiled, his gaze drifting to Venya and then to his daughter. There was a radiant light in his eyes, so full of love and hope that Rhys could not bear to say anything to extinguish it. He wondered how grateful Tristan would be if he knew the cost in blood of his own freedom. If Tristan knew of it, he certainly didn’t show it.

“Let’s not think about this,” Tristan said with a quick shake of his head, as if brushing away the thoughts. Rhys could hardly disagree. “Why don’t you tell me your story so that we can figure out what Ven might have left out?”

The process of sorting through the books was just as menial as before, though certainly more expedited. Despite his friendliness, it quickly became clear Tristan was not much for idle conversation. He became singularly focused, his eyes scanning each page with rapidity. In a way, it reminded Rhys of Jessa, content to read in silence from sun up to sun down. The thought made Rhys’ smile; if only it could be her.

Eventually Asha stirred with a fuss, Venya waking almost in tandem. Once the baby was fed and soothed, Venya laid her on the bed. The little girl cooed and waved her arms in delight at her mother’s high-pitched voice and wide eyes, smiling down on her and laughing at each little noise. Tristan and Venya both laughed at Asha’s joy, and once again Rhys felt like an intruder witnessing something intimate. It was a strange scene to see an infant among all this darkness, but maybe it was a much needed reminder. Life goes on. It always finds a way.

After some time Venya soothed Asha back to sleep, and with that joined Tristan and Rhys. Venya and Tristan worked off each other seamlessly, passing books back and forth with dog-eared pages, speaking in rapid-fire Antascian far above Rhys’ comprehension. And so this pattern continued for hours, well through the morning and afternoon and into the sunset. Rhys’ eyes grew tired, his mind wandering beyond his control. It seemed a hopeless endeavor. Then, Venya let out what almost sounded like a squeak.

Venya thrust the book in front of Tristan, pointing at some script at the bottom of the page. Tristan listened with rapt attention, his eyes flicking over the words as he nodded along. Rhys tried to peer at the page only to find it utterly incomprehensible. It was an exceedingly old book - practically falling to bits – with each page handwritten in a curled, slanted script Rhys wasn’t sure he’d be able to read even if it was in Etrenian. Instead he tried to calm himself as he waited, minutes feeling like hours as the two of them conversed. Rhys could only get words here and there, meaningless words that meant nothing to his greater understanding. He only had Tristan’s expressions to gauge anything by, and the man was not expressive enough to give much away.

“Excuse me?” Rhys interjected. Tristan and Venya looked up with surprise as though they’d forgotten he was even there. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry,” said Tristan. “It’s just a bit of a process. This book is written in a fairly archaic form of Antascian. Not unreadable, but not straightforward either. We’re trying to smooth out the details.”

“But is it…it?”

Tristan paused, lips pressed together. “I think so.”

“Can you tell me anything? Anything at all?”

Tristan said something quickly to Venya, the woman giving a nod in response. “Do you want the good news or bad news first?”

Rhys felt his heart sink. “Good.”

“Well, there’s a chance that Miriyam doesn’t have a correctly translated version of this spell. Like I said, it’s a bit archaic, and from what you told me you know about the spell it seems that whoever informed you about it is missing some pretty crucial details. Quite understandable. If she doesn’t understand the spell completely I’m afraid that if she tries to use the magic it will fail.”

Rhy dared not feel even a sliver of relief, though his mind begged for it. Miriyam was smart. She would not miss a single detail. “And the bad news?”

“So, there’s a passage here,” Tristan pointed to a line in the book, though it might as well have been scribbles to Rhys’ eyes, “that’s somewhat unclear to someone who isn’t extremely familiar with the Antascian language. I didn’t catch it at first, though Venya did. In Etrenian it would literally translate to ‘to give of the blood.’ Not exactly a normal sounding phrase, is it? Given that this spell already seems to require the mage to bind themselves to the weapon with their blood and that of their target, it could be interpreted that it’s just another way of saying that. But in Antascian that phrase has a deeper meaning. It’s not literal; it doesn’t mean to simply prick your finger. It means to give a human sacrifice.”

Rhys was silent. He wouldn’t allow his mind to run wild. He couldn’t. “What does that mean?”

“This spell won’t kill an entire bloodline. It’s not quite that powerful. It requires the mage to choose what lengths they’re willing to go to to get the result they want.”

“Just say it in plain words.”

“A life for a life. For every life you want the spell to take, you must use the weapon to sacrifice another in its place. Think of it as imbuing the weapon with a purpose.”

Rhys’ body ran cold, his every nerve on edge. He could feel his heart practically bursting from his chest, his head fuzzy with his rising pulse. No. No.

“I’m not really sure how these sorts of things are made,” Tristan continued, seemingly unaware of Rhys’ vacant expression. “My magic is more…experimental, if that’s the word for it. But I imagine whoever developed this spell wanted to make sure the mage was serious about what they wanted to do and not simply caught in a bout of anger. It takes some serious determination to be willing to murder someone with your own two hands. I think…” Tristan paused, frowning. “Lord Rhys, are you alright?”

“Miriyam murdered my brother with a dagger.” Rhys could barely hear his own voice, his mind numb. His words tumbled out of him without conscious thought. “Right in front me. He died in my arms.”

Tristan’s eyes grew wide as he shifted uncomfortably, tapping his fingers nervously against the book. “I’m…I’m sorry. I…oh.” Tristan’s jaw went tight, the realization of Rhys’ words dawning on him. He whispered quickly to Venya whose expression too went stony.

“Is there…is there…” Rhys’ voice was breaking. He coughed, pressing his hand to his mouth as he swallowed hard, closing his eyes. He could not fall apart. Not now. “Is there anything in there about how to undo the spell? Stop it? A way to protect someone?”

Tristan frowned, looking to Venya as if for support. “I uh…I’m not sure. There’s nothing explicit. I mean, it's a one time kind of deal, so if the magic was somehow misused I suppose that might ruin things. I also imagine destroying the weapon would work. Killing her, too. Otherwise? Well, I’ll keep looking. There might be something in one of these books. This isn’t my strong suit, blood magic, so I-”

Rhys didn’t hear the last of Tristan’s words. He was already at the door, walking mindlessly away. His feet moved though he didn’t know where he was going. He could hear Tristan call out in the distance but he paid it no mind. Rhys’ body trembled, his breath shallow. He walked until he was outside the manor. He walked through the streets, slipping through alleyways and behind buildings so as not to be peered at, leaving others to wonder why he looked as though he’d just witnessed a death. He walked and walked until eventually he came to an empty beach, one tucked away behind a rocky alcove, far away from the noise of the city. The moment he reached its sands he sunk down, his arms resting on his knees as he stared out into the open sea.

He fell apart.

[Mollianne]

Jessa was quite simply minding her own business, surveying the crowd of young nobles before her from her perch on the step up to the cart seat, when a jab in her side jolted her from her thoughts. She turned to glare down at Priti. No, Laurita. Gods but it was weird seeing Laurita with long, braided hair instead of short, colourful clothes over the drab servants' garb, and to look down at her rather than up.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ainesh on the other side of the square. He eyed Laurita, deep frown lines marring his forehead. Jessa could hardly blame him. His lover, posing as his sister. At least it meant a reprieve from the pair making eyes at each other.

A man approached the cart, pulling Jessa's attention away. "Careful," she barked, forgetting all about Laurita poking her and Ainesh's discomfort, "There's a hole there."

The nobleman peered around the burlap sack of corn, grinning sheepishly when he spotted the tear. Righting the bag, he slid it onto the back of the cart. "When my family agreed to this alliance, I didn't realise it meant actual heavy lifting."

There was laughter in his tone, but something snapped in Jessa. She was quite done with these spoon-fed nobles and all their complaints. She'd heard little else that morning. "What else did you expect in war?" The smile slipped off the man's face. "By choosing a side, you can no longer turn a blind eye to their suffering. Children are facing malnourishment, or do you not care? No one's forcing you to be here. If you can't face a tiny bit of manual labour or you think you're above helping people who could die if we don't get over ourselves and give them what we can easily afford to lose? I'm not keeping you here. You can leave."

She stared the man down until he ducked his head, nodded, and shuffled back to his friends. They huddled together, and Jessa was quite sure they were whispering about her. She turned away, ignoring the sharp pain in her chest. She did not seek their good opinion. By enforcing that these nobles could not fob the hard work off on their servants, Jessa had done the right thing. The people in the most deprived parts of the city deserved to see their aristocracy giving up their time and food for them.

Laurita poked her in the side again.

"What?" Jessa huffed, averting her gaze from the south gate at the end of the cobbled thoroughfare.

Laurita barely moved her lips as she spoke. "Stop looking for her. Miriyam isn't here. And if she is - well, there's nothing we can do about it." Laurita took her hand, squeezing it. "If she didn't kill you last time, I doubt she'll do it now."

"I wasn't-"

Laurita raised her eyebrows and fixed her with a sarcastic stare.

Jessa sighed. Her gaze drifted away.

"And again! Stop."

Glaring at her friend, Jessa pulled her attention to the growing group of nobles. There were nearly thirty in all, the adult children of families allied with Nayall either before or in the days after Jessa's encounter with Miriyam. The Spring Procession had unfortunately brought fewer allies than Jessa had hoped, but any addition made their side stronger. If Nayall - and the general populace - could see how many aristocrats were willing to follow a commoner... She glanced at the rooftops, an idle thought that perhaps Nayall had sneaked out to take a peek at the gathering.

Larend appeared at her elbow. Two bags of grain were slung over his shoulders, and she had seen him put a few more in the other three carts. "Why can't all of these people be like you, Larend?"

"Oh, um." His cheeks reddened. Jessa caught Laurita rolling her eyes.

"It took so much cajoling to get even the Tremonts to donate more than a shelf of their pantry. They easily could survive on less. I doubt anyone else has even brought a tenth of what they could afford to lose." She tilted her head. "You're not giving too much, right?"

"I have enough."

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Larend."

"I've hardly done anything," he said, ducking his head. Laurita dropped her head into her hand. Jessa turned to her, frowning.

"Selling most of your family's possessions and lying to your father about the profits so you could donate most of it to Nayall? You're the only reason we could hire the cart drivers for today." The cart drivers were the only people involved in the day's activities who weren't of noble birth. They had paid them handsomely.

Larend dropped his sacks over the lip of the cart and shrugged. "Just doing what I can."

Jessa stretched her leg towards the floor and hopped down from the cart. Gesturing at Larend and Laurita to follow, she caught the attention of a few of the other nobles in the three groups that had formed around each cart of goods. When they were all huddled together, hidden from view between the cart and a tall garden wall, Jessa pulled on her gloves. Everyone else followed suit, eyeing the bag slung over Jessa's body. She sucked in a deep breath, looking over her shoulder in the direction she knew Ainesh would be even though she could not see him. Her gut twisting, she prayed she could trust these mages. She didn't have much choice; they were the only ones in the Tremonts' acquaintance with even limited skill at reading minds. Her hand hovered over the bag's fastening, wanting to prolong opening it. Bursting at the seems as it was the bag popped open instantly, revealing the grey and occasional black stones within. The mages' - plus Larend - huddled in closer, curiosity guiding their hands. One of them had not yet put on gloves; they reached forward. Jessa snatched the bag back.

"What did I say before? Don't let them touch your bare skin." The mage, too young for Jessa to be comfortable with him being part of this, ducked his head and muttered an apology. He reminded her of Harris, though probably that was only in the golden hair. An ache in her heart, Jessa softened her tone at his distress. "It's alright. They activate as soon as you touch them is all. We can't risk people thinking they're nothing and just throwing them away."

Gesturing for them to open their bags, Jessa scooped up handfuls of the stones and distributed them equally. "Glean as much as you can of their intentions from their mind." She pushed past her discomfort. "If they seem influential, give them a package with a black stone - the invites to the meeting with Nayall, as well as my memories of him and our current king. For most others, the grey - just the memories. Don't get them confused; we don't want too many people knowing about the meeting." She looked each of them in the eye, waiting until they nodded. "If, when you read their minds, you are in any doubt - you're unsure if they're a spy, or you think they might be loyal to the crown - or if they're a city guard come to check up on us, they just get the regular food package. No stone. I have no doubt that we will be monitored. The king might believe we're doing this in the crown's name, but he knows I'm involved."

"Why's he even letting you do this, then?"

"Because it lends more credibility to the idea that this was his idea if one of his children is visibly helping. But we're heading to a dangerous part of the city, especially for a du Rene, and I'm… well, expendable."

Though a few raised their eyebrows, and Larend looked faintly outraged, none of them spoke up in disagreement. A small, sad smile ghosted Jessa's lips as she emptied out her bag but for a few stones. The mages dispersed.

Before Larend could join their group in the carriage, Jessa pulled him back. "Keep an eye on them, okay? You may not have magic, but you have eyes. If you're unsure about someone, don't let them bully you into giving them a stone. They can't fall into the wrong hands."

"You don't trust them?"

"I trust you and Ainesh, which is why you're coming with us to Rathbone and he's going leading one of the decoy groups." Her stomach sank at even calling them such. "As for the other... I'll have to trust Ainesh knows the friend he put in charge." She bit her lip and squeezed Larend wrist before letting go. "Be careful."

Within a few minutes, the carriages set off in three directions out of the inner city. The remaining eight nobles, including Jessa and Laurita, clambered up onto the carts next to the drivers.

The cart drivers called their goodbyes to each other as they separated to trundle after the carriages. The carts had a few stops to make before joining the other nobles in the squares where they would hold the food drives.

Halfway down the main thoroughfare, Jessa called for the cart to halt. She and Laurita jumped down. The streets were as quiet as they had been for weeks. Guards leaned against posts on street corners. Many of the shops were dark and dusty. The carved wood lining the roofs, and the famous clothiers and jewellers nestled beneath them, were the only indications that this was an affluent part of the city. It looked near abandoned.

Laurita peered through the glass in the door of the butcher's. She turned back, shrugging. It had been a long shot for such luxury anyway. "I think I can see your letter on the floor. The owner hasn't been here in a while."

At the next, a bakery in a more residential part of town home to many of the merchant class, they had more luck. The windows were dingy and smeared with streaks of paint that would normally display sales or offers. There were no such things to be had. There were many more people wandering the street than the near-abandoned shopping avenue. Merchants and beggars alike eyed the cart with interest. Jessa watched the men, woman and children huddled under threadbare blankets, tucked into the grooves of the haphazard buildings. Her heart was a rock in her chest, heavy, sinking through her body. Instead of heading into the bakery, where a woman now peered at them, she went to the back of the cart and rummaged for a sack each of vegetables and of bread.

"Priti," she called, the name foreign on her tongue. Laurita, used to disguise, came to Jessa's call immediately. "Hand the bread and carrots out to them?"

As Jessa looked over her shoulder before heading inside the bakery, she wondered whether she was doing more harm than good. They would have this bread, and then what? She wished she could offer Nayall as sanctuary, but he was stretched thin as it was even with Larend's money.

"Whaddya want?" the woman barked as Jessa entered. She pulled her grey cardigan more tightly around herself. She left her arms there, folded and guarded.

"You received my letter?" Jessa asked, keeping her voice gentle. "I just want to buy some wheat and bread - you set the price. I explained-"

The woman's mouth dropped open. "The food drives? I didn'a think you was serious about that. Nobles helping the poor?" She spat out a laugh.

"I'm serious. We have pooled together resources, but I'm sure times are not good for you either. We will pay you handsomely for anything you can give."

"How much?" Her eyes twinkled with cunning as she leaned forward. Jessa could guess what she was thinking.

"I know the usual price of things," Jessa said. The woman's sparkle dulled. She pulled back, losing interest. "But I am also aware of wartime inflation and the Novarian blockades. You set your price."

Jessa would haggle, but the woman looked thin and her shelves were half-empty; Jessa knew she would not have the heart to refuse unless it was truly unreasonable.

The transaction made, Jessa called for Laurita to help her pack the cart. Instead of hopping back up when they were done, Jessa went back to the bakery.

"Thank you." Her hand brushed over her bag, indecision clawing at her gut. She could not read minds. She could not know this woman loyalty. But Jessa had seen the baker's surprise and disgust.

She unclasped the bag, closing her hand around one of the grey stones, and on her way out she let it fall onto one of the shelves. She could only hope the baker would come across it when she tidied the storefront.

And if not? No harm done.

They stopped at a few other businesses before reaching Rathbone Square, their cart fuller by a quarter of the original. Jessa wasn't entirely sure how far it would reach - and everything would be severely rationed - but she hoped it would not cause more problems than it solved. Even though she hated that the king would take public credit for this, maybe seeing some of the dissent quieting would inspire him to do more. There were plenty of noble families, plenty of hoarded food, plenty of empty rooms in their opulent, unnecessary manors. She could accept losing a few of the citizens to loyalty to the crown if it meant they could eat and weren't crammed into the claustrophobic, dirty city streets. With the memory stones Jessa had done her best to mitigate it, telling them Nayall was the true benefactor but to quell their dissent so the king believed they were falling in line. Public displays of anger would only hurt them. If they believed in Nayall's cause, they were to spread the word, but quietly.

She hoped they were sensible enough to listen.

The rest of the nobles had spent their time awaiting the cart by meandering the streets and informing anyone they passed about the food drive. There was already quite a gathering of people, hunched over, clutching blankets around their bodies. Children clung to their legs, rubbed their eyes, cried for home and sleep. Others were cradled in their parents' arms, coughing weakly, turning into their parents' chests as the adults watched them with desperation in their eyes. A baby's ear-splitting cries filled the air, and in their mother's haste to comfort them the blanket slipped away, revealing a protruded breastbone. Its mother looked ready to collapse to the ground, holding herself up by sheer will to protect her child.

She wasn't sure what alerted them to the new arrival, but a few spied the cart. They pointed, chattering excitedly. More than a few looked over in disbelief. The crowd surged.

Jessa flicked her eyes towards the mages, who had been advised to stay in the square for just this occasion. They nodded, and the crowd stopped. Jessa ignored how her stomach twisted. She hated it, hated controlling them even a little, but they could not have a riot on their hands. Her memories flashed - screaming, fire, panic clawing at her throat. No, she had seen enough riots.

It was only suggestion, she tried to justify. Not mind control. The two mages weren't strong enough to actively control such a crowd. They had just planted images of riots and stampedes, warning them to be calm.

Jessa needed to be calm.

The nobles were trickling back into the square. She eyed their faces, expecting the grimaces and annoyance she had seen earlier. But their faces were blank, serene, with even a bland smile. Ever the aristocrats, the people could not see their true feelings. Without complaint, they began unloading the cart, distributing the different foodstuffs - eggs, cheese, potatoes, stray vegetables, and an overwhelming amount of grain - between parcels, and handing them to the mages. With very few mishaps, the plan was in motion.

Nodding at Larend, Jessa and Priti skirted the crowds -a young girl complained that her legs hurt as she leaned against her father - and headed towards the grocery store on the corner of the square. It was simply named Rathbone Grocery, though many of the lettering above the door was twisted and rusting, and a couple of the letters were missing completely. Through the window, Jessa saw a single flicker of candlelight.

Before they could enter, a man yanked the door open. Red-faced and blotchy, he glared at the crowds in the square. "What do you call this? Stealing my customers?"

Jessa paused, her throat catching at his unexpected hostility. She had been quite sure the grocer would have been expecting her. She recalled standing before the king as his eyes passed over the list of businesses she wanted to solicit, wringing her hands behind her back as he got closer to the end while the darkness of the room pressed in on her. He had not even wavered. Perhaps he was overconfident that Jessa couldn't have uncovered anything. Or perhaps he assumed that, if she had, she would not forewarn him. After all who would make their own reconnaissance mission more difficult?

Jessa, that's who.

Beside her, Laurita straightened, flicking Priti's braid over her shoulder, and said, "Not at all, sir. I doubt any of these people are your usual clientele. In any case, we did send a letter. Did you not receive it?"

The man slammed the door in their face, and Jessa heard the grind of metal as the bolt was shoved across. Jessa and Laurita shared a surprised glance. A few minutes later, they heard the bolt pulled back and the man cracked open the door.

"You mean this?" he waved a crumpled, unopened envelope through the gap. On Jessa's nod, the man ripped it open and scanned its contents.

"Go away. You're scaring away my customers. I don't want nothing to do with this." He glanced over his shoulder. Jessa gaze dropped to his hands, where he was ripping one corner of the letter to shreds.

Hiding something. That heavy doubt in Jessa's heart lifted, just a little. Nathaniel really could be right.

"We can compensate you very well," she said, hoping the disgust in her voice didn't show. If this man was involved in child smuggling, money must be the only thing he cared about. She despised herself for giving him more funds to abuse, but they had to get inside. They had to learn the truth. There were children's minds and lives at stake.

"How well?" The man pulled the door open another inch.

Laurita spun her bag around her body, showing the man the sea of courenes inside. What remained was less than they had offered any of the others - Jessa tasted bile at even the thought of handing as much to someone who did not deserve it - but it would undoubtedly be more than the man usually earned from selling his wares. She could see the cogs in his mind whirring, much like all the others had as they wondered how much they could fool her into paying.

The man grumbled as he disappeared into the darkness, but he left the door opened. Jessa stepped inside, Laurita close on her heels. They exchanged glances, and Laurita wandered over to the shelves near the back of the shop. She made a show of examining the carrots, but Jessa knew from the tilt of her head that she was really examining the door on the back wall and how she could get in without notice.

Jessa headed for the other side of the room, where a pile of potatoes was stacked precariously in a crate. Glancing at the owner, Jessa knocked into the potatoes and let them tumble to the ground. The sound momentarily washed out the shouting from the square.

"What the-!" The man rounded on her, stomping towards her. Jessa immediately scrambled to the floor, scooping up the potatoes and apologising profusely. She glanced to the back of the room, but she felt her gaze want to slide away. Laurita wasn't there - or was making her think she was. If she looked closely, she could make out something by the door.

"You better pay for all of these," the man grumbled.

"Yes, sir, of course," Jessa said, thrusting them onto the potatoes that remained in the crate and watching with faked helplessness as they wobbled and fell back onto the floor.

"Honestly, girl, what are you doing?" With a gusty sigh, the man pushed her out of the way and bent down himself to collect the stray potatoes. Jessa felt a vindictive flash of pleasure to see him scrambling around on the ground. In that moment, Jessa heard a faint snick - hopefully the man's grumbling prevented him noticing. Laurita had got in.

Now she was left with the dubious task of distracting the man further. There was only so many times she could knock over his potatoes.

Placing herself directly between the man and the door so he would not see it even in his periphery, Jessa began to explain what goods they wanted and the price they were willing to pay. She set out deliberately, insultingly low. The man was predictable. He rose from the floor, folding his arms. "You trying to play me for a fool? I could get more'n that for a quarter of what you want."

Jessa held up her hands. They continued in this fashion for some time, Jessa refusing to let her gaze slide to the door even as her heart was in her throat. The man was red in the face, his moustache twitching as he spluttered at her latest offer. She couldn't find it in herself to care. He was a greedy pig. She pursed her lips to stop her smile.

"If you ain't gonna be serious, you can get out." He began to turn.

"Alright, alright." He turned back, eyeing her suspiciously. The fear in her voice had come through. Cursing herself, Jessa lowered her tone and offered a reasonable sum for the potatoes.

"Fine," the man said. "Are we done here?"

"No, carrots too."

And so the charade continued. Even when Laurita slipped back into the room, her expression unreadable, Jessa dragged it out another few minutes until shaking the grocers hand and departing, weighted down by sacks of produce.

Keeping the bags above their faces as they staggered back gave them some cover to speak freely. "Anything?"

"Nothing concrete. I did find a trapdoor, but nothing I tried would open it. And this damned noise prevented me from hearing anything - I thought there was a scuffle, but I could easily have made that up. I looked at their shipments, and everything looked normal. They're hardly going to document children." They reached the cart, and Laurita dropped her bags down. She leaned closer to Jessa. "I think the only thing I might have found that has any use was a small scrap of paper tucked into some book. It said…" She scrunched up her nose in memory. "Usual place, wherever that is. The date was 18 days from now. There was a kiss drawn on it, and the words 'miss you', but it was a slightly different colour of ink, so I reckon our grocer got clever. Pass it off as an affair in case we did come snooping. The note wasn't particularly well hidden."

Jessa pushed a hand through her hair. "Doesn't really matter anyway unless we know where."

"Nayall can put some people on surveillance from now until then." She patted Jessa's arm, her expression fierce. "We will crack this wide open, Jessa. These monsters are going down. It's just a matter of when."

***

The only sound in the breakfast room that morning was the scrape of forks on plates. Somehow even that screech was lethargic. She glanced at the king, food forgotten in favour of a pile of letters. Only one had been opened, and it was clenched in his fist, shaking slightly. A muscle in his jaw pulsed. The queen kept her head high as she stared, jaw tight, at her son who was listlessly pushing the plaice around his plate and did not seem to notice.

Ainesh and Jessa took their seats as if they were walking on tightropes. Not that Jessa had ever seen a circus to know.

"I'll write to my mother-"

Catrice's voice shook, stealing Jessa's attention, but then the door opened and an excited squeal pierced Jessa's eardrums. "Happy birthday, mother!"

The king lowered his letter, glaring at Elissa over the paper before finally putting it aside and picking up the next one.

"Not now, Elissa," said her mother tiredly, gently pushing her daughters hug away.

"But... It's your birthday." Elissa flopped into the chair beside Catrice, sighing gustily. "You already cancelled the plans for the ball before they'd even started, and now I can't even hug you? Please tell me you are at least inviting some friends to dinner tonight."

"Your father says it isn't safe." The nervous - that was the only way Jessa could describe it, as much as it unnerved her - glance Catrice threw the king's way suggested he had told her rather more forcefully than that. Jessa wondered how often they argued - or, more likely, how often they didn't. And how much had Alrick told her? "We have many enemies, Elissa. Only us, the councillors and the servants are allowed in the castle from now on."

"Anyone who wants to sneak in will come in with the servants," Edmund mumbled, still watching his plate.

Elissa mouth dropped open. She thought so little of the servants she had not even considered it. "Yeah... yeah!"

"Precautions are in place."

And didn't Jessa know it. Laurita had not visited for over a day until Jessa had overheard one of the servants grumbling to her friend that she had to work longer because one of the others had brought yesterday's seal rather than today's and been forbidden access.

"Why will you write to your mother?" Alrick asked, sounding almost bored. A sharpness in his eyes belied it.

"We need more funding, and she can petition the Barichene queen for more soldiers. And..." she pursed her lips, "And I think it's time our children get out of the city."

"We've discussed this," Alrick said in the same, idle tone. "They stay with me."

"They're not safe here!"

Elissa froze, fork halfway to her mouth, staring at her mother like she had grown two heads. Catrice rubbed her forehead, then patted her daughter's hand. Much less shrill, she said, "I'm okay, I'm okay," before rounding back on her husband.

"An army will be on our doorstep before you know it and you'll still say they're safer here. What will it take? They're advancing, Alrick. You promised me without their queen they'd start falling apart. I had my doubts but I let you get on with it. We started regaining strongholds. But except for Aramais, which they seemed practically to give us anyway - you said it yourself - they've taken them all back. They're coming. They're going to starve us out. How can our children possibly be safe here?"

"I want them where I can watch over them. We are not having this conversation again." With that, the king scraped his chair back and stormed from the room.

"Mother?" Elissa whispered. Catrice smoothed her hair and kissed it, murmuring platitudes as she brought her son in for a hug. Her eyes closed as she rested her chin on her son's blonde head. She breathed in deeply, stroking his hair as she clutched her daughter's hand.

Jessa knew she ought to look away - Ainesh's tug on her sleeve suggested as much - but she could not. She stared at Harris - no, Edmund. She flinched, her mouth as dry as sand and her heart as heavy as an anchor. Her throat constricted. Harris was dead. But huddled in his chair, his eyes wide with fear as he watched his mother, it was like Harris was there again.

Like Catrice, she knew the Novarians would come. She hoped they would win. But Nayall and the queen could not risk anyone supporting the du Rene children. Even if they would not die, their fates would not be pleasant ones.

For one of them, at least, Jessa could do something.

"My queen," she murmured. "Could I speak with you?"

Elissa opened her mouth to protest, but Catrice must have seen something in Jessa's expression. Hushing her daughter, she nodded and stood. "Come."

Jessa followed the queen to her rooms. She forced herself to keep her head held high and not to shuffle in the woman's shadow. Jessa held all the cards here, just as before. She ought not be weak.

The door shut firmly behind them. Jessa stood by the door, watching the queen's back warily. Silence suffocated the room.

Catrice spun around and barked, "Well?"

"I can protect Edmund."

The queen's staccato laugh threatened to break Jessa's resolve. She felt next to nothing for her stepmother - her tormenter. Her gaze was drawn to the door leading to the balcony, where Edmund had stormed off to in disgust after defending her. He had goodness in him, just as his twin, if buried a little deeper. And in any case, he was an innocent child.

"You?" Catrice sneered.

"The king wants his children at his side because they share his blood. There is a woman who has just arrived in Ovis who is experimenting with what I can only describe as a twisted blood magic. If she kills one du Rene, they will all die. The king believes they are safest within these walls. The guards have been trebled, and there is no risk of her finding them as they try to leave. Until the army comes, perhaps he is right in this." Jessa took a step forward. "But Edmund… He does not have du Rene blood."

"You think I should tell him?" Catrice shook her head slowly. Her eyebrows disappeared into her hair, such was her astonishment. Her eyes shone with dark mirth.

"Actually, no," Jessa said. "I can't know for sure how he would react, but I imagine-"

"He would kill me there and then." The words were light, casual, careless. Yet Jessa did not miss Catrice's fingers tighten in her skirt, or that her gaze dropped for a moment.

"I don't think it would make Edmund any safer. He's just an innocent child, so I don't believe Alrick would hurt him for this, but despite raising him he would no longer see Edmund as a son." Jessa swallowed hard. She wished for Catrice's composure, but her voice came out strained and pitiful. "Whatever you think of me and my mother, we both know how he felt for her, and yet he did not treat me well. We share blood. Edmund does not. It-"

The words lodged in her throat as horror overtook her. She gulped in a breath.

"What?" With that single, spiky word all Catrice's composure was gone. She took a step forward, bearing in on Jessa. "What?"

"If you told Alrick," Jessa whispered, "he might not tell anyone. He might use Edmund as bait for Miriyam."

Catrice did not need to know who Miriyam was to guess Jessa's meaning. Her face went as white as the snow, long gone from Ovis' streets. All strength was gone from the queen's voice as she breathed, "He wouldn't."

Jessa hoped, but she knew the dark alleyways Alrick was willing to travel. He had no qualms using children as pawns. If Edmund did not share his blood, and if that betrayal seeped into his head and shrivelled heart, Jessa knew it could turn him mad.

The poof as Catrice's legs gave out and she collapsed into an armchair brought Jessa back to reality. No. This would not happen - this had never been her suggestion.

"Your husband cannot find out. Perhaps never, but certainly not before Edmund is long gone. I have friends - powerful friends - who can get him out of the city and keep him safe. But they would need to know the truth of Edmund's parentage."

Catrice did not even mock her for her claim. She nodded like a wind-up toy, over and over. Lost to the darkness.

"My queen," Jessa said, loud and firm. Catrice's gaze snapped to meet hers. "The king does not know, and he need never know. Are you listening?" The queen nodded. Jessa eyed her for a beat before continuing, "All I need from you is a signed confession, and any evidence you have that Graeme Janes is Edmund's father. Can you do that now?"

Catrice shook her head before turning it into a nod. When she did not move, Jessa hurried to the bureau, retrieving a pen and paper which she thrust into Catrice's hand and ordered her to write. Slowly, the queen did. Her hand shook. When she wrote down Edmund's real father, the pen slipped out of her hand as she stared at it. She would never have seen it written down before, the black words a warning of everything that was at stake. Eventually, she picked up the pen and continued. At the final flick of her pen as she signed her name, she buried her head in her hands.

"It will take a few days to get this out. When it does, someone will…" Jessa searched the room helplessly before her gaze landed on a vase filled with fresh flowers and it hit her. "You'll receive a note, containing only a chrysanthemum. When Edmund is ready to leave - when you've told him-" Jessa stared Catrice down until she looked up and nodded. "-put the flower on his bedside. That way, whatever happens to me, someone will see it and get him out."

With little else to say, Jessa left. Her heart was heavy. She wanted to hole herself up in her room and never leave again. Her mind kept drifting, seeing Edmund alone and terrified. Calling for his parents as Miriyam stalked towards him, playing with him as he had with her. Bait. She almost vomited there and then.

As if her distress was already known, the servant Mahlia waited outside her door with a gentle smile and a steaming cup of tea. Jessa patted her tiredly on the arm as she unlocked the door. "Thank you, Mahlia. You can leave it on the desk."

Jessa fell into bed, staring at the ceiling. There were arrangements she needed to make, but there was little she could do until Laurita visited. She could read her book on magic, verifying for the thousandth time in the last day that there was a way to remove the magic on her ring without it affecting the compulsion on her mind. What she needed to do was burned into her brain, but it would not hurt to check again. Yet, she simply lay there. Her limbs were as heavy as her heart. She doubted she could move if she tried.

But… she had not heard the door close. Groaning, she twisted onto her side and cracked open an eye to find Mahlia standing by the desk. Her arms were behind her back, and she stood ramrod straight. Jessa frowned, the scene before her tugging at her curiosity and concern.

"Mahlia, are you okay?"

"Yes, my lady." Jessa found the will to push herself into a sitting position. There was something… stilted about the servant's tone. "Won't you drink your tea?"

"Yes, I'll drink it later. Should I…?" She gestured at the door. "Is there something the matter?"

"Oh no my lady." Mahlia pressed her lips closed, as if she was fighting against herself not to speak. She caved. "I just… you should really drink the tea."

Jessa's ears rang. Her gaze slid to the tea and then back to Mahlia's face. Her eyes were like glass, empty and unseeing. No. "No."

She didn't realise she had spoken aloud until Mahlia whispered, her voice cracking, "I'm sorry, my lady."

Alrick had got to her. "Have you visited Lady Tremont recently?" All of the servants who knew too much were meant to visit.

"Yes, my lady. He doesn't know."

Then this was just coincidence. Jessa's stomach plummeted to the floor. Not Mahlia. Not the first servant who had believed in her. She had helped her bring the others to her side.

She was Jessa's mother's age. And she had seen the way she had mothered her niece, Elodie. Elodie, who had already lost her mother and did not deserve to lose her aunt. Jessa knew what she must do.

Mahlia deflated in relief as Jessa stood, but her eyes told a different story. They begged forgiveness. "You have nothing to be sorry for," Jessa said. Her thoughts raced. Was she to die here, now? Was this her father's plan? Or did he have some other cruel fate in mind for her?

"Just… one minute," she said, taking out Catrice's confession. Scrambling for a blank piece of paper on her desk, Jessa hastily wrote out her plan. With a glance at Mahlia, she shoved it under Ainesh's door. Should she call for help? Mahlia saw her hesitate and stiffened. Jessa closed her eyes, resting her forehead on the door. Who would die if Jessa raised the alarm? Mahlia? Elodie?

There was no other choice. She would not allow another to die for her.

She drank the tea.

[Rosabeth]

“Get up, you lazy ass.”

Too loud. Everything was too loud. A loud zing of metal on metal, and suddenly sunlight bathed the room. It made Rhys want to vomit. His head pounded incessantly in his head as he rolled over in bed, pulling a pillow over his head until it blocked out the light. It didn’t last. In an instant the pillow was ripped from his hands, and the dull thud in the distance made Rhys think it might have hit a wall.

A metal cup pressed against his cheek, cold enough to make Rhys flinch. When he did not immediately move, it pressed harder, practically trying to burrow its way into his face.

“Alright!” Rhys groaned, cringing at his own voice. Too loud. Slowly, Rhys squinted out of his right eye, finding a familiar figure looming above him.

“Drink,” Victor ordered, slapping the cup against Rhys’ face once more.

“Go away,” Rhys grumbled, but he knew it was no use. He regretted it a moment later when a drizzle of water hit his ear. Victor guffawed in the background as Rhys practically leapt out of bed, clutching his throbbing head with one hand and wiping at the water with the other.

“Asshole.”

“Drink.”

Though he never let up his glare for even a moment, Rhys relented, taking the cup with what would have been excess force had he been feeling his best. Instead, it probably felt like fighting with a child. Though he would not admit it in so many words, every drink was like a gift from the gods, more glorious than it had any right to be. When he finished in only seconds Victor was there with a pitcher, filling the cup once more.

“No need to thank me,” said Victor as Rhys held out the cup the third time, finally having propped himself up into a sitting position. Rhys responded only with a glare, but between them it might as well have been a heartfelt thanks.

They sat there for some time in silence, Rhys slumped back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. Victor sat at the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. It wasn’t an entirely comfortable silence, but Victor had always been remarkably patient. He did not push, and Rhys took the calm to collect his thoughts amidst the pain in his head. If someone had to see him like this, at least it was Victor. He’d seen worse.

“How’d you know?” Rhys asked, breaking the silence.

“Well, I went by Ero’s this morning and you weren’t there, and I was told that you’d kind of just run off without explanation last night. When I came over here a servant told me you were still asleep. Given that the only times I’ve ever seen you sleep in this late the entire time I’ve known you is when you’ve been hungover, it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.” There was an almost judgmental look in Victor’s eyes, but it quickly softened to one of understanding. “I stopped by the kitchens on my way up. They’ll bring something soon.”

“Thanks,” Rhys mumbled. The thought of food was positively divine.

“Oh, so he can be grateful!”

“Shut up.”

Quiet set in once more after Rhys’ words, but Rhys was not fool enough to think it would last. Victor hadn’t come to sit in silence.

“So,” Victor said slowly, drawing out the word dramatically. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Rhys answered.

“Are you going to at least tell me what happened?”

“I’d rather not.”

It wasn’t that Rhys couldn’t bring himself to talk about it, or that he didn’t think Victor would understand. It was simply that he was tired. Tired of being consumed by vicious, horrible thoughts that left his emotions raw. He wanted peace, that was all. It didn’t feel like too much to ask. In reality, he might as well have asked for the world.

“Don’t you think you might not be dealing with this in the best way? Yes, yes, I know, pot calling the kettle black,” Victor grumbled before Rhys could attempt to interject. “Just because I don’t take my own advice doesn’t mean I can’t see when something’s wrong.”

Rhys hadn’t intended to get drunk. When he’d finally found his way home in the pitch black night, he’d meant to go straight to sleep. Yet when he’d passed the dimly lit study and found his sister curled in a chair by the fire, a bottle of wine by her side, he found himself stopping. Without a word, Anja had handed him the bottle. They’d stayed like that for some time – the night always seemed to blur the hours together. Barely speaking, barely even looking at one another, it had been a strange moment of understanding between them.

If only the wine could be so understanding.

“I’m fine,” Rhys said.

Victor looked ready to pull out his hair. He groaned, throwing his hands up. “Rhys. You are not fine. You are obviously not fine. Telling yourself you’re fine doesn’t actually make you fine. Even without whatever happened last night, by circumstance alone you are clearly not fine.” With each sentence Victor’s voice rose, and Rhys winced at the sound. If Victor cared, he did not show it. “Look, I’m not asking you to pour your heart out or anything, just at least do me the courtesy of not lying to me.”

“What am I supposed to say? That I’m terrified of what’s going to happen? That I feel like shit? That I wake up every morning wondering if Jessa is still alive? That Dima was murdered for some fucked up ritual which, if I don’t do something about, will probably kill Jessa assuming Alrick doesn’t kill her first?”

Rhys’ voice faded to nothing. He watched Victor’s brows raise at his last words, though his friend did not interject. Rhys felt not better having said them. His words hung in the air, heavy and oppressive; a reality from which he could not escape. Rhys clutched at the cup in his hand, his trembling visible for anyone to see. He tried to calm himself, his heartbeat too quick. The throbbing in his head only grew with each moment. Rhys pressed his eyes shut and let out a deep breath. No. He could not fall apart. Not now.

Victor was there suddenly, one hand on Rhys’ shoulder as he looked solemnly into Rhys’ eyes. “Thank you for reminding me that my life isn’t nearly so shit as yours.”

Only Victor could say such a thing, and yet somehow it had precisely the desired effect. Rhys smiled despite himself, and as Victor’s devilish grin overtook his frown the two of them began to laugh, Rhys moaning through his laughter at the pounding in his head. There was no real reason for the laughter and yet it came and came, Rhys’ voice giving out on him before he could stop smiling. It was as thought something inside him snapped, and with it a torrent of fear and anxiety swept out, washed away by the laughter. From the outside, the moment probably looked like madness. To Rhys, it felt like a breath of fresh air.

Despite their laughter, Victor’s voice grew quiet, his face a mask of uncharacteristic composure. “You know that I’m here for you no matter what, right? Through thick or thin. We all are.”

“Who is included in that all? I doubt Selene wants much to do with me, not that I blame her.” Rhys asked, unable to suppress a bitter laugh.

“Oh, don’t look so sorry for yourself,” Victor chided. “You know, maybe if you weren’t both so damn stubborn you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Have you talked to Selene? Have you made any attempt to smooth things over? Or are you too busy throwing yourself a self-loathing party that you didn’t think to?”

Rhys looked away uncomfortably, feeling Victor’s stare piercing into him. He hadn’t thought to say anything. He hadn’t even tried.

Victor sighed, rolling his eyes. “Look, Selene’s talked to me, and though she’s being too proud and stubborn to do anything about it, she’s not as mad as you might think. The two of you just have too much history that you can’t deal with anything rationally. See? This is why getting involved with your friends ruins everything. I’m the only one in this group smart enough to see this.”

“It still feels like I ruined things,” said Rhys.

“Did you not listen to anything I just said? Honestly, Rhys, you’re a bit of an idiot sometimes.” Victor pushed up from the bed and began to pace for a moment before turning to stare down at Rhys. “You know what? We’re going to fix this. You clean yourself up and come meet me at Ero’s place, alright?

The thought of going outside into the oppressively bright light made Rhys want to curl into a ball, but he could only imagine that refusal would involve some sort of torture at Victor’s hands that Rhys did not want to subjugate himself to. Rather than put up a fight, Rhys merely looked down at himself, frowning. “Cleaning up isn’t going to get rid of the hangover, you know.”

“Rhys, you smell like you fell asleep on a tavern floor.”

Victor gave Rhys a once over, shaking his head before turning toward the door, yelling behind him as he went. “Don’t keep me waiting!”

The cushion thrown a moment later hit the closing door with a thud.

***

The afternoon sun was as cruel as expected. Rhys pressed on, cursing under his breath as he rubbed at his head. He’d already sworn off alcohol a thousand times throughout the morning, though he knew they were bold-faced lies.

If the glaring sun was cruel, Ero and Victor’s blaring voices were torture. Rhys heard them long before he saw them, their voices carrying down the path toward the Tallus’ home. As Rhys approached it became clear it was not just the two men who awaited him. Freya and Selene stood by, looking rather bored with the proceedings as they leaned together to share whispers under their breath.

Gravel crunched underneath Rhys’ feet as he made his way up the walk. Selene peered up at the sound, stiffening. He expected something more, a flash of anger in her eyes or thin-pressed lips, but there was nothing more. She watched warily, silently, but said nothing.

“Is someone going to fill me in?” Rhys asked as he reached the woman, standing some distance away from their bickering friends.

“They’ve been at this for a while,” Freya replied. “Don’t know why he bothers. Does he think I haven’t tried?”

So this is what Victor had meant. If they wouldn’t solve their problems themselves, why not try himself? It was ambitious, perhaps a bit foolhardy, but Rhys had to commend him. At least it was doing something. Given Selene’s presence - unless she was just spectating the shouting match - Rhys knew what Victor intended to be done.

“Can I talk to you?” Rhys asked.

Selene’s sigh seemed to be indicative of understanding why they’d been brought here. Rhys led her around the back of the house to a shaded spot under a newly flowering tree. Beneath its branches sat a stone bench where the two sat in marked discomfort, Rhys trying to draw up his thoughts, and Selene looking as awkward as he’d ever seen. He opened his mouth to apologize, the words barely making it out of his mouth before Selene cut him off in an instant.

“I’m sorry, alright?” Selene groaned, the surprise of the outburst shaking Rhys from his tangled thoughts. Before Rhys could say a word she shook her head, frowning. “No, no, I’m not sorry. I promised myself I wasn’t not going to say that. You still deserve what I said. But...well, I wasn’t being entire fair, either. Or honest, for that matter.”

“You have a right to be angry,” Rhys said.

“And I am,” Selene cut in quickly. She frowned, biting at her cheek. “I’m just…also angry at myself.”

Rhys paused. “I don’t –”

“You don’t think if it were me - not Jessa - in this situation, that I would want you to do the same?”

A heavy silence fell upon them both. Rhys dared a glance from the corner of his eye, finding Selene hunched over, her hands in her lap. “So…you don’t think I’m wrong?”

“Oh, I still think you’re in the wrong,” said Selene with a fervent nod, “I just recognize that that I’m too selfish to not want someone to be willing to do anything for me. Maybe that speaks poorly to who I am, I don’t know.”

“I think it makes you very human with a very rational sense of self-preservation.”

The edges of her lips twitched up, forming something almost resembling a smile. With a great sigh, Selene stretched out her legs, letting her hands rest on the bench as she leaned back, staring up at the clear blue sky through a cluster of branches. She sighed, letting her eyelids flutter closed. “I’ve realized recently that I don’t really like who I am.”

“I think you don’t give yourself enough credit,” Rhys said, trying to match his voice to hers, feeling as though anything above her quiet murmur would somehow disturb the peace they’d constructed between them.

Selene shook her head. “I’m too much like you.” At her words she let her eyes open, glancing to meet Rhys’ eye with a wistful smile. “I mean that in the best possible way. You and I were cut from the same cloth. Born to very similar families, had nearly the same upbringing, always thought the same; it’s why we worked so well together. I think it’s also why it’s probably for the best that we didn’t work out in the end.”

Rhys glanced away, staring at the ground. He’d thought the same thing more than once.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately,” Selene continued. “Ever since my parents died I feel like I’m stuck, wanting two opposite things I cannot have. On one hand I crave the comfort of something familiar, to keep things as they’ve always been because it’s what I know. I feel lost, without guidance, like my life has no direction or purpose, and I think I’m looking for that purpose in things I used to love. That includes you.

“Yet at the same time I just want to take my entire life and just be done with it, you know? The more I take up the mantle of what my parents left behind the more I realize that they didn’t live the kind of life that I want. I have to keep facing that I was raised to be just the next iteration in this never-ending dynasty. And for what? Look what good it did them! They thought they had everything so perfectly planned out and now they’re dead,” Selene’s voice wavered, her dark eyes growing glassy, “and I have to be the mother to the children they left behind. I don’t think that’s what they wanted. So what was the point of it all?”

Selene’s hands gripped the edge of the bench with whitened knuckles, as though she could keep herself grounded, in one piece, if she could simply hold on tight enough. Rhys’ instinct was to reach out, to give her comfort, but given the circumstances it was clear such a thing would only make matters worse.

“I think…that day that I…kissed you,” her voice dipped low, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment, “I think I was grasping at anything familiar. I’m not going to say that I don’t feel anything, or that that moment didn’t hurt. It did. But I’m also not pining over you. I had a moment of weakness, and you were there…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rhys said, shaking his head.

“But it does!” Selene stared at him. “I don’t want to be that person. That person who can’t move on with her life, even after she realizes that the life she’s leaving behind isn’t even one she wants. But…I don’t know what else to do. This is all I know, Rhys. You’re all I know, you and this city and this life. I’m just sick of feeling useless and confused.”

“Selene, you’re hardly useless.” Rhys nudged at her with his shoulder, Selene letting a faint smile cross her lips. “You’re young, you’re clever, you’re resourceful, you’re handling all of this much better than I would – you’re going to be fine. And you know what? I know your parents wouldn’t want you to feel like this. They’d want you to do whatever you need to do to be happy.”

Selene wiped at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, pressing her face into her hands for a moment before running her fingers through her hair with a weary sigh. The sigh turned to laughter, slowly but surely, and Rhys picked out a few curses strewn throughout.

“You know, that’s almost exactly what Victor said to me earlier this week,” said Selene. “I think our talk was probably what inspired this.” She waved her arm out dramatically toward the house, where from the distance faint sounds of raised voices could still be heard. Rhys bit his tongue, deciding not to mention his own moment with Victor that very morning. “Look at him, trying to pick up the pieces of all our messes. What friends we are.”

“He’s a better man than me,” Rhys sighed.

“Undoubtedly,” Selene agreed, Rhys seeing that spark back in her eyes as she smiled to herself. That she felt up to a good ribbing was a very good sign. It seemed enough to shake away their somber mood, and as Selene turned back to Rhys she seemed lighter, less burdened, as temporary as it might be.

“I talked to Nayall, you know. I wasn’t really in the mood for talking about all of this, but we had a schedule and, well, once he’s in your head you can’t exactly say ‘come back later.’” Selene rolled her eyes. “Either way, he knows everything. Everything Victor told me, that is.”

“I didn’t expect you to talk to him, given things.”

“I know, but it didn’t seem right to withhold information. It’s not his fault we were fighting. Besides, I like talking to him. He doesn’t know me like everyone here. He’s not constantly asking me about how I’m holding up, or looking at me with pity. It’s refreshing. He has such a different perspective on everything, and honestly I think it’s what I need right now.”

“You’re not doing it for me, I get it, I get it,” Rhys joked, taking an exasperated sigh for effect. Selene glared, as expected, but there was no heat there. For a moment, it felt almost as though they were back to their normal selves. Almost.

Selene stood, stretching her arms wide as she gazed up toward the sun, stepping into the light. She put her hands on her hips, turning back toward Rhys, still sitting in the shadows. “Should we get back to the spectacle, then? How much do you want to bet Victor has Ero in some sort of chokehold and is currently physically forcing him through the front door?”

Rhys grinned at the mental image but did not move from his place. “I think I’ll stay here a bit.”

Selene shrugged, as if to say ‘suit yourself’, before turning back toward the manor. She’d not gone more than a step when she paused, as though her thoughts were in tandem with Rhys’, for his mouth hung open slightly, words on the tip of his tongue.

For a moment, the two only stared at one another with a certain understanding – a peace.

“Friends?” Rhys offered.

With a moment’s hesitation, Selene nodded. “You know I’ll always be your friend, Rhys, even when I don’t particularly like you.”

It wasn’t the same as it had been, but Rhys had a feeling that was simply their new normal. Perhaps, all things considered, it was the best they could ever hope for. For now, it was enough.

Eventually the commotion from the distance died away, all voices fading into the gentle hum of the city and the chirping of the spring birds. Rhys would have enjoyed the peace more, however fleeting, were it not accompanied by his thankfully-fading headache. It was rare that he had a moment like this, alone with thoughts that did not incessantly plague him. It was so much like him to ruin it with his own stupid behavior.

As Rhys sat beneath the tree, staring up at the sky, a distant sound alerted him to a figure peering out from within the manor. Rhys watched as Tristan poked his head out, looking to see that the coast was clear, before slipping out through a back door. For a moment the man stood utterly still, gazing out before him. Rhys could see even at the distance the exaggerated rise and fall of his chest as Tristan took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh air. It had been some time since Tristan had seen the sun, or felt the breeze on his skin. At first, Rhys dared not alert the man to his presence, pleased that the man could have this moment. A wiser person might have chastised them both for it, for allowing such a flagrant disregard of safety and secrecy. But Rhys remembered his own confinement well, all those weeks ago in Ovis. He would not deny Tristan this moment of freedom, however fleeting.

Rhys did not stay hidden long. As Tristan began to wander into the gardens, his eyes naturally fell to the grand tree, and then to Rhys below it. For a moment Rhys thought Tristan might scamper off, for the man’s eyes grew wide like a cornered animal. The next moment, he was laughing.

“Well, my illicit escape is certainly less stealthy than I would have hoped.”

“I can keep a secret,” Rhys said with a smile. Tristan smiled back, making his way toward Rhys. He plopped down beside Rhys on the bench with a sigh, stretching out his legs.

“I’m surprised you look so…” Rhys paused. Healthy was not the right word. Neither was mobile. In fact, nothing seemed to quite capture the essence of the shock of seeing someone formerly drained of blood – nearly to the point of death – walking about as if his ordeal had not been merely days ago.

“Venya is very good. Too good, really. Magic can’t reproduce blood, but it can speed up the process. She’s been working on me every moment she can to the point of her own detriment. I’ve told her not to, that it’s just wearing her down, but she won’t listen. The only reason I was able to slip out now is because her and Asha are sleeping.”

“And how is she?” Rhys asked. “Asha, I mean?”

Tristan’s smile could have illuminated the darkest night. His eyes brightened at the very mention, and Rhys could practically see the man swell with pride. “She’s so wonderful. She does cry a fair bit, so that’s not ideal,” Tristan laughed, Rhys joining in, “but I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. I can’t believe I wasn’t there, that Venya had to go through all that alone, I…” His voice faded, and Rhys could see the corner of Tristan’s eyes wet with tears, his jaw set has he held himself back. “I wasn’t there for the first months of my daughter’s life. I can’t get that time back.”

“Yes, but you’re here now. I know that for you this is important, but just think – Asha won’t remember these months, but she will know you. Isn’t that what should be important?” Rhys placed a gentle hand on Tristan’s shoulder as the man nodded to himself, taking a deep breath.

By the time Tristan had regained his composure, guilt replaced his sadness. “I’m sorry I’ve been of so little help. After everything you’ve done for me, helping me get back this life, I-”

“Stop,” Rhys cut in. He couldn’t bear those thanks he didn’t deserve. Every word cut like a knife, a bitter reminder of his own shameful desperation. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault.”

Tristan didn’t entirely look like he believed Rhys, which of course only made him feel worse. Rhys put on his most earnest expression, hoping it didn’t look as fake as it felt.

“Actually, there is something I wanted to tell you,” Tristan said, looking about rather suddenly and lowering his voice, as if afraid to be overheard.

“There’s no one here,” Rhys said.

This fact did not seem to change Tristan’s emerging paranoia. “I had an idea last night about something you might be able to do. I’m not sure it’s feasible, and even if it is there’s no guarantee for how well it would work. This isn’t to mention that even attempting this is probably a very bad idea which I would not recommend.”

Rhys said nothing. His pulse raced, grasping desperately at an opportunity still unknown. No matter his feelings, he kept them suppressed. He would not give Tristan a reason to rethink telling Rhys whatever inadvisable idea he’d concocted.

“Well,” Tristan began, “I couldn’t think of a way to destroy the existing magic, so I thought, why not replace it?”

Rhys blinked. “Replace it?”

“If this Miriyam doesn’t know she doesn’t have the original knife…” Tristan trailed off with a shrug, a sheepish smile on his face. “No, no, it’s ridiculous, you’re right.”

“Wait.” Rhys put out a hand toward Tristan as the man began to stand. “Are you saying we make a decoy dagger?”

“Well, a decoy I think implies that the item in question is fake, which this would not be, but yes, that’s the basic idea.”

“Not fake?”

Tristan rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “This isn’t really the kind of magic that can go undetected. I have a strong suspicion that if you replaced the dagger with an identical copy that Miriyam would still be able to tell the difference between the two. Magic can be concealed, yes, but it is much more difficult to conceal magic coming from an object. I imagine something of this caliber would be rather difficult to hide from a mage like Miriyam.”

Though Rhys understood the idea, he stayed quiet a moment, letting it sink in. “We’d have to complete the ritual?”

“Not the whole thing!” Tristan exclaimed, his eyes wide. “I don’t expect you to kill anyone, though I do imagine it would make the magic stronger…” Tristan’s eyes went blank for a moment before he blinked, shaking his head as though banishing the thought from his mind. “No, I don’t think that would be strictly necessary. But the basic spell? I don’t think you could get away with a decoy that didn’t at least have that.”

“I thought this spell was dangerous, that you could hurt yourself if you did it wrong.”

“I did tell you this plan was inadvisable.”

Rhys imagined those words were supposed to dissuade Rhys from pursuing this idea. He could see Tristan watching him cautiously then, looking for some hint of Rhys’ thoughts on his face. When Rhys only nodded, storing this information for later, he thought he could see Tristan’s face fall. When Rhys spoke again, Tristan’s disappointment was palpable.

“How strong of a mage would I need?”

Tristan pulled hard on his neck, wincing. “Preferably someone with experience putting magic into objects, for a start. Furthermore, someone with some experience with blood magic likely wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’d help you if I could, though I imagine I’m not going to be of much help here in Jasrah.”

“You’ve dealt with blood magic?”

“There’s some good profit to be made, if you know what customers to go to,” Tristan shrugged. “Oh, don’t give me that look. We don’t all have an endless supply of money.”

“You think I could seriously be judging that?” Rhys asked incredulously.

“You had a certain look,” Tristan muttered.

“Merely curiosity.”

Tristan did not look convinced.

An idea, one that had been swirling around in the back of his head for some time, suddenly popped into the forefront of Rhys’ mind. He looked at Tristan, considering it for a moment, thinking of the backlash he’d certainly get from everyone once they found out. Still, it was not an opportunity he could pass up, not when this chance had fallen so neatly into his lap.

“Well, I may have some interest in the matter.”

Tristan frowned. “Such as?”

“Have you ever made a blood amulet before?”

“A few times,” Tristan said slowly, looking suspicious. “There aren’t many people that are aware of them, not to mention could afford them.”

“Does a blood amulet have to be, well, an amulet? Does it have to be jewelry?” Rhys asked.

“No, not really. So long as there’s blood and some sort of vessel, theoretically I think it could take any form. Jewelry is just easiest, as it needs to touch the body.” Tristan furrowed his brow, eyeing Rhys speculatively. “Why do you ask?”

“I may have an idea, and I’m going to need your help.”

[Mollianne]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Trigger warnings: torture, manipulative behaviour, compulsion, suicide

Tea. Her eyes still closed, Jessa frowned, unable to think with a hard and unfamiliar bed pressing against her spine. Where was she? Her heart beat, wild yet weak; she had both run a thousand miles and just awoken from the dead. She cracked open her eyes, recoiling from the light with a long, low moan.

Something about tea.

A face swam in her vision. Maybe there was more than one... But no, only one. Their lips moved but she heard no sound. Jessa squeezed her eyes shut, panic clawing at her throat. Strangling her.

Tea. Something about tea.

“Jessa, can you look at me?” A voice. It echoed in her ears. She didn’t recognise it. She shook her head against the pillow. “Jessa, I’m the castle physician. I’m here to... help you.”

“No,” she mumbled, shaking her head. Repeated herself, over and over.

“Jessa.” Gentle fingers pressed against her cheeks, stilling her. She opened her eyes. Colours swirled, at first random but then they coalesced into shapes. The face in front of her solidified. She recognised him.

He smiled, seeing the flash of recollection in her eyes. “You’re in my infirmary. I’ve managed to flush out most of the poison, but it hasn’t yet been 24 hours-”

“Poi-?” Jessa’s voice cracked and died.

“Yes. A type of mushroom – amanita muscaria. As I say, you’re still not in a good way. You might still experience some confusion. The servant who found you said you were hallucinating by the time she got there, so I’d say you had a rather large dosage.”

The physician kept talking, but the words faded from Jessa’s awareness. Hallucinations – she saw herself, in her room. The walls were bending, curving, looming towards her. Closing in. She huddled on the floor against her bed. The floor crept up, threatening to swallow her whole. Her skin crawled, a thousand bugs scuttling over her body. She scratched at them. She clawed at her skin, wanting it off, off, off. The world continued to bulge, colours swirling.

They were only images, memories. They were not real. But Jessa, safe in the infirmary bed, turned her head into the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. As if that could stop what was inside her.

“Let me see her!”

“I’m sorry... don’t know what’s wrong... dangerous for you...”

The voices came from outside, one loud and frantic, the other muffled and calm. Something pricked at Jessa’s, telling her she recognised one of them. But who, she could not think. She could not think.

But she did know the other voice – the unknown one – was lying.

“I’m sorry.” The physician choked out the words. His gaze was fixed at a point above her head. His arms lifted uselessly and then fell to his side as he slumped. He shifted from side to side, then glanced at the door. “He... His Majesty’s orders. You-” His voice cracked again, and when he resumed it was as fragile as a feather. His eyes were haunted. “You are not to be seen, my lady. And I can ease your suffering no more than I have already.” He shook his head. “I’ve tried – he won’t let me.” Head down, he dragged his feet as he left the room, murmuring apologies no longer for her ears.

Before the door closed, Jessa heard the voices louder and clearer. She made out a few comments, but she could not focus. Something tugged her towards the darkness.

She opened her eyes what felt like moments later, the last words she has heard – I’m her husband – in her ears. She saw Rhys’ face... but no, that was not right. Her heart ached as the memories swam before her. She pushed them away. Not now.

The room was darker than before, and beyond the door was silence. Nothing to distract her. How long had she slept?

The silence came to a clattering end as a door in the room beyond Jessa’s slammed. Within a minute, she heard the bleary voice of the doctor, first confused then deferent. Jessa’s heart caught in her throat. She stared, transfixed, at her door. It was not long before it opened, and a flickering candle illuminated the face of the king.

“Get her.” He gestured at her to two guards standing in his shadow. Bowing, they hurried past him and approached her.

“Please, sire, she’s better off here. She’s still recovering, Your Majesty.”

The king ignored the physician, and the man pressed a hand to his lips to stop him saying more and risking the king’s ire. Above his fingertips, his eyes were as wide as a python’s gaping maw, fixated on her frail form.

The guards reached for her. She squirmed away, but her arms were leaden and weak; her attempts to bat her assailants away garnered nothing more than frustrated huffs.

“Go to sleep, Jessa,” the king said, and drowsiness tugged at her. She closed her eyes, sucked towards the dark abyss of slumber with the physician’s apologies chanting in her ear.

She next awoke to a twisting pain in her neck. Lifting her head from where it lolled against her shoulder, Jessa tried to move her hand to put pressure on the crick. Her arm didn’t move. She tried again, but each time she came up against a wall of air buffeting her back. Heart in her throat, she gave up and rested her arms on the cold wood of the chair.

She wasn’t in the infirmary anymore.

Jessa sneezed, a firework of pain shooting from her neck as she did so. The dust in the air was thick, and when she cracked open an eye, she saw only black. No windows. No way to know anything.

The air prickled with the feeling that someone was there. Jessa stiffened.

“You’ve deigned to join us.”

Cold recognition washed over her, but she had neither sense nor energy to be terrified. “Am I not meant to be dead?”

“Dead?” She imagined the furrow of his brow that might accompany those words. “No, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. I don’t want you dead. You’re my daughter.”

“I’ve never been more than an afterthou-” Jessa pressed her lips together to cut herself off. Those words had come unbidden.

“That isn’t true. You’re my daughter. And when you don’t behave as such, it hurts. But I don’t want to kill you, I want to rehabilitate you.”

Jessa just started into the darkness.

“I want my loyal daughter back.”

“You have two. You never had three.”

Her cheek smarted as his palm connected. It tingled long after the king retreated into the darkness, as though a hundred spiders danced across her skin.

With the slap, memories trickled back. She saw the daughter of the Marinon allies who she has betrayed, Briony Tanse, strapped to a chair and screaming as illusions of spiders crawled over her. She clawed at her skin, hard enough to draw blood, and then through her petrified haze the girl stared straight at Jessa, venom seeping out from her gaze like the blood from her wounds. It curled around Jessa’s heart. Your fault.

“Your fault,” Alrick echoed. “Every bad thing has not been because of me – whatever villainous monster you have decided I am – but because of you. If you hadn’t betrayed me – if you had stayed my daughter – there would have been no ambush.”

She heard their screams as if she had been there. Saw the red streaks staining the cliffside and the thousands of bodies discarded in the grass like abandoned ragdolls after the princesses has done with them. Kings and princesses alike, using those beneath them as their playthings.

“I needed to make you see, Jessa, and the only way to do that was to have you there.” His plea rattled through her, false and yet striking her all the same. “But we wouldn’t have made it in person, so I had to show you through another’s eyes. Don’t you see? You forced me into it. And you wouldn’t listen when I told you if you tried to stop that poor child, to use her body as your, you’d kill her. She’s dying even now. You’ll see.”

A girl, skin as white as bone, hair a dark, tangled mess on the pillow, lay on a bed in a house as familiar to her as the owner’s office at the university. The girl barely breathed. Her lips were so bleached of colour, Jessa could not see them. Alistair – she caught a glimpse of his silver-grey hair – pulled her back, but not before a weighty guilt fell on her as if the girl’s pillow had been brought to smother her.

“You didn’t care. You tried pointlessly to save people who couldn’t be saved and brought someone else to the brink of death along with them. She’s fourteen.”

Jessa squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head as though that could protect her from her father’s words or the memories inside.

“Without you, I never would have needed to destroy the port in Jasrah. The Marinons and innocent bystanders wouldn’t have been killed, and I wouldn’t have captured your ex-husband.” Alrick spat out the word.

She was sure… hadn’t she heard reports that the Marinons had survived, though Vyserene left badly hurt? But reports like that were gossip, a voice told her, they change with time and distance.

“Without you, this war would not have happened. If you had stayed loyal to me, life would have gone on. Cities wouldn’t have been razed to the ground, people and crops dead in the blink of an eye. The people of Ovis – those ones you think you’re helping with your little food drives – wouldn’t be starving or need your help if you had stayed my loyal daughter.

“You will not die. You need to see what you have done. And then you need to repent for it.”

Tears dried on Jessa’s cheeks. The memories and her father’s condemnation swirled like a tornado, tearing through her and ripping her to shreds. She was left in tatters, held together only by the suffocating glue of guilt.

The king was an evil monster – she was not wrong about that – but had the cost of deposing him become too steep? Was it worth decimating a country?

“I don’t know how.” The words barely came, squeezed through her throat that felt as if a snake had coiled around her and tightened.

“You know exactly how you can rectify this. You know who you have betrayed and the cost of it. You’re just too selfish to do it. So, I thought you needed some time. Some time away from a new family I was foolish enough to give you because I need to stop this war you’ve brought to my door. That was why I poisoned you. To give you time to think and realise that everything – your suffering, all the deaths, this war – will stop if you stop fighting me. Let me see what you are hiding. I want you to remember that I am your father. I only want what is best for you, and what is best is to be at my side and help me end this war.”

She heard footsteps draw near. She tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go. His hand cupped her cheek, ice against her skin freezing her in place.

“I hope you enjoy your solitude, my daughter.”

Curled up with a book and a pen, solitude was one of Jessa’s precious rarities, something to crave. But this was not that. There was no window, nor a sliver of light at the door, to tell the passage of time or to read a book. For the first unknowable stretch of time, no one visited her, not even when her stomach growled and her throat felt as coarse as sand. There was nothing to do or see, just a pressing darkness as black as the heart that had put her here. Her head ached without water, a pounding in her skull that was as fast and loud as a child running up and down stairs. She slept where she was bound, her neck complaining and pinching all the while.

The minutes, hours, days blurred into a yawning abyss. She could only know how much time had passed at all if someone showed mercy and brought food and water as she imagined that time would come when she was at the brink. Three days, perhaps, when she would struggle without water. Or was it more? Less? Her thoughts were fuzzy. It seemed to her that a year might have passed.

Somewhere there was the sound of water dripping. Drip. Drip... Drip. At first, she tried to count it as a strange form of time-keeping, but she barely reached a few hundred before her tongue longed to find the source of the water and taste it. A couple of attempts later, and she was hearing the sound in her head, over and over.

Drip. Drip... Drip.

The door opened. The line of light burned Jessa’s eyes, but she was too weary and slow to close her eyes before the door was shut.

“My lady?”

It was barely a whisper in reality, but to Jessa it was the sound of drums. A slow flinch undulated through her body.

A knuckle grazed the back of her hand, the brush of skin on skin at once craved and too much. It had been so long.

“I need light. Bin told you should close yer eyes, my lady.”

Jessa squeezed her eyes shut just as she heard the scratch of a match set alight. A little at a time so her eyes could adjust, Jessa cracked them open. Mahlia Blare, form shimmering in the candlelight, hunched over a tray of bread and water and steadfastly avoided meeting Jessa’s gaze. Jessa was too preoccupied by the water to care.

It had been so dark that she hadn’t even known the table beside her existed until Mahlia placed the tray upon it. It was so close; Jessa’s hand brushed against the icy side of the glass of water. The condensation pooled on her parched skin, and it was only her magical restraints and how they burned her wrists if she moved that prevented her from snatching the glass.

Instead, Mahlia – truly a woman sent by the gods – lifted it to her lips. Jessa gulped down the drizzle of water that passed through her lips. Too soon, Mahlia pulled it away. Jessa whimpered.

“I’m sorry, my lady. A little at a time.”

Jessa knew she was right, that devouring it all would not stifle her shaking limbs or headache. She just didn’t care.

The glass chinked against ceramic as Mahlia put it down, and Jessa recoiled from the sound. She watched by flickering candlelight as Mahlia tore off a tiny chunk of bread and put it to Jessa’s lips. It was hard and chewy, but somehow as sweet as any cake Jessa had ever eaten.

“I’m sorry, my lady.” Mahlia stared at the ground, her hands clasped in front of her. This was not the same apology as before; the older woman’s voice shook, thick with guilt and fear. “I’m sorry I put you here.”

“He controlled you,” Jessa whispered, fearful that someone would be eavesdropping.

“I could have fought him. I had a choice.”

“Me or your family?” Mahlia sucked in a breath and gave a small nod. Jessa grimaced. “Then there was no choice at all.”

Tense silence suffocated Jessa as she worked up the courage to ask her next question. When Mahlia bent to gift her another tiny, glorious hunk of bread, Jessa breathed into her ear, “Does he know that you’ve been working with me?”

Mahlia shook her head. “Just wrong place, wrong time. Though it means I can be here now and help you however I can. I can’t do much. I’m forbid from telling anyone what I see here, and I can’t help you escape this room.” As she spoke, she slipped a scrap of paper into the pocket on the seam of Jessa’s dress.

Jessa narrowed her eyes, and licked her lips so she could ask, “Just this room?”

“If I see you out of it, I’m to alert someone immediately. But if I don’t... Well, what can I do?” She shrugged. “No one knows what has happened to you, but none believe the story the king is telling. And they know I know and can’t say. I don’t know much, only to give you that paper so you know what to do when you escape.”

“When,” Jessa scoffed, the sound becoming a hacking cough. Mahlia pressed a hand to Jessa’s shoulder, bracing her. “I’m guessing Ainesh never got my note.”

“I t00k it back as soon as you drank the poison. I wanted to fight the commands in my head, but under no circumstance was anyone allowed to know what had happened. By that point, you were only drowsy. I confessed, and you removed the part of your message where you told Lord Ainesh about the poison and instead you told him you were just giving him a copy of your instructions for Prince Edmund.”

Mahlia’s voice caught, and she breathed deeply to recover herself.

“I’m so sorry,” Mahlia whispered again. She flicked her eyes away for a heartbeat, then – the hand on Jessa’s shoulder clenched with the effort of it – Mahlia finally met Jessa’s gaze. The older woman’s eyes shone with unshed tears. Her lips, so white they almost blended with her skin, trembled. “I’m so sorry, my lady.”

“Jessa,” she corrected. “I’m no lady, Mahlia. In the past, perhaps, but any title I had is surely stripped from me the moment I entered this room.”

“You are my lady. He may be coercing me, he may have made me betray you and every one of my friends who signed that paper and agreed to fight, but as long as you will have me, I will serve you. King Alrick is not my master, and he never will be again. Not anymore, not when I have someone better to serve.”

“Is this guilt talking?”

Mahlia’s pressed her lips together in an amused grimace. “Perhaps, a little. But it’s also seeing you show kindness to my niece and acknowledging every servant you meet. Knowing their names. It’s about you fighting for change, fighting for us. For endangering your life and drinking poison to save us. You are the kind of person I want to follow.”

“I’m no leader, Mahlia.”

“Maybe not. I’ve seen you and I doubt you have it in you to make hard decisions if it’s others’ lives on the chopping block rather than yours. But for me? I am at your command.”

The declaration stole Jessa’s words, and she finished her meagre meal in silence. Mahlia left with a squeeze to the shoulder and a final, lingering glance. She took all the warmth of the room with her. The darkness pressed in, and she saw a flash of Mahlia’s face. This time, she saw beneath the sympathy and guilt, the way her eyes flicked to the door and her jaw twitched. Fear.

Jessa’s fault.

Another crime to add to the list of Jessa’s transgressions.

The screams of soldiers dying to their friends’ blades filled her ears. Blood pooled at her feet, but when she squeezed her eyes shut, the image remained. A woman at her feet, clutching at a sword Jessa had plunged into her stomach, face slack with death and betrayal. Jessa turned her head but, since the image wasn’t real, it moved with her. She stared into those accusing eyes as the life drained out. The woman deflated, ceasing to struggle, and with the motion her image doubled, then tripled, until as far as Jessa could see there were the dead of the ambush.

In the centre, a man fell to his feet. His shoulder-length hair was matted with blood, darker than when she had seen it last. He turned his head, and eyes that had once glittered with dancing fire when he looked upon her had burned up, leaving only stone-cold coals to meet her gaze. Those eyes could not have looked down at her as he caressed her cheek, or watched her patiently and gently as, piece by piece, she revealed herself to him. His gaze was empty of knowing her, black hatred as he staggered to the ground taking its place. He may as well have knifed her in the gut.

The man was not her Rhys, but that man has never existed anyway. Illusion. All an illusion.

“You’re leaving me with her? I’d rather the dungeons.”

“You’re in no position to make demands, Lord Rhys.”

Jessa, caught in that period between restless sleep and empty wakefulness, started at the name. Illusion made reality. She squinted at the orange glow before her, revealing the king and a guard. The guard shoved a man into a chair facing Jessa, slapping restraints on him before he could think to fight back.

It was only when the guard stepped back and melted into the shadows that she saw him. Rhys.

His eyes were charred coals, just as they had been in her dreams. Scars crisscrossed his cheeks. His hair was long, thick with dust and something that she had the sickening feeling it was blood.

He didn’t meet her gaze, nor did his gaze snag on her wounds like hers on his. He looked off into a dark corner, bored and unbothered. It had not been the only time they had been in the same room for months, but they were close enough that moving her leg just a little would bring them into contact. But she watched his dead eyes, saw his lips on another’s. She didn’t move.

The gulf between them yawned wider, wider even than the physical one they had endured since the beginning of winter. And Jessa would make no attempt to close it.

A quick rap at the door made Jessa jump, her wrists slamming against her invisible restraints. With a sigh, Alrick gestured impatiently for the guard to answer it. Jessa watched the man outside bend to whisper something to the guard, who then repeated the message to the king. The king’s jaw clenched, and he left without a word.

Jessa prided herself that she was not stupid. Even alone, she could not dare to ask Rhys anything about the war. Though hers was surely failing after so long without Lady Tremont’s magic, she still had a memory block in place. Rhys’ mind had no such protection.

She doubted he would even answer. And yet, since laying eyes on him some part of her had bubbled to the surface. Desperately she wanted to say something, anything. But it was Rhys who broke the silence.

“I’m engaged, you know,” Rhys said casually. Jessa’s heart shuddered to a halt. Not him, her thoughts said in place of her heartbeat. This is not Rhys.

“What?” she breathed anyway.

“Yeah. After… the ambush, well, I started re-evaluating everything. I thought about what I wanted, and I went back home. The moment I saw Selene again, it all fell back into place. I felt like me again, for the first time since I was forced to marry you. We started meeting every night, to talk and heal the wounds you’d caused. I asked her to marry me a few days before… before.”

Jessa’s world tilted and spun, as though she had stepped on a rock she had thought was stable and then it slipped out from underneath her. Yet really, should she not have expected as much? Rhys and Selene had loved each other for years; it had only been duty that had parted them. With all obligation to Jessa dissolved, what was there to stop them finding each other again?

She was spared from saying anything by Alrick bursting back into the room. It was, perhaps, the one time she was glad to see him in her entire life, for she knew she could not have made herself say even an empty congratulations. After what he had done to her, Rhys didn’t deserve to find happiness so readily. Especially not Selene – anyone but someone who had become her tentative friend. Did Selene even know what Rhys had done to Jessa? Selene deserved better.

"Enjoying your reunion?" Alrick asked lightly. He stood by Rhys' shoulder, bending down so she could see both of their faces in the candlelight, a grotesque two-headed monster. The two men she hated most in the world - or should, in the case of one.

"The location leaves something to be desired," Rhys quipped.

"And you, Jessa? Surely you must have something you want to say to him."

Jessa pressed her lips together. In fact, she did not, and in any case she would give neither man the satisfaction.

"Or do, perhaps?" Alrick's voice needled at her and she watched as the king lifted his hand and pressed his fingers meaningful against Rhys' brow. Rhys' face contorted, and his knuckles were white with gripping the arms of his chair. He did not scream, even as every part of his body clenched and curled. Jessa's eyes found Rhys', and she was transfixed with horror. The glimmer in his eyes dimmed as the pain tornadoed through him. His back arced and he opened his mouth.

"Stop!"

It took a moment for Jessa to realise that that mangled, inhuman voice was hers, forced through her tight throat to cut off Rhys' scream. They couldn't give the king that satisfaction; surely she and Rhys were together in that.

"Why?" the king asked, as casually as if they were discussing the weather. Yet the king had stood, letting his hand fall to his side. "Does he not deserve this?"

"No one deserves this."

"Are you sure? What if I was in his place?"

Jessa swallowed. Her head spun with the realisation that she didn’t know how to answer that question. For a second, a flash of hurt flickered in the king’s eyes. “I’m your father, Jessa. Do you really wish me dead?”

Not once in her life had Jessa heard the king’s voice so meek – so unlike a king. It struck her heart, and, despite everything, she bowed her head. Guilt. She felt guilty.

“I’m trying to help you, Jessa. I’m trying to make you my family again. I captured the Marinon for you, because I knew the hurt he had caused you.”

A whisper of ‘how?’ went through Jessa’s mind. She was quite sure she had never mentioned Rhys’ adultery to him. Like a ton of stone it hit her; he had seen Rhys’ memories. He had seen Rhys’ perspective of their months in Jasrah – Rhys had told her as much himself. Her gaze skittered back to Rhys, staring at his forehead as though she could see his memories for herself. She needed the truth.

“You want to, don’t you, Jessa? You want him to hurt. Let me help you.”

She didn’t understand what the king meant, not even when she felt her magic awaken and unfurl like a cat lying in the lazy afternoon sun. It only hit her when the cat froze, hair on end and tail rattling. She had not called her magic. Let me help you.

She squeezed her eyes shut, instinctively trying to lift her hands to her ears to no avail. As if it would help anyway. Alrick’s magic was immune to Jessa’s physical resistance, slinking through every single barrier preventing another from using her magic as though they were paper. She felt his grip around her magic as though he had a hand on her throat. She froze, as though by not moving he would forget she was there and leave her alone. Leave her magic alone.

He pulled. Her magic cried out but came with him. It burst from her, writhing and wrong, bent to the king’s will. It streamed across the room and poured into Rhys. She could feel it inside his head, squeezing his skull until Jessa almost saw the world how Rhys must – in blotches of colour and light. The king’s will smothered her, violated her. He was her.

A scream scorched the air. Rhys.

The king’s magic had not broken Rhys, but hers had. The knowledge sunk into her, slicing deep and dark. She shook, knowing she could – should – have prevented it.

He did not stop screaming. And Jessa could not stop drowning in her magic, tainted by Alrick’s hands as he twisted it into shapes and flung them at Rhys. She saw the visions as Rhys did, flashes of his family lying in pools of blood, then of their necks snapping at the noose. She felt rather than saw Rhys’ wracking sobs, felt them right in her core. And yet she was still drowning. She tried feebly to get a hand on her magic but saw an image of Alrick’s grin in her mind as he swatted her away and let her fall further down. She couldn’t touch her the source of her power; the king’s magic swirled in a barrier between her and it. The remaining ball of magic pulsed weakly as it shrivelled until it was little more than a raisin just out of Jessa’s reach

She had to stop. Rhys’ screams filled the air and her heart. She couldn’t take it. Not Rhys. He should not be capable of such inhuman noises. He was made for laughter and joy.

Clenching her fists, a scream tearing from her throat to meet Rhys, Jessa wrestled for control. The magic faltered, Rhys went quiet, and Jessa surged upwards, trying to reclaim magic that no longer felt like her own. It was dark with the king’s poison, and she flinched as it withdrew back into her. She could barely touch it. She didn’t want it. The king felt her hesitation and tightened his hold. For a moment, she forgot to care, and then she heard Rhys in her head again. She couldn’t hear his screams for real, not again. She pulled her magic back, trying not to retch and the wrongness inside her.

“You want him to feel this. An eye for an eye. You want this.” The sibilant voice was inside her head, chanting over and over. “You can be my daughter again. I will love you. You mother would want us to be together. Don’t fight me.”

She gasped through the pain, reeling the magic back despite the alluring words whispering in her mind. She felt something crack inside her, felt the king’s foreign magic surge towards it, and she knew what it was. No. She couldn’t let him see her memories and all the people that he would destroy. With a final cry she broke free of the king’s hold and shaped her magic to fit the hairline fracture in the memory block. Alrick’s magic prodded it, coming away with a hiss. She kept him at bay, but he knew it was there now. Surely it was only a matter of time.

She opened her eyes. Rhys slumped on the chair, limbs twitching. Alrick loomed above him, staring in Jessa’s direction though he did not seem to see her. His fist clenched the back of Jessa’s chair in concentration. Jessa’s mouth was dry as sand, knowing what she must do.

Sacrifice herself to save everyone she knew. There wasn’t even a question.

She tried to form her magic as she had helplessly watched her father do. Her grip on it was weak – the tenuous control she had learned over the past months coming undone because of how foreign and distasteful it was in her hands. When she finally unleashed it, it was wild and raw, stampeding towards the king. It was pure magic, no finesse, but it was just enough.

She felt the barrage against the fracture in her memory block falter as Alrick refocused his energy on Jessa’s attack. She had barely broken through when his vice-like grip stopped the magic in its tracks. Jessa’s breath caught as the world shuddered to a halt. As her magic was squeezed to oblivion, she felt a phantom of it around her throat.

Her head spun as Alrick yanked her magic away from her. The ground disappeared beneath her, and she was falling, falling, spinning, fading as the thread of magic grew tauter. Breaking point.

Crack.

An inhuman wail erupted from her lips as her brain went numb. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t feel. Everything was gone. She could hear only her shallow breaths, deafening her. She was at sea, the world bending and dipping beneath her feet in a dizzying rush. A whirlpool sucked her down, down, to the gaping, jagged wound pouring magic which sparked and hissed. Incomplete. Missing. An aberration.

She stopped at the gash, reaching out to feel the frayed edges of her magic. Her touch seemed to sooth it, but it left her frantic as understanding sunk into the pit of her stomach.

A part of her magic was gone.

She was the aberration.

***

The screams didn’t come.

Jessa jolted awake often that night – day? – but each time she did the room was still. It was her nightmares she was escaping, a blackness with her at the centre, a parasite stealing through her body as it stole her magic and twisted it to its will. She felt the parasite’s hands on her magic as if it touched her body, defiling it, claiming it. It wasn’t hers. They were using it, abusing it… and then she woke up. She couldn’t face the rest, not even in dreams.

It was only after the third time she had been sucked back into sleep and awoken to silence that Jessa gave up on sleep. Her brain refused to quiet, the pounding in her head distorting her thoughts. She could ignore the gaping wound of emptiness at her core if only she focused on the distinct sense of wrongness.

The pinching at the base of her skull spread, engulfing her head like a thousand pins piercing her skin. On instinct, she tried to lift her hand to rub the pain away, but her shackles prevented her. She did not have the strength to lift her hand anyway. Too weak. She has been carved out and left to rot. She was raw. The poison had been nothing to what she felt now.

Thoughts swirling, knotting, thinking.

Think. The silence was wrong. Even with her throbbing head, suddenly her mind was clearer than she remembered in weeks – months? She followed the thread down, far past the point she had gone in a long time. Something didn’t feel right – she had never looked beyond. She’d turned back without conscious thought as though guided by an invisible hand. That hand was gone. Or, not gone, for she imagined long fingers waiting in the shadows to stop her. Yet she followed the thought, past not right to why.

She could still feel Rhys’ presence, and had heard his gentle snores earlier in the night. He hadn’t been taken away.

It has been hours, surely. And there was only silence.

Jessa opened her mouth, but the words stuck in her throat. Her gut twisted. Could she really interrogate him after all she had done? Was it right to talk about such frivolous things?

Her breath caught again. Did she even want to dredge up these memories? Her heart recoiled, but she balled her fists. She must know.

“Do you remember your birthday?”

Images trickled past her defences, flashes of Rhys throughout that day. She, filling up his glass with the stolen, potent wine and watching as his steps faltered, his words began to slur, and his every gesture became exaggerated. Perhaps he was merely an excellent actor, lulling her into the belief that he was uninhibited by the alcohol. But then she recalled his affronted fight with the statue of some ancestor of his, and she could neither hide a smile nor believe Rhys had been in total control.

She had braced herself for pain, not the bubbling laugh that threatened in her chest. It still hurt but it was more of a dull ache deep in her heart. Rhys’ birthday had been too early in their relationship – and too much fun – for Jessa to feel more than the sting of Rhys in general. They had not been anything then, only a tentative sapling of understanding trying to break free of the soil and bask in the sun. If she were to remember Rhys in her last days, she was glad it could be this.

The man scoffed. “No ‘are you okay after I brutally tortured you to save my own skin’?”

Jessa flinched. Her throat closed up. The bubbles of humour within her popped. Barely a breath, she managed to say, “I’m... sorry.”

A laugh as bitter as lemon taunted her. “Sorry is easy.”

They had – supposedly – been here before, only a few months ago. He had refused to blame her.

She grabbed hold of that thought, refusing to let it wither. Jessa stared into the gloom, eyes scrunched up against the ache behind her brows, and saw the room and the situation like she looked into the depths of a glittering blue lake, crystal as glass, and could see the weeds swaying at the bottom. She imagined she could see the man before her, the way his outline seemed to shimmer. How had she not noticed? And why notice now? She was too weak to care that she could; more important that she was herself again, that something had burned away the fog she had not even seen.

Mere months ago, Rhys had refused to blame her for his torture. He had had nothing to gain by lying; she would have helped him escape those dungeons no matter what. Even now, after the cheating and months of silence, she would free him from Alrick’s clutches if she could.

It was only a few months ago, yet now this man blamed her as easily as breathing.

“Your birthday,” she said again. There was no shake this time.

The man sighed gustily. “What of it?”

“What do you remember?”

“I don’t know. A lot of drinking?”

“But what did you do? Ero and Victor never let you forget it.”

“I don’t know, Jessa,” he said, his tone the spoken version of a carefree shrug. “I got very drunk and did a lot of stupid things. Probably I flirted with you more than I should.”

He wasn’t wrong, exactly, but warning bells chimed in Jessa’s head. She dared not ask any other questions. “Yeah, you did.”

“Was there a point to this?”

Yes. “No. I just wondered when everything changed.”

“Haven’t we gone over this? It never did. You were always just a distraction.”

Her voice was ripped out of her throat and she sat there, mouth gaping, as a dagger turned in her chest. She knew now that this man could not be Rhys, but that did not discount the truth of his words. Rhys had still thrown away everything they had shared for a kiss in a dingy alley. Jessa knew what she had been: convenient.

Jessa closed her eyes. A single tear trailed down her cheek, brushing the corner of her smile, as she remembered Rhys jabbing at the statue over and over. It felt like years ago. Her heart felt full; she declared it a traitor. After everything, she still loved him.

No. She loved the idea of him, of love. Of being loved. She had lived twenty-six years believing herself to be indifferent to love in nearly every form. And now, in any form, she craved it. The idea scared her. What could such a thing make her do?

And why did her father want her to believe Rhys was here when he was not?

The question tumbled around in her brain until the door opened, bearing the king and another session of torture.

She looked into the eyes of the man who was not Rhys, knowing his identity didn’t matter. He was still a person, a victim of the king’s vice-like control.

And yet... everyone had their limits. The emptiness in Jessa expanded, tender at the frayed edges where her magic had been torn away and gone forever. She had never wanted her magic, but this was alien. She was alien, now.

She couldn’t endure it again. Tears streamed down her cheeks, hot and deserved, as she unleashed her magic on the man’s mind. His screams filled her head, creating a strange music with the damming thoughts in her head: she should have been stronger, she should have chosen to lose her magic and a part of herself with it, she deserved to die.

Another melody joined theirs, a sibilant whisper in her head telling her what she needed to do, urging her on.

Her magic poured out of her, faster and faster, a deluge of it falling on the man who had no more breath for screams. His head lolled, his fingers twitched, and Jessa watched him from a distance. He didn’t feel real. Neither did she.

What even was she, that she could do this? She wasn’t Jessa, not anymore.

She felt the king’s presence at her shoulder, his hand pressing down on her in... Comfort? Pride? She reacted to it, the small neglected child in her craving the attention and approval of her father despite the monster he was.

And all it had taken was this. Her soul seemed a necessary price to pay. She had surely gone mad, but she knew also that she could not be her father’s daughter without losing herself entirely.

“I’ll have the servant bring you something nice tonight,” her father promised, pressing a kiss into her hair.

With a snap of his fingers, the guard jumped into action, hefting the man who was not Rhys out of the room in the king’s shadow.

She was alone, and in that stark darkness some fog seemed to lift from her mind before the rubble of the world crashed down on her with the realisation of what she had done. What she had felt.

***

It was to a warm body pressing into hers that Jessa awoke, shaking with tears. Mahlia stroked her hair, murmuring unintelligibly against her forehead in a soothing tone until Jessa stilled. Until the only thing that remained of the horrors in her dream was Rhys’ brown eyes boring into her soul.

“You shouldn’t be here, Mahlia,” Jessa whispered. “I’m not worth this.”

Mahlia pulled back, lifting Jessa’s chin and forcing her to meet her gaze. “I can’t know what happened here, but I see that the king is pleased which means it isn’t anything good. It isn’t your fault.”

The words didn’t even register as real. “I don’t deserve your kindness. Please go.”

Mahlia ignored her. “I brought you something.” She turned to the tray beside her, lifting a lumpy mound from it. It was… a cake? What a waste of precious resources for anyone, let alone for her.

“Share it with the servants,” she said, though it was small enough that it couldn’t be shared by more than a few of them.

“We made it for you,” Mahlia insisted. “It feels wrong to wish you a happy birthday, but I can’t leave it unacknowledged. Your so-called father just gave me a blank look when he checked what I was bringing you.”

Her vision blurred. She didn’t deserve it, but the young girl who had spent years of birthdays in silence selfishly craved the attention. She would have thought that girl gone, lost with the magic that was stolen from her. The aberration that she now was didn’t have birthdays. But she saw Mahlia’s desperate face, and so she whispered, “Then share it with me.”

Mahlia brightened, as if with those words she could ignore the emptiness that was so obvious in Jessa’s eyes. Jessa wanted to be better for her, wanted to be worth such kindness and thought. Though each mouthful of cake was delicious and all the sweeter for what it meant, Jessa had to choke it down.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, stopping Mahlia from feeding her another bite when there was still more than half the cake left.

Mahlia waved her away, enveloping her in another hug as tears stung Jessa’s eyes. “There’s no need for sorry. I just want you to understand that, no matter what the king has made you do, you’re still you. You’re still worth a thousand of him.”

It was only as Mahlia was leaving that Jessa remembered something she wanted to ask. She could barely believe, after everything, that she could even care. But she did, more than she could say, and she knew she could trust Mahlia to tell her the truth – if she even knew the answer. “Rhys Marinon… he told me he was engaged. Do you… do you know if it’s true?”

Mahlia blanched. The silence stretched out as the older woman chewed her lips. Jessa knew what she would say, could feel it in her sinking gut as Mahlia fought against delivering the news.

“It’s true.”

***

Pulled awake by the twinging crick in her neck, Jessa found she had no more energy for tears. She stared unblinking into the darkness, making out only the shadowy outline of the door that brought her both misery and salvation, depending on who walked through it. The room was ice biting into her skin, but with her wrists as ankles bound to the chair she could do nothing to ease the suffering. Her ears burned with it. Her hair hung in greasy clumps against her neck and back, itchy and sticky. She coughed, her body; when she stopped, she found she could not stop shaking.

A familiar entity snaked up from her gut to her throat, wrapping itself around her with a hissing glee. Her constant companion these countless days, it settled around her and began to tighten around her neck. Despair; she squeezed her eyes shut as though that would save her, gasping for air.

And then she remembered; her only solace was within. She cast her awareness inwards, approaching the meadow of her mind. With each time she withdrew here, she saw the oozing tar of darkness dripping from the trees, the grass, the fences, encroaching more and more on her space. Her haven turned nightmare. She couldn’t let herself care. There was only one thing here that could bring her any peace. Let him poison her mind against her, as long as he never found this.

She approached the edge of the first field. A shimmering, unblemished film rose from the ground to the skies, disappearing into the cotton clouds dripping with blood. Jessa watched it, her breaths puffing out slow and cold. She knew what – who – lay on the other side of the memory block. Her feet didn’t move. She couldn’t. Instead, she pressed her hand against the film, imagining herself an outsider trying to break through.

The film bent. Jessa’s throat caught. It was as fragile as a bubble, a rainbow of colours swirling where her hand had bent it towards the light. If she dared push a little harder... She snatched back her hand as though the film was a wall of nails, and not something that could easily be popped by one.

Her heart thudded in her chest. One heartbeat. Two.

She spun around, heading for the next ward, then the next and the next. They were stronger than the first, but she could see the beginning spider web fissures in the blocks. When one failed, the others would soon follow. They were separate but linked, and if Alrick knew he could do it once he could do it again.

Jessa approached the last block, her feet crunching under the dying grass. She craned her neck to watch it loom above her. There were no sounds in the meadow of her mind, but if there has been the trill of a bird or a cricket’s lulling buzz the muffling hiss in Jessa’s ears, as the blood rushed through her, would have stifled it.

She stepped forward. Once. Twice.

She lifted her hand and rested just her fingertips to the swirling surface. Heart lodged in her throat, she pressed in.

Her heart gave out. No. It wasn’t much, but it dipped where her fingers met the film. Behind it... behind it was everything. If that first block fell – Jessa has no doubt it would for her memories of Rhys were behind there and Alrick knew her memories of him must be hidden – she could only believe this one would soon follow.

Jessa stopped imagining herself as an intruder, and felt her hand slide through the film, accepting her as its own. Only Jessa could pass through. The film slid warmly against her skin, and then she was on the other side. For a moment, there was utter silence.

A tide of memories slammed into her, knocking her back. She saw them all – Laurita, Ainesh and his family, the servants, the nobles. Everyone who had risked their lives for a chance at change. Everyone who was easily in Alrick’s grasp if he broke through the block.

She saw Mahlia last of all.

The past few days flashed before her. Gentle hands pressing salve to her wrists and ankles, rubbed raw from her shackles. Whispered tales of the world beyond the wall, faking a normalcy Jessa could never feel again. Brushing her hair as Jessa cried for the atrocities she committed, standing by her despite knowing the dark creature Jessa had become, lying to her that it would be okay. A single shining spark of humanity in the dark, sucking abyss of Jessa’s life.

Mahlia could not get out. She was compelled to stay in the castle because of her. If the block fell, Alrick would know about Mahlia and she would be the first to die. That sliver of light would be snuffed out. Jessa was sure she would be forced to watch.

She could not let it happen. There was only one thing she could do.

***

The door opened, the barest sliver of light blinding Jessa’s eyes, and then there was darkness again.

“My lady?”

“Did you get it?” Jessa’s voice rasped like sandpaper. An ice-cold glass pressed against her lips, and Jessa drank greedily. The water slid down her throat like a blessing from the gods. When was the last time she had had a drink?

“Yes.” Mahlia’s voice shook. Until then, the older woman had been a pillar of strength. “But my lady, please think about this.”

“I’ve done nothing but think. All I can see, waking or sleeping, is their faces. Your face. I can’t let you die.”

“But I can?” Her voice was the screech of chalk on a chalkboard. Jessa heard a deep intake of breath from the gloom. Mahlia never spoke above a whisper in case they alerted the guards. “My lady, please-”

“Is it in the food?”

Mahlia didn’t reply. She leaned down to one of the pockets in Jessa’s dress. Something cold and cylindrical pressed against her leg.

“What is this?”

“The antidote, my lady.”

Jessa sucked in a breath. “I didn’t ask for that.”

“I couldn’t, my lady. You need to have time – time to change your mind.”

“Do you know how many people could die if the king breaks my mind? He’s close, Mahlia. I can’t hold out much longer. I won’t have their deaths on my hands, not when I can prevent it. I’m one person – without me, you can still beat Alrick. But there needs to be people left to fight him.”

“I found you a poison. Please, do this one thing for me. Give yourself some time.”

“For what, Mahlia? To escape? How am I going to do that? You can’t tell anyone what’s happening, and you’ve been forbidden from letting me leave this room alive. This is the only way I escape him.”

“Do you want to die?” Mahlia asked breathlessly.

Jessa’s breath caught, her mouth open. She had no answer. Her life had become and endless cycle of torture and reprieve, condemnation and redemption. All of it in total blackness. Had it been days, or weeks? It had all blurred. It may as well have been years.

No one was coming to save her. Who would? Who had she not hurt with her existence? Everything was her fault. If she hadn’t stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, thousands of soldiers would be alive and safe, eating dinner with their families, laughing and brightening the world. Laurita might have her brother. Mahlia wouldn’t be here.

Rhys’ family wouldn’t be broken. He’d have married the woman he really loved rather than be forced into a loveless existence with her. And Jessa’s heart wouldn’t still squeeze like she had been shoved through a vice at the thought of him.

She was in so much pain, and Alrick would soon know everything. Was there anything left to live for?

“No,” Jessa said anyway. She refused to believe she was lying. She would give anything to see a world free of her father. But that was not the path that had been carved out for her. She could do this, so that others might see such a day.

There was no time to ask Mahlia to return with a poison that would kill her more quickly. Alrick ensured her visits were sporadic, and it was entirely possible they would not meet again until it is too late.

“Give it to me.”

Mahlia shuffled forward. “It’s in the food, my lady.” The woman lifted the spoon to Jessa’s lips. The porridge was cold, but it was nothing to the continued loss of dignity at having to be fed. “For the first eight hours, you won’t really notice anything at all. This is the best time to take the antidote-”

“Mahlia...”

“My lady, please.” Jessa fell silent, accepting a second spoon of porridge. It tasted no different. Jessa wondered whether Mahlia was lying to her. Surely she would not. She must know what was at stake. “Between eight and twelve hours, you’ll start to feel worse. It’ll-”

“Don’t tell me how.” Jessa knew Mahlia’s ploy.

“Fine.” The word was a thorn pricking into Jessa’s thumb. “After twelve hours, the antidote has about a sixty percent chance of success. That decreases to zero after eighteen. You’ll be dead within twenty.”

It was too long, but Jessa was wise enough not to say it. She ate the rest of the porridge in silence. Once she was done, she tilted her head, wondering whether she felt any different. Had that twinge in her head been there before? What about that pain in her toe? The unknown terrified her. She had wanted it to be instant. It would never be painless, but now it would be prolonged.

A laugh bubbled up from her chest, manic and deprecating. Mahlia questioned her with concern. Jessa waved her away. “I was just thinking of the irony. I ended up here because I was poisoned. Seems... fitting I should leave the same way.”

“I poisoned you.” The servant choked the words out so quietly, Jessa was sure Mahlia had not intended for Jessa to hear.

“No,” she said sharply. “No, Mahlia. This is not you. He made you his pawn, and I have used you too. I have chosen this, Mahlia. This is not you. My death is not on your hands. This is me.”

“Please, my lady.” The woman’s hands pressed against Jessa’s icy fingers. They were a furnace, warming Jessa’s very soul. She tried to clutch Mahlia’s finger, but her wrists ground against the manacles.

This might be the last person she ever saw. She would certainly be the last friendly face.

“Jessa,” she choked out, making the insistence once last time. “I’d like to hear my name from a friend. One last time.”

She heard Mahlia’s breath hitch as her fingers flinched. “My lady... Please. The antidote.” There was a pause, and then Jessa felt warm arms pull her into a motherly embrace. Their cheeks pressed against each other, and Jessa felt sticky tear tracks on Mahlia’s skin like a mirror of her own. Mahlia sighed, a reluctant acceptance clear in the heavy intake of breath and the exhale that tickled Jessa’s ear.

“Jessa...”

And in the arms of the last friend she would ever see, Jessa fell apart.

[Rosabeth]

It was a long-established rule of the world that even the loosest of lips could be silenced, given the right amount of money and a promise of retributive action. Even in this peculiar circumstance, the rule held fast. From the moment Rhys made his request to the blacksmith and deposited a generous fee into the man’s hand, not so much as a question was uttered, even though the blacksmith’s eyes were wild with curiosity.

Rhys had watched the process as intently as thin sheets of metal were bent and molded into a thin cylinder. He’d taken the vial of his own blood from his pocket – freshly brought from Tristan’s bedside, where Rhys had watched the mysteries of a process that meant nothing to his eyes – and poured it into the cooled metal while the blacksmith stood silently by, knowing that questions would be best left unasked. When all was said and done, Tristan inspected the work and spent what felt like an abnormally long time doing what to Rhys’ eyes looked like nothing more than staring at the object, before proclaiming it satisfactory, leaving Rhys with the unsavory task of deciding what exactly to do with it.

“This is a terrible idea.”

The warmth of the fire tingled against Rhys’ back. He sat cross-legged on the ground some hours later, Anja across from him. Between them, the cylinder lay on a delicate piece of cloth like a religious offering, though it could not have been further from such a thing. Anja only stared at it with unease. Her lips curled in displeasure.

“Tristan thinks it’ll work,” said Rhys.

Anja scoffed. “Reassuring.” She reached out slowly, letting her fingers brush against the metal. She recoiled, as though she could sense the magic emanating from within. She couldn’t, of course, but Rhys knew the feeling all too well. His apprehension was just as loud, screaming at him to throw the metal into the fire and never think on it again. And yet, like every time a poor idea presented itself to him, desperation took over.

“If this works, Tristan said he could make one for you as well,” Rhys said.

Anja grimaced. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Anja -”

“I’ll take my chances.” Her voice was firm, commanding, each word landing sharp as the crack of a whip. Rhys did not dare push. Anja glanced away, fixing her eyes upon the crackling fire. Rhys let his hand inch out, brushing against her arm before she shrugged away. While his days passed in dizzying speed, each blurring into the next as he grasped desperately at time like trying to catch the sand in an hourglass, he knew it was but a figment of his fixation. For Anja, hardly any time had passed at all. Her wounds were still raw, his insistence only prodding them open. Guilt swallowed Rhys whole.

“Isn’t there a better way to test this? Something a little less…intrusive?” Anja was hardly one to be squeamish, and yet her constant disapproving glances at the small metal object spoke to a greater discomfort.

“Anja. Intrusive is the point.”

“Ugh, fine, fine. It’s your body, I suppose.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Rhys asked.

He could see the reluctance in the way Anja set her jaw, but yet she sighed. “I can’t exactly let you ruin the job on your own.”

It was not the ideal environment for such a thing, but it would do. Rhys removed his shirt and laid down on the stone floor, staring up at the ceiling. He watched as Anja removed the knife from its sheath, grabbing bottle of liquor from beside the fire and letting the liquid run over the edge of the blade, and then on her hands. She scrubbed her fingers with the liquor, forcing it under her nails and in every crevice. When she finished she handed the bottle to Rhys, letting him take a long drink, though they both knew it would do nothing for the pain. There were herbs and concoctions to dull sensation for just these sorts of situations, but Rhys had thought it best to be mentally sharp when the moment came. He could handle the pain. Anja sat silently for a moment, her hands drying as the liquid ran off the knife’s edge, dripping into a small pile on the floor. Then, she pressed her spare hand against the inside of Rhys’ left arm she pressed on the skin, feeling for the veins that ran beneath. When she looked certain she’d found the right spot she turned to Rhys, knife in hand. “Are you sure you don’t want something to bite on? I wouldn’t want your screams to scare our little friends.”

“Oh, shut up,” Rhys muttered through gritted teeth. Anja grinned. “Just do it already.”

He’d been through so much worse. A blade to the gut, an arrow to the back, unspeakable torture at the hands of a man without scruples. And yet, the anticipation of willingly inflicting pain somehow still made him flinch. Ridiculous. Not all instincts could be suppressed, he supposed; especially not those intended toward self-preservation. All he could do was focus on a spot on the ceiling as he felt the blade pierce his skin.

For such a trivial thing, the pain certainly stung. It took all his concentration to keep his arm still. Anja’s spare hand held the skin taut as best she could while using a spare bit of cloth to soak up blood, but Rhys knew one involuntary spasm on his end could send a blade plunging into an artery. Then they’d certainly have trouble on their hands. Rhys pressed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath in and out. Though he knew it could not have been more than a few moments, the cut felt like something of an eternity. When the pain stopped, leaving it its wake an acute stinging that made Rhys want to claw at his skin, the most peculiar sensation made his whole body seize up. He balled his fists at the feeling of the metal slipping under his skin, Anja pressing it delicately in place. Just as he’d think the movement would stop it would begin again, the unbearable sensation of something crawling beneath his skin making him want to lash out as he lay still as a board.

“Can you please hurry up?” He hissed through gritted teeth.

“Do you want me to botch this? Because I can, if that’s what you want.”

Rhys pressed down an insult. Now was not the time to anger the person with the very acute ability to make his situation far worse than it already was.

After the torment of the placement, the sting of each pass of the needle and thread through his skin was an almost welcome relief. Anja was quick with it too, her blood-stained fingers deftly moving to and fro. When it was done and Anja leaned back in relief, Rhys dared look at his arm.

It was not quite as grotesque as he’d expected. The cut was clean, the stitches even. Though he felt something of a rag doll, in reality it was little more than a raised bump on his skin. Rhys’ fingers ran over it, feeling the ridges of the metal there. It was an unsettling feeling, knowing something unnatural lay just below the skin. Yet, there was a certain assurance that filled him, despite his better sense knowing only unpredictability would follow. If it would by him the safety he needed, he would take the consequences gladly.

“How does it feel?” Anja asked. She eyed him peculiarly, as if he might combust at a moment’s notice. Rhys twisted his arm from right to left. He brought it to his face, flexing the muscle. He cringed as the metal shifted beneath his skin.

“Even if it doesn’t hurt you – which is unlikely – how can you be sure it won’t…” Anja trailed off, eying Rhys pointedly.

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

This was a question easily answered. “Nina!” Rhys boomed, his voice echoing through the halls. Several moments later Nina rushed in in a panic, her eyes wide. When she set upon Rhys and Anja sitting comfortably before the fire her eyes narrowed into slits.

“Can you please reserve that voice for if someone is dying?” Nina flung her hands up, looking around as if for something to throw. Rhys paid her no mind, occupied by the discomforting feeling of something very solid beneath his skin any time he gave his arm but a small twitch. When Nina calmed, having abandoned her endeavor to assault them with a spare object, she gave a huff and turned on her heels.

“I need your help.”

Nina stopped, her head whipping back. “I’m not a servant. You can go get your own damn shirt.”

Rhys smiled. “I was more thinking you could read my mind.”

If Nina had been perplexed before, she looked absolutely flummoxed. Eyes still narrowed, she flickered her gaze between Rhys and Anja, trying to sniff out some trick. “What’s going on?”

“Just read my mind, please.”

Unable to discover what secrets they were hiding she gave a shrug, slumping against the doorframe as she fixed her stare upon Rhys. For a moment her eyes were dull, bored even. Disappointed by such a lackluster request. It did not last long. Her expression flickered with confusion, her eyes widening. Rhys could see her eyes darting to his chest, looking for the amulet that would surely explain everything, only to find it nowhere in sight.

“I…uh…” Nina frowned, shaking her head. Her teeth clenched, her jaw pulling tight and brows furrowing. She was trying harder, surely convinced the error was with her, with her magic. When it became clear nothing was coming her confusion melted into anger.

“What did you do to me!”

“Miriyam isn’t going to be reading your mind, Rhys,” Anja said. She leaned back, folding her arms over her chest. “Let’s be serious. All this tells us is that the magic will protect you from something small. We need a more rigorous test.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Nina interrupted.

Neither Rhys nor Anja responded to the request. “Nina, can you hurt people with your magic?”

It was not an easy task, to throw the cynical girl off-kilter, but the question had somehow achieved it. Nina only stared, brow furrowed. “Theoretically?”

“Practically.”

“Uh…”

“This isn’t a moral judgement.”

“Well I’d hope not, coming from you.”

Rhys ignored the jab, as true as it was. Nina, having run out of witty retorts, stared at the floor, pursing her lips. “I know the gist of it. But so what?” Nina asked, her suspicion bubbling up once more as she turned up toward Rhys. “You want me to hurt you?”

“I want you to try to hurt me. There’s a difference. I don’t think you’ll actually succeed.”

Though it was the truth, Rhys’ words had an ulterior motive. From the sudden gleam in Nina’s eye, alighting her with a familiar spark, Rhys knew it had worked. She was not one to back down from a challenge, and certainly not a question of her power. Rhys remembered their night at the temple well. Fixing herself on the spot, Nina stared forward, her eyes losing their focus as the moments passed. Rhys wished he could peek inside her head. He wondered what it must be like from the other side. What reservoir of power did a mage draw from? What must it feel like, or did it feel like anything at all? Surely it felt like something. The one question he need not wonder about was from where they drew the rage to let their magic free to harm another. He’d been to that place. He did not think magic was necessary to access that sort of hatred. In some ways, he spent a great deal of time there. That dark, dingy, rotten core in his soul that yearned to inflict every ounce of pain he’d felt on those that had dealt suffering themselves. One face, in particular, was very clear in his mind.

“Ugh!” Nina groaned, her shoulders rolling forward. Rhys had not realized he’d been so lost in thought until her voice shook him from his thoughts. “It’s not working,” she muttered. “And I can assure you I was trying.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Anja muttered under her breath. Despite her snide comment, Rhys could see the relief clear on her face, though his sister did her best to duck her head to hide those brief glimmers of proof of a heart.

“So, are you going to let me in on your little secret?”

Rhys reached outward toward Nina, gesturing her forth. Once she was near enough, Rhys turned his arm over, exposing the strange pattern of stitches that now formed a line a couple inches wide, the string still stained with blood. Nina stared dumbfounded, her face screwed up in her concentration as if attempting to solve a particularly difficult riddle. Rhys watched as her eyes flickered to the side, catching a glimpse of the still bloodied knife and piles of bloodied cloth sitting at his side. It was apparently when the truth snapped into place, for Nina gaped in uncharacteristic silence.

“You really botched yourself up, didn’t you?” Nina grabbed Rhys’ wrist, turning his arm to better look at the stitches. Rhys could see his sister glaring from the corner of his eye at the insult to her work. For a moment Nina looked as though she might run her fingers over the stitches but decided against it. “Is it…is it inside you?” She let out a low laugh and a whistle, backing away to admire the scene.

“Is this just a fun experiment or do you have a reason playing surgeon?” She asked.

“I can’t let what happened to Anja happen again.”

Nina pursed her lips, letting the statement settle over her. “Look, they don’t know you’re here and I don’t think they’d try to raid your fortress of a house, would they? I get paranoia – trust me. But don’t you think you’re being a bit…well, paranoid?”

Rhys glanced to Anja, hoping to catch her eye, but his sister was staring down at her lap. He had a distinct feeling, though, of the warning she would like to give. Too many people knew – or would know – already. With every new one the threat grew. How long would it take for the information to reach the wrong people, to lead to a trap set to ensnare them at a desperate moment? It was hardly a matter of trust anymore. With magic that pried its way into the mind, slithering into every crevice where once thought to hide a secret, the only protection was magic and luck.

“I’m going to Ovis - to Miriyam.”

Rhys had grown so accustomed to variations on others questioning his mental state and decision making that to see the girl’s eyes alight came wholly unexpected. “I’m coming.”

Rhys wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “I’m sorry, what?”

“If it’s Miriyam you’re after, I’m coming with you.”

Anja shot Nina a withering look. “You’re sixteen; you’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re not my mother,” Nina shot back with a huff.

“And you’re not our sister,” Rhys interjected, before the two could let tensions rise any further. He hated to see the hurt plastered on Nina’s face, understanding far too acutely her eagerness. But at the end of the day they were acquaintances by happenstance – nothing more. “I’m not responsible for you.”

“I can take care of myself, thanks,” she grumbled. She stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest in defiance. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“What if your mother comes back? What then? Are you just going to be gone? You have people who are worried about you. Look, I understand you and Miriyam have history. I get that you feel personally involved – I really do. But you’re just a kid, Nina, and I can’t endanger you like this.”

“You didn’t seem to mind endangering me the first time.”

Rhys felt those words like a blow to the gut. “I deserve that,” he said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t let you come with me.”

“You need me! Do you have another mage? You can’t see Miriyam without another mage on your side.” Nina’s voice was growing higher, hinting at a desperation Rhys couldn’t quite understand.

“I have friends in Ovis,” he said.

The door to their backs creaked open, the noise sounding as abrupt as an explosion in the heavy tension of the room. Tristan stood in the doorway, his face barely peeking through the crack. He was stark in night clothes with a sheepish expression as he looked about the room at the scene. “Sorry to disturb you, I just heard voices and thought…”

“Oh, don’t mind us, Rhys just thinks he’s in charge of everyone,” Nina said, throwing up her hands.

Tristan did not inch from his position, though he looked warier than before. Rhys pulled his shirt over his head as he headed towards Tristan, noting Tristian’s eyes catch a glimpse of the strange scar on his arm. “She’s just being dramatic,” Rhys said, grabbing the door and pulling it wide. “I’m going to Ovis and she’s not coming. That’s all.”

Nina grumbled, throwing a few choice words at Rhys that he pointedly chose to ignore. Rhys had expected Tristan to shrug off the situation, but instead his brow furrowed.

“You’re going to Ovis now?”

Rhys frowned. “Well, not now now, but yes. Is something wrong?”

Tristan stepped into the room, pressing the door closed quietly behind him and looking around as though half expecting an uninvited intruder to be nearby, listening in. “It’s not wise for you to leave Jasrah right now,” he said softly. At his words Anja and Nina silenced, inching in closer. Though they were the only ones in the room, Tristan’s voice grew quiet. “They’re watching for you.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Rhys.

“No, you don’t understand. The night we took your sister the mages implemented a guard around the city. They’re guarding every way in and out. With your sister out of their possession I can’t believe the situation has gotten better.”

Rhys felt his throat turn dry. He glanced toward Anja, finding her watching him with trepidation. “When you say ‘guarding’…”

“I doubt you’d be able to leave undetected.”

A moment of silence passed, and then Rhys let out a curse.

“You didn’t think to mention this before now?” said Anja. Tristan looked away in embarrassment as Rhys smacked his sister’s arm lightly in admonishment.

“It’s not your fault,” Rhys insisted, much to Tristan’s look of relief.

Anja was on the move in an instant, clearing their things from the floor in preparation to leave. “We should scout it out. If we left now we could make a perimeter and be back by midnight.”

Tristan put out his arm to block the doorway, meeting Anja’s ire. “I don’t think it’s wise for either of the two of you to go out there. I understand you’re both very smart, but I think the mages have the upper hand on this one.”

Though Rhys hated to admit it, Tristan had a point; even Rhys’ reckless abandon for most sense could not ignore it.

“I’ll get Victor,” Rhys suggested.

Before Rhys could slip from the room Nina grabbed his sleeve, her anger dissipated into a nearly devilish excitement. It was the look of someone who had something to prove. “I’ll go with him,” she said, nodding fervently.

Rhys sighed, his voice curt. “He can take care of himself.

“Don’t be an idiot. I can read minds – I’ll be able to scout out mages better than Victor can with sight. You know I’m valuable.”

To Rhys’ surprise it was Anja who interjected, resting her hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “Just let her go. She’ll never shut up if she doesn’t.”

It was not ideal, but they both had a point and Rhys relented throwing his hands up. “Fine, but Victor’s going with you.”

As Nina scurried away, looking far too pleased with herself for Rhys’ comfort, a sense of foreboding settled over him like low-laying fog. There was nothing to do about it, and Rhys took a deep breath and carried on, ignoring the pit in his stomach.

***

Waiting was agonizing, as waiting always is. Rhys paced the room a thousand times as Anja watched from an arm chair, picking at her nails with the tip of a knife. It felt as though they’d been out for hours, though when Rhys would look to the clock only a minute or two had passed. It was not as if their swift return would change anything, but a thousand anxious worries crept in. Rhys had never found himself to be a particularly anxious person and yet here his stomach tightened in knots at the very prospect of a difficulty. What had happened to him?

When he heard the distance sound of a door shutting, followed by hushed voices and the tapping of feet in the wooden halls, Rhys had to restrain himself from looking too eager for the news. In the end, he did not even need their report. Their stony expressions said everything words could. Rhys slumped against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

“How bad?”

“Well, Tristan wasn’t lying,” Nina said, throwing her coat into an empty chair before going to stand beside the fire to warm her hands. “I could hear plenty of them. I only saw a few – most seem to be hidden. Didn’t feel like poking my nose in there.”

Victor slapped Rhys on the shoulder before leaning beside him. He gave a weak grin, but even Victor’s unshakable optimism seemed as though it might falter. “Really though, what are a few mages? You just have to find the ones that don’t have horses. You can outrun them.”

Though Rhys appreciated the attempt at humor, no one laughed. They were trapped. There were a thousand ways around this watch, but all required the one thing Rhys did not have – magic. Rhys wanted to scream. He could feel every eye in the room on him, watching, waiting for some direction as though he were the general dolling out commands. Nothing came. For once, Rhys could not think. His mind flooded with unwelcome thoughts and fears, suffocating any useful idea.

“What do the posts look like?” Anja asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them all.

“They’re not really posts,” Nina drawled, having the good sense to flinch and continue on at Anja’s unflinching stare. “There’s a few mages posted every so often, maybe every quarter mile? They’re not stationary, though. Their thoughts would get louder and softer as they moved around. There’s more near the major entrances and exits. Honestly, I don’t think it’s getting out of the city that would be the problem, especially if you left in the middle of the day. There’s enough places you could slip through. The problem is going to be in staying hidden once you’re out on open land and there’s no one around to hide you. I can’t believe they don’t have people outside of the city, too, especially if they’re this dedicated to watching all exits.”

Anja stared down at her lap, flipping her knife absentmindedly between her fingers. She was hatching a plan, that much was clear, but Rhys’ mind was too clouded to think of what she could possibly concoct. He was hardly an anonymous man; recognizing him in open land would be like hunting an injured animal. The more Rhys mulled on the difficulty of escaping Jasrah, the more the impossibility of the trip in its entirety weighed on him like a ton of stone. Ovis was hundreds of miles away – there was no way to make the journey without stopping for provisions, no way to avoid having his face seen. Even if he managed such a feat, stealing food and supplies at night, the closer he got to Ovis the more he tempted fate. Soldiers would be stationed across the northern part of Etrene, occupying every city in which Rhys could possibly stop. Even if a poor foot soldier would not recognize Rhys, certainly someone would. Rhys did not doubt that Alrick’s mages lurked in every city, all with Rhys’ image surely in their minds. There was no way Rhys could make it to Ovis without being caught. Even with his ill-advised bravery, Rhys knew this was beyond reckless – it was suicidal. Still, there had to be something. Anything. Getting to Ovis was not merely optional. There must be a way.

It was as though Anja could read Rhys’ thoughts, for her head snapped toward him, eyes narrowed. “You can’t possibly be thinking -”

Victor nudged at Rhys’ side, trying to shake him from his glassy-eyed stare at the opposite wall. Though Rhys felt the nudge he did not move. He was trapped somewhere between despair and desperation. It was not a good place to be. Yet, desperation often opened the doors for the most terrible inspiration. An idea formed slowly, Rhys’ mind putting together the lose pieces like a puzzle until suddenly they clicked into place, revealing a terrifying and utterly mad vision.

“I have an idea.”

Anja and Victor groaned in unison as Nina perked up, glancing up from the crackling fire to watch with trepidation. “That’s never a good phrase,” Anja muttered. And yet, they all waited, rapt with attention.

“If I can’t get out of the city undetected…” Rhys began, watching hesitantly for his sister’s response, “let me be detected.”

The silence was thick as it swallowed up the room. Even the fire seemed to have dulled, though the rushing in Rhys’ ears could have drowned out even the greatest commotion. All he could hear was the rapid beating of his heart as both fear and exhilaration swept through him. It could work; he was sure of it. His confidence filtered out even the trepidation that should have come from seeing Victor’s horrified expression.

“You can’t be serious,” Anja said finally.

“I promise it’s not as crazy as it sounds.”

Anja laughed, but the sound was pinched and frantic. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

Though he sunk against the wall with slouched shoulders his horror soon turned to apprehension, and Victor let out a sigh of acceptance. “What do you have in mind?”

Anja gaped. A surge of confidence overcame Rhys at Victor’s words. He gripped his friend’s shoulder, giving him a small shake. Victor smiled despite himself, only to immediately wipe the smile from his face, looking as though he didn’t want to encourage Rhys’ bad behavior.

“Alrick wants me dead, yes?” Rhys started, his words somehow feeling as though they were simultaneously too fast and too slow.

“Yes?” Victor answered uncertainly.

“But what he wants more than me dead is to use me, and ultimately be the one to kill me himself. And you know how he’d achieve that end?”

“By capturing you?”

“And who do we know who – as far as everyone outside of this house knows – is under his direction and would gladly bring me to him?”

Anja’s groan was the loudest. “Oh, Gods.”

“Rhys.” Victor frowned. “You know you can’t involve Tristan in this further. Sure, he can walk around, but I don’t think the guy has it in him to make the trek to Ovis. And that’s if he didn’t have people depending on him here – which he does.”

Rhys knew Victor was right; he didn’t need to be told. His guilt over Tristan was already pushed to a breaking point. Still, Rhys was onto something. He could feel it in his bones. Whether he was comfortable with the consequences of his ideas brought to life as a different matter entirely.

If only Laurita were here.

“We don’t need Tristan,” Rhys spoke slowly, “we just need someone who can pass for him for a while. Just long enough to get far enough out of the city that no one will know what Tristan is supposed to look like.”

Though Rhys’ eyes were on Victor, his friend looked hesitantly around the room, as though someone else he’d merely passed over before might be standing in a corner. When Rhys’ intent became obvious, Victor pointed at himself, gaping. “Me? Have you seen me recently?”

“We can fix that.” Rhys’ voice was full of confidence, though it was entirely unfounded. Surely with three mages at their disposal they’d be able to cobble together some semblance of Laurita’s talent. Maybe? Possibly? Rhys felt his veneer of confidence slipping as Victor grew visibly more unsure. “I know I can’t ask this of you, and I won’t” Rhys said quietly, just to Victor. “I can’t make any promises about how things will turn out. If you want to come with me that’s your choice, but I will not ask it of you. I will find another way. I will not endanger another friend due to the mess I have made.”

By the end of Rhys’ speech, Victor’s uncertainty turned to annoyance, and he gave Rhys a somewhat-more-than-gentle shove. “Do you really think we all have no choice in associating with you? Come on, Rhys. You know better than that. You may be a reckless idiot, but you’re our reckless idiot.”

Victor rustled Rhys’ hair as an older brother might, and Rhys couldn’t help but smile. Victor’s worries were still there, buried deep, but his unwavering optimism had brought a smile back to his face, if only for show. He turned to a mirror on the wall, scrunching up his face. “Well, I think you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“We’ll manage,” Rhys said, coming to stand beside Victor.

Victor laughed, but it was strangely hollow. “I’m probably going to regret this, aren’t I?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Well, then we should probably start the drinking now.”

[Mollianne]

“Please, sire, she doesn’t need to see this.”

“If I get her back, you do too.” The king’s voice shot through her like a poisoned dart. She roused from her stupor, from counting the weakening beat of her heart and noticing her limbs fill with lead seemingly with each passing second. With nothing else to do but sit and wait, it had been easier to focus on the what rather than the why.

At the voice, however, she had something more dreadful to distract her. She had hoped she would be left alone, would be dead before the king returned and tried to break her mind. She had seen the pattern in the yawning abyss of time that was her solitude. As she grew more ill, so too did her magic weaken. The gaping, oozing tear where her magic had once been whole did not, of course, help. She thought of that emptiness distantly now, for it was the only way she could endure. Just a few more hours. Then none of it would matter.

But what the king could do in a few hours did.

The next thing Jessa knew, a small huddle of a figure was laid at her feet. She hadn’t heard the door open, nor heard any movement. She opened her eyes and the dim room was hazy, the poison sucking the life out of her also slowly stealing her sight. She peered down at the puddle of fabric, and when she saw the blank, pallid face of a child staring up through the cloths, she barely even flinched. She watched from a great distance, as though only a tiny remnant of herself still clung desperately to life while the rest of her had departed with ease.

The child wasn’t dead, for the cloths undulated with each shallow breath. As Jessa watched, the girl curled into a ball. Her face contorted as she struggled to free her arms. A shadow fell across Jessa’s vision, holding the girl down. Her forehead was still visible. Little crescent moons lined her forehead like a crown, with drops of dried blood rubies telling just how deep the girl’s nails had dug in. It was a crown she had worn on many occasions.

“Get her out!” the girl shrieked, twisting and turning.

Realisation dawned, like an anchor sinking silently to the sea floor rather than with the loud clatter of books falling off a shelf. A name ghosted over Jessa’s lips. “Safiya.”

The shadow holding the child mage down looked up, revealing a haggard, face that might have felt like a stab to the heart if Jessa had anything left to feel. His grey beard trembled as he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Jessa. So sorry.”

Alistair turned towards the doorway, where another hulking figure surveyed the scene with dispassion. “Please, let me take her to the healer now.”

“Not yet,” Alrick said, soft but with all the calm power of a king.

Safiya still screamed about getting “her” out of her head. It had been over a month since the ambush, since Jessa had been inside her – possessing her. The girl didn’t know. She thought it was still happening. Jessa had broken her. It didn’t matter that Jessa didn’t know how to possess someone. Her father had warned her: use Safiya’s body for your own rather than staying an observer, and she will die.

And Jessa hadn’t cared. She’d futilely fought against Safiya’s magic, trying to save soldiers already marked for death. And now a child suffered for her selfishness. That knowledge burst through the fog in Jessa’s soul, stinging her, though not as much as it ought. She was so done. There was no more she could take.

A hand settled over hers. She flinched. Alistair withdrew his hand, sad resignation in every line of his face. He whispered, “It’s not your fault, Jessa. There was nothing you could have done to-”

“Enough,” Alrick said. He spoke no less calmly than before, but there was danger lurking behind the serenity. Alistair fell silent, his hand falling limply back onto the girl’s shoulder. She had stopped screaming, for now, become a statue once more. Glazed eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

Alrick waved a dismissive hand at Alistair. “Go, get the physician. Leave us.”

“I can take the girl-”

“Leave.” Alrick’s eyes flashed.

The young girl at Jessa’s feet punctuated the king’s command with a keening screech. Alistair brushed the hair from the child’s face and struggled to his feet. He was thinner than last Jessa had seen him. Frailer.

She supposed she looked much the same.

The open door flung the room into momentary brightness. Jessa squinted against the light. Through her eyelashes she saw the deep grooves in Safiya’s arms and face where bone abutted skin and imagined she would find much the same over the rest of the girl’s body if it weren’t covered by robes. If she and Alistair were thin, Safiya was wasting away. Unbidden, she recalled Safiya’s mind. It was brainwashed to be sure, but there had been vitality and spark. She had been a living child.

“She had so much potential,” Alrick agreed quietly. He stood beside Jessa now, though she had not heard him move.

She wanted to tell him to get out of her head, but she couldn’t find the will to talk back. She just stared at Safiya, remembering all the girl’s memories and thoughts she had experienced. Playing under the bunk beds with a friend, eagerly answering questions in training, throwing herself into every task asked of her because she knew her king wanted her to be the best she could be. Nothing from before. Who would Safiya have been if Alrick had not found her?

She frowned. She hardly knew whether she thought that a bad thing. Her thoughts churned like butter, slick and unable to grasp.

“Why did you bring her here? It’s cruel,” she managed to whisper.

“You think I want her to suffer?” he asked. “You think I want to hurt you? Alistair found me as I was on my way to you. He was struggling to carry her and here was closer than there.”

Though Jessa might well believe the circumstance, she did not believe the intent. She had heard them outside the room, after all. But then, it no longer seemed important. And besides, why would her father want to hurt her? He just needed her to see. And see she did.

She couldn’t condone this happening to another child. Lucky, then, that Jessa would soon be dead.

The thought was harsh – downright cold – even to her own resigned heart. She didn’t want to die. It was simply the only way.

That’s what she told herself. It was the truth. She was just so bone tired, from pain, from fear, from caring. Her lids drooped.

“Jessa, did you hear me?” Alrick’s voice was as sharp as a slap in the face, so much so that she couldn’t say for sure that he hadn’t struck her.

“Tired…” she murmured, losing her grip on reality.

“Stay awake.” Forceful, commanding, in her head. She didn’t respond. There were more whispers then, slithering in her mind, urging her to do something. She could not say what. The whispers fell off her like flakes of dead skin. The whispers stopped suddenly, replaced by a rodent scuttling through her mind, scavenging for answers to a question Jessa couldn’t understand. All she knew was she felt heavy, and she wanted so very much to rest.

She dimly recalled the poison, and it was then she heard a hiss from outside herself. “What have you done?”

The intruder in her head grew, expanding into every crevice of her mind. The pressure built, her temples screaming from the blossoming ache. The king’s magic railed at her to obey, but to obey what she did not know. His magic dripped off her like honey from a spoon. Desperation clung to the air.

And then rage – Jessa burned from the inside out with it. It was not hers but his, manifesting in his magic rampaging across the fields of Jessa’s mind and laying all to ash in its wake. The magic burned until it was halted by Jessa’s memory block, and with a hiss of fire the rage extinguished, leaving only a few flames to lick at the edges of the block. If the king pushed, it wouldn’t hold.

Hands, very real, shook her back into reality. She cracked open her eyes, slowly focusing on her father’s face. So angry. She didn’t want him to look so angry.

She was losing grip on reality.

“What did you take?” the king demanded, already turning away. He called for a guard, who entered tentatively. Like Jessa, he had probably never heard such panic in the king’s voice, usually as hard and unyielding as stone.

“The physician – now.”

The guard frowned. “But he’s already coming, Your Majesty. You sent the old man for him.”

The king faltered, flustered. He was making mistakes, forgetting things. This wasn’t just anger – no, even in his darkest rage he had kept something of his composure. This was wilder than that. He seemed out of place in the world. She had scared him.

“It won’t work, it won’t work…” he muttered under his breath. Jessa caught the words only because the king had spun back to face her. His eyes sparked with fury as he grabbed her by the upper arms. More forcefully than last time, he hissed, “What did you take?”

The guard squeaked something about hurrying the physician along, and left hastily. They were cast back into darkness.

“I didn’t take anything,” Jessa said.

She heard the whispers in her head. ‘Liar’ and ‘tell me’ and variations of the same. That prickling desire to obey washed over her and sloughed right off. It couldn’t touch her, not unless he tried harder. His magic was losing its grip on her the more ill she became, just as she had realised that her far slower death from being in this cold, dank room with limited rations had been weakening her magic. She recalled feeling a fog slowly burning away in her brain, giving her a clarity she had lacked for months until the poison had stolen it from her again. It began to dawn on her how much Alrick’s magic had been in her head, twisting it. How much was real?

It didn’t seem to matter now. All that matter was Jessa was dying, and her magic was failing. But it worked both ways, and so Alrick’s was failing against her too.

But Alrick was stronger than her, and more controlled. The moment he stopped and thought, he would realise he could use Jessa’s poisoning to his advantage. Mahlia had tried to save her, but Jessa had needed a quick death. Not saving; she had been past that point the moment she stepped foot in the castle before the winter.

The king was going to realise, any second now. She felt his fingernails dig into her shoulders as he tried to force the truth from her head. Her lips started to loosen, wanting to tell, but able to resist. His magic pressed in. Her head began to ache, pulsing in her brows like something needed to get out. A tendril of magic brushed up against her memory block by accident. It should have done nothing. It was barely a brush. But the block bent anyway.

Jessa gasped.

The king must have felt it, but without Jessa’s reaction he might have thought nothing of it. Instead, he flashed her a shark’s grin. “Shall we see what secrets you have, my dear daughter?”
Jessa tensed, as though that would do anything, but a frantic knock at the door broke the king’s concentration.

“What?” he barked. The door flung open with a flick of his wrists. The messenger standing small on the other side of the threshold, clutching a letter in her hand, stared at the door that had seemingly opened itself. It was not Greater magic, but the king did not tend to make magical displays of any kind. The woman, seeing the blazing fury in the king’s eyes, tightened her grip on the letter. It crumpled slightly in her hand.

“From Haverich, Your Majesty,” the woman stammered, lifting the note. The name was lost on Jessa, but it struck a chord with her father. Abandoning Jessa, he strode over to the door and snatched the letter from her hand.

Jessa took the moment of inobservance to check on the young girl who lay forgotten on the floor. Safiya twisted with pain, the movements taking her further from Jessa’s feet, but no longer cried out. Her face was surprisingly lax. She could almost have been dreaming.

“I’m sorry,” Jessa whispered. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you. And I’m sorry I can’t save the rest of them. I didn’t do enough to find where he’s hiding them.”

Safiya’s lips moved, a repeating string of shapes that took Jessa far too long to figure out – she blamed the poison adding her brain – her given it could only be the same words the young teen had shrieked only minutes before. Get her out. Jessa didn’t want to know the horrors the child was seeing behind her eyelids, but she would also do anything to unburden Safiya and take them on herself.

Safiya was mid-sentence when her lips went slack and her body went still. For a second, she seemed trapped in time. Jessa heard rushing wind in her ears as she stared at the young Barichene, snatched from her home and force-fed new beliefs and ideals while her memories of family – if she’d had one – were carefully locked away. Safiya and the child mages were not like Alrick’s mage ring, who needed the constant pressure of mind-controlling magic to carry out the king’s bidding and would be free if their master died. No, Safiya had had her memories and very soul ripped from her, replaced with a brainwashed soldier.

Jessa stared at the girl until her father’s hands wrapped around her throat and yanked her upwards to face him. Her wrists scraped against her invisible bonds, drawing blood.

“Where are Lord and Lady Hamiyan?” Jessa stared at him uncomprehendingly. Through gritted teeth, Alrick said, “Lady Tremont’s daughter. My contact in Novamor. The queen has taken back her country and the Hamiyans have disappeared. Where – are – they?”

Jessa shook her head. The king’s lip curled, and he threw her back against the chair. “It should have taken the queen far longer to clamp down on the civilian uprisings and take back control from her nobility. Unless they weren’t really trying. Unless it was all a distraction. Do you all think I’m stupid? Guard!”

The king spun towards the door, hands clenched into shaking fists. The guard did well not to cower, but then Jessa saw his blank eyes. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Find Lord Ainesh Tremont. Now. And send someone to the Tremonts’ manor.”

The guard scuttled out of the room, yelling for the other guards to join him. The door was left open. There was probably no one else out there. It was a tantalising look at the outside world, even if she could only see the stone wall flickering in the candlelight, and the start of a winding staircase. It told her something - tower. It whispered to her of escape, but of course that was a dream. The king was still there. She was still bound. And more than anything she wanted to slam that door shut, bar it, so Ainesh could not be dragged in here.

She had thought she could no longer feel fear. But as she glanced at the king, watching his jaw clench and his eyes turn wilder with every passing minute, panic bubbled within her. Jessa might not care for her own life, but Ainesh... He was meant to be safe. She was meant to die so he would be safe.

She heard footsteps on the stairs, slow and heavy, before she saw them. Dread filled her throat like bile as the first soldier entered the room. He pulled, and Ainesh stumbled into the room followed by another guard. And... no.

No, no, no.

Another guard entered a few seconds behind the other, wrestling with a struggling maid. The girl had wispy blonde hair and a pale face sprinkled with freckles, but as her eyes surveyed the room and the curses died on her lips, Jessa knew.

No. Not Laurita.

"What need can you have with a maid?" Jessa cried. The desperation tumbled from her lips without mercy. The king glanced at her, then looked quizzically at the guards.

"He was with her, Your Majesty. In... well, a rather compromising state. We'd've let her go, but she came at us with a knife." The woman produced the offending article, dangling it from her fingers. Laurita eyed it hungrily, and Jessa wondered if the woman had shown the knife off precisely to taunt her friend. "She wouldn't stop fighting us, so we thought we may as well bring her too."

The king was no longer looking at the guard, but between Jessa and the maid. "Friends, aren't you?"

It wasn't really a question. Despite the frenetic beat of her heart, Jessa had regained enough of her senses to keep her mouth shut. In her head, she willed the king to believe Laurita was unimportant.

Just let her go.

"She's protective is all," Ainesh tried to say. "She didn't know what she was doing."

"She saw guards arrest you and attacked. Why would she do that? Surely she would assume they were acting under my orders." The king appraised the maid, then glanced at Jessa. "No, she stays."

With a flick of his wrist, the guards released their prisoners and left the room like puppets on strings. Jessa frowned when neither Ainesh nor Laurita lunged for escape, until she saw that they were trying. Their knees bent as they tried and failed to lift their feet.

The king strode languidly over to Ainesh. As a short man, the king loomed over him. Sibilant, the king said, "So, would you like to tell me the truth about your family's involvement with Novamor, or are we doing this the hard way?”

Ainesh lifted his chin. “The only involvement that I know of is that my aunt married a Novarian nobleman. I spent the summer with them and my cousin every few years.”

“Your grandmother was particularly keen to see you married to my daughter, and her son-in-law seemed very willing to betray his country.”

Jessa couldn’t breathe. Her gaze kept darting to Laurita, willing her to get herself free somehow and get out of there. Of all the days, she had chosen that day to visit Ainesh? Why? Desperation clawed at her throat, and Laurita wasn’t even looking at her. She stared at the king, fury and fright swirling in her face.

“…I can’t assume to know the minds of my family just because I’m related to them,” Ainesh said lightly. “But who wouldn’t want to elevate their status by marrying into royalty?”

“And yet you chose my bastard child.”

“We’re not monsters. We saw that despicable man, Allomere, hanging around her like a disease and thought she might appreciate being married into a nice family for once.” Ainesh shrugged. “Besides, even a bastard princess elevates us more than we could ever have hoped to achieve otherwise.”

There was a bruise on Laurita’s cheek. One of the guards had hit her. A spark landed on the coals that Jessa had thought long burnt out. How dare they?

“How about I paint you an alternative picture,” the king said, darkness rumbling in his light tone, “where your grandmother allied herself with my treacherous daughter and her Novarian barbarians. Together, they hatched a plan to take my daughter even further from me, and to distract me from the encroaching army. Make me believe Tula’s attention was diverted.”

Laurita’s unfamiliar eyes were wide with terror. A moment later Jessa saw why, when the king stepped back to let her see. The king held a dagger to Ainesh’s throat. He leaned in, but it was Jessa he glared at when he whispered, “Take it, Lord Ainesh.”

Fear cracked through Ainesh’s hardened eyes as if they were eggshells. His hand lifted, shaking with effort, until with a gasp his fingers closed around the bejewelled hilt. Defeated – but no. There was still an ember of defiance in the set of his jaw.

“Perhaps you will tell me, Jessa, my dear daughter.”

Jessa stared at the tip of the knife, nicking Ainesh’s throat. A bead of blood welled.

She would die within the day and it would be for nothing. These secrets were meant to die with her. He was never meant to find out. What was the point in concealment now? The king’s men would be rounding up the Tremonts as they faced off in this faraway tower, their guilt assumed no matter what Jessa said. Her only hope – that she had that fledgling feeling at all was a marvel – was that Ainesh had managed to use that magic of his to communicate with his family. She knew it possible at short distances, for she had seen it in action at the very ball to which Ainesh had just alluded, but how far did it reach?

Her gaze met Ainesh’s. He nodded almost imperceptibly, but she had not known him longer enough to know for sure what he meant. It could be a number of things. That his family knew, or that he felt confident they could take a few mind-addled soldiers. Or maybe it was that she should tell.

Or maybe he was telling her to keep quiet and forfeit his life. Granting permission. After all, Ainesh could have confessed, but had not. Without a confession, Alrick would have to find evidence.

“I only know what was said in the meeting where Ainesh petitioned for my hand. I’d heard of nothing about it before then.” Which was, technically, true.

“Do you really want to test me?” The king’s eyes flashed, and the knife bit into Ainesh’s skin. He whimpered. She was transfixed by the blood trailing down his neck and soaking into the white collar of his shirt. For all his bravado, at the end of the day Ainesh was a lord in Ovis, pampered and sheltered. How much pain had he really known?

He was not a Marinon.

“Stop,” Jessa whispered.

“The only thing that will stop me, Jessa, is the truth.”

“I told you the truth,” she said. He was in front of her now, the hem of his black cloak brushing her bare feet. She was so numb that she couldn’t even recall that she had lost her shoes at some point in the last few…weeks?

The empty glass on the table shuddered, clattering against the wood as the king’s fist slammed against the table and broke Jessa’s thoughts. His face was in hers in a moment. “You’ve lied to me. You’re still lying to me. I thought I was getting through to you. All that time, all those nights I spent with you, getting you to just see my point of view. I knew it wasn’t working as well as it should have. You were still too attached to your previous life, which of course was my fault because I gave you him. But I didn’t know he’d joined you. I didn’t know you still had so much fight left in you. You were supposed to be easy to break. But then, you’ve not just been lying to me verbally, have you? You’ve been hiding your mind from me. How am I supposed to know how to break you when I can’t see you?”

His grin reminded her of the time Rhys had laughed at her after tricking her into getting a man arrested and killed. The thought was fleeting, and then Alrick was whispering, “Let me in.”

A tsunami hit her, and she was tumbling, scrambling. She couldn’t breathe. The chair beneath her was gone, pushed away by the wave. Until her head snapped back, cracking against the wooden back, and she realised it hadn’t been a real tsunami. The chair was still there. She was still there. She tried to anchor herself to that reality, focusing on the throbbing at the base of her skull, Alrick’s magic flooded into her mind. It tore into her and she screamed. Her magic couldn’t penetrate the swirling tornado of Alrick’s; all she could do was watch as he shredded her mind in search of her memory block.

She heard him calling through her screams, appealing to the weak point in her block. There was only one part of Jessa’s life that Alrick knew for a fact Jessa had hidden from him. It was the part that was already lined with cracks, patched with Jessa’s shoddy magic. She felt her memories slamming against her barrier with the desire to be free. She couldn’t stop them. They were raucous in her head, and all she could do was watch as Alrick turned towards the commotion. She could feel his smile in her mind. It was enough to make her skin crawl.

Hopelessly, she watched him meticulously pick apart her haphazard stitching over the wounds in the memory block. His attention focused on that small spot, Jessa found a way in. She slunk through her mind, trying her best to reinforce the other core memories that build up the web of the blocking spell. The whole point of the spell was that, if one part fell, the others would hold. But she had not seen Lady Tremont in too long, and she was weak – dying – and she knew the entire barrier would dissolve. Frantically she pushed magic into the barrier, hoping it would last long enough for her to push Alrick out.

A torrent of memories slammed into her, screaming for attention. They were all of Rhys, of Jasrah, every scene that taunted her in her dreams. She hadn’t even noticed Alrick had broken through – had expected it to hurt, or at least for there to have been some indication beyond the deluge of freed memories.

Then, suddenly, the images retreated, sucked into the blackness that was not meant to be in her mind – a manifestation of Alrick’s magic as Jessa saw it.

No. She scrambled out with her magic, desperately trying to grab onto the stream of memories and pull them away from him. It didn’t especially matter if Alrick saw them, but if he was fighting her for the memories, his attention wasn’t on the rest of her mind. She could feel it crumbling, heard bits falling with a bang to the ground like stone hitting the ground.

Or was it a clatter, like a knife tumbling to the floor? It sounded far away. Jessa didn’t know what it meant. Someone gasped, but the sound came through a dense fog. It might not even have been real.

“Well, isn’t this lovely?” The king spoke aloud, but Jessa didn’t come out of herself. No, she was frozen by the memory Alrick had pulled out of the tornado. It darkened in his grip, the walls of a beloved, gilded room turning to black tar. Yet the memory was so bright and treasured that it seemed barely to suffer from Alrick’s heartless touch. The high ceiling, embedded with frosted, coloured glass that danced when it was light – though now it was dark – swooped over Jessa’s head. Though there was no source, a hum filled the air. It was a gentle, lulling music that swirled into the vaulted eaves of the room. Below, statues bowed their heads towards the centre. She and Rhys stood in the centre, their heads bowed together. Her stomach dropped. They looked so much in love – or at least they were well on their way to being. She hadn’t dared remember this moment in months, knowing it would be like a dagger to the heart to see them together and know it had all been a lie. Or worse: that it would trick her into believing Rhys did love her after all.

“What’s this, Jessa?” The king’s voice snaked through her head. Her response came unbidden, a single thought that made its way easily to her father. A crocodile grin spread slowly across his face. “Oh, how sweet. Your first kiss.

“You know, Jessa…” She flinched, feeling the breath of his now very real breath in her ear. She snapped back into reality, though she could see little but Alrick’s delighted face swimming before her. She wondered if that was the poison kicking in, or whether it was from the mental effort of trying to fight off a man with more power and control in his little finger than she had in her entire body. “It would really be a shame if you were to… ah, lose such a sweet memory. Don’t you think?”

Though she was no longer lost in her head, she could feel his fingers twisting around the memory as though he twirled a piece of paper in his hand. His grip tightened, and she started to shake as it hit her exactly what he meant. He meant permanently.

Jessa pressed her lips together, refusing to give him the satisfaction of words even as her body betrayed her. He must have seen something in her eyes for his grin widened. “Tell me what I want to know, or I will crush your memories of your once-beloved to dust.”

Her chest collapsed in on itself. She couldn’t breathe. Many times she had wished she could forget about Rhys and what she had thought they’d shared. But that had been in the heat of the moment. Whatever it had truly meant, it had happened and Jessa didn’t want to forget. She couldn’t forget her first kiss, her first love. Who would she even be without those experiences? Her time in Jasrah had made her stronger. It had given her the clarity and courage to break from her father. What could he do to her without that?

But… other people would die if she gave it.

“Do your worst.”

“Jessa, no!” someone screamed. Laurita, Jessa thought vaguely.

And then she curled as pain ripped through her head, through her soul. She felt the restraints at her wrists crack and snap as Alrick focused all his attention on destroying that quiet scene in the pantheon. The walls fissured and ran with blood. Alrick’s screams joined hers, the effort to destroy – rather than simply hide away – a memory too much for even him. It was unnatural.

Her mind tore, a deluge of fake and real twisting and falling over them until Jessa couldn’t tell one from the other. She tried to ignore it, to focus on that one fading memory, but she couldn’t get close. It was going, it would soon be gone…

With a scream that was neither hers nor Alrick’s, the pressure in her mind eased. Her mind still swam in a confusing jumble, but Alrick was gone. She heard a loud crack as something slammed into the wall in front of her.

Slowly, Jessa opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the knife that had been pressed against Ainesh’s throat, now discarded and abandoned on the floor. Ainesh was no longer there. The king stood beside her, panting and crazed, but it was not she who had caught his attention. Jessa followed his gaze, dread filling her stomach and hardening like daub. She saw the pool of blood first, watched it find the cracks in the floor.

An inhuman scream broke free of her lips when she saw the body huddled on the ground. Before her eyes, the image of the mage faded. The arms filled out and darkened, the soft blonde hair shortened into black curls. Beside her, she felt Alrick shift, his crazed anger sharpening. There was a long, bloodied gash on his cheek. Jessa saw what must have happened: Laurita got free when Alrick focused all his magic on Jessa, and had attacked him. And now…

“A Novarian.” Alrick turned on Jessa. “All this time-”

She wasn’t even listening. All she could hear was a rushing in her ears as her body went cold until she almost couldn’t feel herself inside her own body.

“No… No, she’s not… Ainesh!” Her head turned wildly, trying to locate him. She found him, hovering frozen over Laurita. “Ainesh, tell me… tell me she’s not…”

Ainesh’s gaze flicked to hers, and then to the king. Slowly, he looked back at Laurita and lowered himself to the ground. His movements were wooden as he picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. She watched him, heart in her throat, as he fought not to lose his composure. He glanced again at the king, and pursing his lips, pressed his ear to Laurita’s chest. And then he screamed.

“No… no…”

“Come back!” Ainesh screamed, the words sounding stilted. He grabbed at her clothes, his voice breaking to a whisper, “Please…”

Alrick grabbed her chin, digging in his fingers enough to draw blood. Jessa didn’t care, fighting him so she could see her friend. Alrick dug in deeper. “A Novarian spy? In my castle? In my home?” His entire face was a snarl. “Was she your friend? Did you laugh as you told her your father’s secrets? How does it feel, to know another person – a friend – is dead because of you?

“This ends now. You will not fight me. I will kill everyone you love, and the blame will rest squarely on your shoulders. I will break you, and then I will do to you what I did to her.” He gestured at Safiya, the child mage still sprawled on the floor.

“Now, where were we?”

[Rosabeth]

The last words dried on the parchment before daybreak. Rhys sealed way his thoughts before he could think otherwise. They were cowardly words, better if spoken, but they would serve their purpose well enough. Rhys tucked the letters in his coat before slinging his bag over his shoulder and giving the room a long, studied look. There was no saying when he’d see these four walls again. When, not if, he reiterated. These were the thoughts to be kept at all costs; his last sliver of optimism.

The familiar halls held a calming silence at this hour. It was too early yet for even the servants, likely just rousing to begin their day. Rhys stretched out his right arm to graze the walls with his fingertips as he tiptoed through the halls. When he slipped through the heavy wooden door without so much as a creak he nearly stopped in his tracks. He pressed his eyes closed, trying to think of anything but the gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He could change his course, do the right thing now. It was useless to think like that, of course. He’d known what he would do when it came to it for some time now. Doing the right thing, the brave thing, had never been his expertise.

With only the dimmest light from the sunrise slipping through the drawn curtains the room was enveloped in a peaceful darkness. His parents lay so still in sleep that for a moment Rhys’ breath caught, a strange panic welling until he saw the gentle rise and fall of his mother’s chest through the darkness. It always struck Rhys as strange to see his parents so vulnerable. The veneers they’d perfected through decades of meticulous crafting were nowhere to be seen. In sleep they were just as any others; humans – no more and no less.

Rhys went to his father first. He withdrew the first letter, placing it on the bedside table. He tried not to linger, to dwell on any thoughts, and so he leaned down to press a kiss to his father’s head. Though it was quick, it was certainly not painless. Rhys set his jaw, focusing on his breaths in and out. The last time he’d left home in such a way he’d been frantic, thoughtless, too enveloped in grief to stop and think. Or maybe it was not that at all. Maybe it was that before he had not truly grasped the reality of his actions. If his plans counted for anything, he was not sure he still did. This time, at least, he felt his mortality in his bones.

If his father had been difficult, his mother was excruciating. His hand trembled as he set down her letter. There was more he should have said, his hastily scribbled words feeling so empty in retrospect. There was nothing to be done about it now. He was frozen in place, staring at the letter, when he heard a small intake of breath. His mother shifted, her eyes barely opening as she blinked into the dim light.

“Rhys?” She whispered, brows furrowed as her eyes adjusted to the light. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes. It’s fine.” Rhys’ throat was dry as sand, each word like claws scratching against skin. He could hear his heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears. “Go back to sleep.”

His mother blinked several times, looking Rhys up and down, no doubt taking in the unfamiliar clothing and the bag slung over his back. “Are you going somewhere?”
She knew. He could hear it in her tone. It was the least Rhys could do to not lie.

“I have to protect my family. That includes Jessa.”

His mother stared in the darkness, her lips forming the smallest smile. Acceptance. Her hand reached out as Rhys bent down to her side, cupping his cheek as she kissed his forehead. “Stay safe.”

“I promise,” Rhys whispered, though his voice caught, cutting off the word. It did not go unnoticed. His mother’s smile turned wistful.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

***

It hadn’t been his plan to come here, but something nagged at him, drawing him with every step. What was left of the old wing lay in crumbled bits, still left largely untouched since Rhys had first returned. The very end had seen some work with a large swath of rubble cleared, but it was nothing compared to the ruins that still lay. Rhys made his way around the fallen stones carefully, catching himself a few times when his feet caught on a stray fragment. He could imagine Anja’s rebuke now, of how she would rant for him wasting her time, but he didn’t care. He felt drawn to do this.

He’d remembered the state of the pantheon, but somehow seeing it up-close a second time made the weight of it all sink in deeper. It had been so grand, so full of light and color. A childhood spent inspecting every nook and cranny, of climbing the statues despite his mother’s admonitions – gone. There were other memories too. Fresher ones, of the tender silence between them late at night when the rest of the house slept. It was those memories he thought of as he approached the ruins. There was very little to be salvaged, yet amongst the rubble a marble statue lay strewn about in fragments. Only the largest piece remained, a chest with two arms crossed. It was not enough to tell from which statue it had originated, but Rhys wasn’t sure that mattered. He could not tell if someone had repositioned the piece there, or if it had simply fallen above the others, sticking proudly out of the ruins as a symbol of resilience.

Rhys knelt before the statue, feeling much as he had that day in the temple in the weeks past. Strange and out of place, as though his mother’s instruction as a boy had gone in one ear and out the other. Today it did not matter. Rhys felt for the ring around his neck, the metal cool to his touch. He pulled it over his head and placed it on the ground before the statue like an offering. It gleamed in the early morning light, and in the silence Rhys took a deep breath, settling back onto his heels. He did not have a prayer in mind. Instead, he closed his eyes, repeating the same words in his mind over and over. Protect us all, but most importantly, protect her. Protect her. Please.

He was not sure how the pious felt, if they received any indication of their prayers being heard. Rhys did not. Still, he was not so certain it mattered. For a moment he felt the smallest glimmer of peace, and that was enough. As he picked up the ring, placing the chain around his neck once more, he brought it to his lips, and whispered the prayer aloud for himself.

As expected, Anja’s face was set with a frown as he approached. She waited near the water, her own pack sitting beside her as her feet dangled off the dock. “You’re late.”

“I know, I know.”

To Rhys’ surprise, that was the end of it. Anja merely shrugged, picking up her sack and throwing it over her shoulder. They worked their way through the hills and into the city in completely silence, with the occasional glance their only communication. They made an inconspicuous pair – as far as the two of them could, anyway. They wore their plainest, simplest clothes with coats for warmth and cloaks stuffed away in their bags for later. Anja’s long, dark hair was swept into a knit hat, her profile much like that of a boy if one neither looked too closely nor studied her face. There were very few out at this hour, and those that did take sight of the Marinon siblings eyed them with suspicion but not recognition, as if not quite able to piece together what their eyes and their mind told them. He thought of what Nayall had said some time ago, that he was simply unable to hide his status, that it was built into every part of him. In thinking of the weeks ahead, he hoped that wasn’t entirely true.

“Did you tell them?”

It was the first word’s either of them had spoken on their walk, and Anja did not even glance up. Rhys waited for a response, almost giving up on an answer when met with nothing but the sound of their steps. Then, Anja sighed.

“No.”

Rhys looked at his sister. “You’re just as bad as me, huh?”

“I gave them both hugs last night. I think that probably raised their suspicions enough that they suspect something,” she muttered, kicking a stray stone. “But I just couldn’t do it. I was going to – I really was – and then mother gave me this look and… I lost my nerve.”

“You lost your nerve? Who are you and what have you done with Anja?” It had meant to be playful, but Anja only stared at her feet. Rhys frowned. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“They expect this of you – you’ve done it before,” Anja said. “I’m supposed to be the one who will do anything to win approval, which I’d like to point out does not traditionally include running off without word.”

“So why didn’t you say anything?” Rhys asked.

Anja turned to him, finally, fixing him with a hard stare. “Because now I understand why you can’t do it either.”

They did not speak another word the rest of the way, approaching Ero’s house in solemn silence. The moment they crossed the threshold, such quiet was washed away by the sounds of laughter drifting down the hall. Rhys found the source in Tristan’s room where he, Venya, and Nina sat in a semi-circle around who Rhys could only assume from context was Victor. The man who Rhys presumed to be Victor was shorter and leaner, sitting tall with a head topped with light blond hair and two blonde eyes that found Rhys. It was a decent match, though with the real Tristan sitting only a few feet away every difference seemed glaring. Victor’s noise was too large still, his jaw too wide. Even sitting his head hit above Tristan’s, though Rhys imagined that when starting with Victor’s looming presence there was only so much magic could accomplish. All in all, it was as decent as he could have expected.

That is, until Victor spoke.

“Do you like my new look?”

Rhys snorted, immediately moving to hide the sound as a sneeze in response to Nina’s narrowed eyes.

“I’m, uh, not really sure how to change voices,” Tristan said sheepishly, his hands raised in apology. “I’m not really sure how to do any of this, to be quite honest. We’ve been at it for well over an hour.”

“His jaw needs narrowed, as does his nose,” Rhys said, circling his friend as he attempted to hold in laughter. Tristan nodded, murmuring to Venya. Rhys watched as Victor’s face molded before his eyes, the resemblance taking greater form. It was a convincing likeness, if not somewhat uncanny. Still, he could not help but think what might have been had Laurita been the one in charge. It certainly would have gone faster. “But what in the world is that voice?”

“Look, if you wanted an actor you shouldn’t have recruited me for the job,” Victor replied. He hopped to his feet, going to stand before the mirror as he began to primp and preen, running his hands through his hair and along the line of his jaw. “I looked better before – no offense.”

“None taken,” Tristan replied.

Before Rhys could get another word in Nina had jumped up, rushing to Rhys’ side. As she moved Rhys took a better look at the girl, finding her blonde curls pulled away from her face and her usually eccentric clothing replaced with a shift and skirt far more practical, and far more similar to what Rhys and Anja wore.

“Oh no, what did I tell you? You’re not -”

Nina put up a hand to cut off his words, shaking her head. “Do you want the bad news or good news first?”

Rhys stared. “What?” When Nina would not budge, her eyebrows perpetually raised in anticipation of a response, Rhys gave in with a sigh. “Bad, I suppose.”

“There are even more guards out this morning, especially posted along the main roads.”

Rhys groaned. “Brilliant.”

“Hey, you didn’t wait for the good news!” Nina scolded, her lips curled in a grin. “I got a pretty good feel this morning and I don’t think most of them are mages. I think they’re just regular city guard.”

Even Anja perked up at Nina’s words, pulling herself away from the far wall to come stand beside Rhys. “How do you know?”

“Well, for one they’re in uniform. That’s usually a tip off. Second, I got as close as I could and their thoughts seemed normal…for the most part.”

This answer did not satisfy Anja, who now stared at Nina as thought the girl were an idiot. “Most part? What a talent.”

Nina shrugged off both the question and glare. “Look, it’s not exact. People’s thoughts are messy. It’s easier to pull together coherent thoughts when they’re more prominent, like you thinking about how you cried last night over thinking your parents will be disappointed in you.”

Rhys reacted out of instinct, his arm flying out to press Anja back, his hand clamping onto her far shoulder as she lunged forward. It would have been an easy hold to break, but Anja seemed to have enough sense to know it was for her good, even as the insults flew. “Ok, ok, let’s calm down, please,” Rhys said, his fingers digging into Anja’s skin. His eyes were fixed on Nina who, for a moment, had the good sense to look startled, having stumbled back a foot or two. “Nina, can you please go do something useful for a minute? Elsewhere?”

As Nina turned away in a huff, Rhys pulled his brooding sister toward Victor, still inspecting his new face in the mirror. Having forced Victor’s attention, the three stood in a huddle, voices hurried.

Rhys spoke first, head bowed toward the center of the circle they formed. “If the guards are employed by our parents I’m sure they can be bribed.”

“You hear yourself when you speak, don’t you?” Victor said, half laughing before recognizing better of it and trying to sober himself. “Sorry, just had to point out the obvious. What I mean to say is, if they’re employed by your parents then why can’t we just flash your faces and they’ll let us through.”

“Because this way no one knows we left, not even the guard,” Anja chimed in, nodding as she looked to Rhys. “This is good.”

“And what if we run into some actual mages on the road?” Victor asked.

“If it’s just one or two?” Anja asked, raising a single brow. She glanced down toward Rhys’ arm, toward where she knew the makeshift blood amulet to be. “Then Rhys kills them. Simple.”

Victor squirmed. “If it’s more?”

“Then we help.”

Rhys frowned, watching Victor’s face for any signs his friend was reconsidering his dedication to the plan. Rhys gripped Victor’s shoulder. “Let’s just not let it get to that point.”

“So what, I have this pretty face for nothing?” said Victor with a sigh, pressing a hand to his face.

“We still need a backup plan,” Anja sneered, her gaze shifting to Nina who now sat against the wall, pulling her fingers through her curls. “Remember – we only know any of this for the most part. We probably only have a fifty-percent chance of success anyway.”

Nina’s response came in the form of a rather rude gesture flashed from across the room.

Before he had a chance to watch any further insults fly, the sound of a familiar voice diverted his attention. Victor heard it too, following Rhys as he entered the foyer, finding a cloaked figure with a halo of dark curls standing by the door.

“Selene!”

“I thought I’d miss you!” She exclaimed, rushing forward and pulling Rhys into a hug before turning towards Victor, confusion in her eyes until he began to laugh, her eyes growing wide as understanding dawned. Suddenly her eyes darkened as she reached out to slap his arm. “You were supposed to wake me up when you left! I told you I had things to say!”

All laughter stopped. Victor grimaced, rubbing at his arm. “I forgot,” he muttered.

“Well thank the Gods Lea woke me. Speaking of which,” Selene glared, turning her ire to Victor once more, “you left without saying anything to Adriene and Lea? Those girls love you, Victor. You’re a brother to them.”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Off to dirty myself in a handful of treason, a dash of war? Might not come back. See you later!’” Victor had never looked so upset, not in such a way. Even Selene looked taken aback by the uncommon force behind his words. “I can’t do that to them.”

“And abandoning them is going to help? They’ve already been asking why you’ve been gone so much lately.”

Victor looked as though he’d been slapped. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He ducked his head, pushing his hands into his pockets.

Selene groaned, opening her arms to pull Victor into a tight embrace, burying her head in his chest. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be like this,” she sighed.

Victor let his chin rest atop Selene’s head, pulling his hands out of his pockets to give Selene a squeeze. “Don’t worry too much. They’re barely more than children – they’ll find someone else to terrorize as soon as I’m gone.”

“You know that’s not true,” Selene chastised.

“Yeah, I know.”

When the two did not let go - the moment growing long - Rhys felt that familiar hollowness as guilt pressed over him. “Victor…” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You don’t have to come. Anja and I are...resourceful. We’ve both made it to Ovis on our own before. We could probably do it again.”

Though Rhys had been half-serious in his statement, Victor laughed, though it was a low, breathy sound. “And look how well that worked out for you last time. No, I’m coming with. You need someone without your crazy Marinon blood with you to keep you alive. It’s fine.” As he pulled away from Selene he grabbed her arms, grinning, though it was not quite convincing. “You tell Lea that when I get back I will teach her to sail – like I promised - and tell Adriene that I will bring her back her weight in books, and that I will even read them with her in those stupid voices she loves.”

Selene’s eyes were glassy as she nodded, her fingers laced together and pressed to her lips. Her smile was soft, but it was something. “They’ll like that.” Soon enough the tears began to fall, her body trembling. This time both Rhys and Victor were there, enveloping her in a hug seemingly inescapable. With it a few of her sobs turned to laughs.

“Please come back. Both of you,” she murmured, escaping their hold enough to put one hand to Victor’s face and kiss his cheek. There were visible tears in his eyes. She turned to Rhys and cupped his cheek in turn, but once she’d placed her kiss she paused, fixing him with a stare. “Be careful. I know you don’t know what that means, but at least try.”

Rhys smiled, wiping away a tear with the back of his finger. “I can give it a try.”

Selene took a step back, pressing her fingers to her forehead and shaking her head. “Look at this! I come here for a serious conversation and look what the two of you have done to me! That face would be distraction enough!” She gestured toward Victor, her words coming out as half hysterical laughter, half sob. She breathed deeply, taking a moment to wipe away the remaining tears. “I told Nayall you’d be coming. He’ll meet with you when you arrive, assuming you know where you’ll be going?”

Rhys withdrew a small scrap of parchment, slipping it into Selene’s hand. “I’ve got an idea.”

***

The carriage would have been far more comfortable had Rhys not been bound at his hands and feet. Anja had been nearly violently opposed to the idea, only giving in only when Rhys could prove the knot was nothing she could not break with a hard tug. The bindings were illusory at best, but prisoners left to their own devices would never be believable. That logic, at least, Anja could understand.

Victor had never driven a carriage – not that Rhys had expected it of his friend – a fact becoming plainly evident when it lurched forward, forcing Rhys to use every muscle in his body to stable himself. The constant thudding of hooves against the ground muddled with a stream of footsteps and aimless chatter surrounded them on all sides as they approached the city’s edge. He could feel the carriage slow as the crowds deepened. He dared not peek out the drawn curtains to catch a glimpse of the guards, to see in what direction their plan might go. Their anonymity was worth a few moments of anxiety. No word, no movement, nothing could be out of place. If everything went well, they would be out without issue, no worse off but for a bag of coin. If things did not go so well…Rhys felt the dagger at his side, a second tucked away in his sack. He’d been in worse predicaments before. Surely, this couldn’t get any worse.

When the carriage came to a sudden halt Anja looked to him, eyes fixed with a burning intensity. She mouthed something Rhys could not understand in the dimness of the carriage. Footsteps crackled across the loose stones, approaching the carriage. Rhys could hear the thud of a hand coming to rest against the side, a muffled voice speaking words Rhys could not make out. Victor’s voice responded in suit, equally as unintelligible. As he strained to listen Rhys felt as though he could almost hear the gentle jingling of coins being passed, offers being made. More likely he heard what he wished to hear.

Each second passed in agonizing anticipation, and for what felt like a lifetime Rhys and Anja sat in utter silence, feeding off each other’s strength to control their own heartbeats.

Thud.

Rhys’ stomach dropped, his pulse rushing in his ears. It was the sound they’d dreaded; the cue they’d been prepared for. In an instant he and Anja lay down on the seats, shutting their eyes. The lack of sight was torture enough, but Rhys tried his best to calm his breathing to a slow, steady pace. He waited, every nerve on edge, for the sound of the latch of the door. He waited for the morning light to filter in, illuminating what would appear to be two unconscious figures, clearly not there of their own free will. Instead, a sudden lurch threw him onto the carriage floor.

His head smacked against the door, warm blood running down the side of his face. A second later something heavy slammed into his back, pushing him further down. All was dark as he craned his head around, letting out a moan. Anja lay on top of him, letting out a string of curses as she struggled against her ties. With one great tug – accompanied by an angered screech – he heard the loose knotting come undone on the fabric that bound Anja’s hands. After taking a moment to steady herself, the carriage still hobbling along the road at an unsettling speed, Rhys saw his sister pull a small knife from her boot and cut the restrains on her foot, followed quickly by Rhys’ own.

Once they’d fully disentangled and righted themselves, Anja gave several sharp knocks to the front of the carriage. “What do you think you’re doing!”

Rhys touched his fingers to his temple, pulling them away wet with blood. It trailed down his cheek and onto his neck, dripping onto his shirt. He felt around until the edges of the cut became apparent, a slice along the brow bone. It did not feel serious, though he imagined it was not a pretty sight. Anja had not stopped her hammering for one moment, though her yelling subsided. After several more minutes of frantic knocks it became clear that the carriage was not planning on stopping anytime soon, and Anja sunk into her seat with tight lips and folded arms.

After what felt like an hour the carriage finally slowed, only to come to a screeching halt mere seconds later. Rhys outstretched his hands to steady himself just in time to avoid another tumble. Once fully stationary, Rhys heard the muffled sound of two boots slamming to the ground, followed by the quick patter of footsteps and the forceful opening of the carriage door.

“I’m sorry!” Victor said through labored breaths, his eyes looking about wildly before taking in Rhys’ bloodied face with a winch. “Sorry about that too.”

“What is wrong with you?” Anja exclaimed, slapping Victor’s chest as she jumped down from the carriage. Rhys could see their surroundings through the door – a thinly forested patch of land, offering just enough coverage to be less than horrifically conspicuous. Rhys exited after his sister, stepping into the sunshine with a wince. He did not recognize the area from first glance – he doubted Victor did either. Nothing but fields and trees stretched across the horizon, but for a few roofs in the distance that resembled something of a village.

“What happened back there?” Rhys

“I saved your skins, that’s what.”

Rhys felt his stomach drop as he and Anja spun in unison toward the familiar voice. Nina slid from the driver’s bench, her feet hitting the ground with a thud. Anja turned back to cast Victor a glare; he shrunk back, shrugging his shoulders with his hands out as if to wash his hands of this burgeoning mess. Nina strode towards the two of them, a smirk creeping across her lips.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Anja yelled, shoving Nina’s shoulders and sending the girl stumbling backwards. “You could have got us killed!”

“You were doing a fine job of that on your own,” said Nina. “I was doing you a favor.”

“A favor? Is that what this is called?”

Rhys turned at the sound of a light cough, finding Victor creeping forward towards the others with his hand half raised. “I would like to know exactly what happened too, seeing as things felt like they were going ok until…they weren’t.”

Nina gave a great dramatic sigh, falling against the side of the carriage. “Look. I was trailing behind – just trying to be helpful, keep an ear out – and then I saw that guard you were talking to turn towards this other man, and I recognized that man. He was from the festival, the one where you got yourself caught. He was one of them – one of the mages with Tristan. And when I took a little peek inside his head it became very clear that he was looking for Tristan, and not in a friendly sort of way.”

Rhys and Victor exchanged a glance, though Anja was far too preoccupied with an all-consuming need to slap the tall blonde girl to notice. Nina continued when they did not interject. “Did it ever occur to you that they might know Tristan isn’t being controlled anymore?”

It had. At least, it had occurred to Rhys in a certain way. From a logical perspective, it would only follow that the mage so tethered to Tristan’s mind would sense that connection fade. What he had not anticipated was that that mage would tell any of the others. Surely that would be a risk to let slaves know of the prospect for their own deliverance. Of course, now Rhys could see the error in his judgement – it did not matter what these mages knew, for there was no way they could act upon that knowledge. How could he have been so blind?

“Anyway,” Nina continued, “when I saw that man looking your way I decided it was probably best that we get going. So I may have sweetened your bribe by convincing the guard that he really, really wanted to let you go. Immediately.”

“And that’s about the point at which I’m guessing you jumped up beside me and screamed in my head to move?” said Victor.

Nina smiled. “Something like that.”

For a moment they merely stood staring at one another, letting the information settle in. This was not the plan. They had discussed the plan in some detail, despite it already having drifted quite off course, and an over-confident sixteen-year-old girl had never been part of the plan. Now, stopped the middle of the countryside with nothing but a carriage, two horses, and a stowaway, Rhys decided it was time for a new plan.

“Do you think the mage got a good look at Victor?” said Rhys.

“Hard to say. Maybe? He was definitely looking your way but it was at something of a distance,” said Nina.

Rhys’ mind worked quickly to parse together his thoughts. “Let’s find the nearest village where we might be able to find more horses. Drop the carriage there and have Victor speak with someone. Make sure to ask how long it would take to get to Candel on the southeastern coast. The rest of us can stay out of sight and once we have the horses we can take the northern path. That way, should anyone come after us looking for Tristan, there will be some amount of proof that he was going in the other direction.”

“Do you think that will fool them?” said Victor.

“No, not really, but it might for a little while, and that’s all we need. Once we head north we can find hidden places to camp. We’ll be fine,” said Rhys. Though his words came with a confident assurance, they were as much a mask as Victor’s false face.

“Hold on,” said Anja. She stepped between Rhys and Victor, putting out a hand toward each. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes narrowed. “When you say we it sounds as though you’re going to just let her stay with us?”

Nina stared at Rhys across the way with large, hopeful eyes, a smile on her lips. “I don’t think we can exactly turn her back,” he answered.

“Why not? We can’t be that far from Jasrah. If she walks she can make it back by nightfall.” Anja looked to Nina with a shrug. He doubted his sister cared if the girl made it back at all.

“And what, walk alone into the hands of the mage ring?” said Rhys.

“She can read minds – I think she’ll be fine.”

“Anja.”

At his curt reprimand Anja folded her arms across her chest with tightly pursed lips. Nina’s excitement was palpable, though one glance at Rhys and it shriveled in on itself. “That doesn’t mean I want you here,” said Rhys as he approached Nina. He looked her up and down, taking note of her practical boots and the trousers worn beneath the skirt now tucked into its waistband. At least she hadn’t come entirely unprepared, though he realized with that thought what that meant. He wondered how long she’d planned this, and with that thought, how much of what she said was true. They had no way of checking. “Did you bring anything with you? This is a two week ride if we keep a comfortable pace and only change horses when strictly necessary. Are you prepared for that?”

Nina swallowed, looking down at her feet. “See, here’s the thing…I don’t exactly know how to ride.”

Anja gaped so widely Rhys thought he might have to scrape her jaw off the ground. “You can’t ride?”

“I know the general idea,” she snapped,” I’ve just never ridden for more than a small distance. Look, I didn’t grow up wealthy like you all. Where do you think we would have kept a horse? What use would we have for one anyway?” Nina’s voice grew louder as her defense dragged on, its intensity matching that of Anja’s stare. She gritted her teeth, looking Rhys square in the eye. “No, I can’t ride. But I’m a fast learner, I promise.”

Victor snorted, catching Rhys by surprise. “You’re in for a rough two weeks. You won’t even realize your ass can get that sore.”

Nina nodded fervently. “I’ll do whatever you say,” she said, speaking just to Rhys. “I don’t need much food, I can be useful when I need to be, and I won’t complain – not even once. Please. Don’t send me back.”

The whole idea was ludicrous, and her lack of preparation more than a little concerning, and yet Rhys found himself giving a nonchalant shrug. “You better keep your word.”

***

Nina most decidedly did not keep her word. Yes, she ate the least she could manage and followed orders without question, but her complaints could have kept an entire city awake through the night. They were well within reason, of course. Riding for such a stretch of time was pleasant for none of them; even Anja could be caught stretching out her legs from time to time, her face twisted in discomfort. The morning of the second day Nina groaned and moaned with every movement, her legs little better than melted butter. They’d done all they could to keep a slower pace, letting Nina accustom herself to horseback without the jostling of a horse’s gallop to leave bruises the size of apples on her thighs or worse, send her head-first off the horse. Even still the pain was inevitable, and after a long morning of stretching and Nina rubbing at her sore legs they all became well accustomed to the sound of her complaints. At least, Rhys decided, it came with the side effect of making it impossible to dwell on more unpleasant thoughts.

Anywhere else would have been a welcome respite from Ovis. The closer they’d come to the city, the more anxious Rhys could feel himself growing, his through feeling as thought it might close up at the mere thought of dark, damp dungeons and waking to the sight of his own blood. He hated every inch of that city, and every memory that had been born of it.

No, that was not true. There were some memories – just a few. He thought of those and no others. He thought of Jessa.

Jessa. If the thought of this cursed city sent his heart racing, the thought of Jessa did nothing to calm it. She was so close, closer than she’d been in months. He’d imagined their reunion more times than he could count. The thought of seeing her, of being able to touch and hold her, to take her in his arms and vow to never leave her side again – these were the thoughts that steadied him each and every day. There were other thoughts as well, unkind thoughts. Why had he heard barely a whisper in months? Why had he heard no news from the others as well? Surely, if something were wrong he would be informed. Surely.

Rhys pushed those thoughts from his mind. They did him no good now. He was here; Any questions left unanswered would not be so for long.

The sky drew a grey, hazy cast over Ovis and all its surroundings on the day of their arrival, welcoming them with a misting of rain. The Perrant’s manor stood alone in a wooded field on the outskirts of the city, just beyond the edge of a middling village. It’s grey stone faded into the sky wonderfully well, adorned only with a handful of vines left to creep up the walls. As they approached the manor there was not a sound to be heard but for the gentle chirping of birds and the hoof falls of their own horses stepping across the grass. It was much as Rhys had expected. The Perrants had scurried away at the first news of the compromise of the blood book. They were traders, owners of a great northern shipping company and enablers of a vast amount of smuggling into the city. Rhys had expected their manor to be left empty in their absence, not having had the time or thought to arrange anything else. He’d been right.

“Do you think anyone’s in there?” Victor asked. They walked up toward the grand entrance, each attempting to peak through the slits in the curtain-drawn windows.

“No, no one I can perceive,” said Nina. She stood behind Rhys, her eyes pressed shut as she faced the building, her face scrunched in concentration.

Rhys grabbed Victor’s arm, giving him a small shake. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

From the moment they stepped through the threshold, having pushed open an unlocked door, it became exceedingly clear they were not the first to enter since its owners had vacated. Papers and books littered the floors along with tapestries and paintings ripped from the walls. Chairs sat on their side half covered by rugs haphazardly folded over, dusted with soot from the fireplaces.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the king making a surprise inspection,” Anja noted. She squatted down before an overturned bookcase, rummaging through the mess of what was left. “If they weren’t in the blood book he certainly got suspicious of them somehow.”

Rhys did not like taking comfort in another’s misfortune, but Anja’s words were true. They would be safe there, at least for a short time. With that knowledge Rhys and the others split up to search the rest of the manor for supplies. Though the bedrooms were in as much a disarray as the sitting areas, the mattresses and pillows were still intact, with blankets enough to keep them warm without needing to start a fire. What the bedrooms gave in some comfort, the kitchens took away. They’d been left in an appalling state, with most of the cupboards and pantries left bare. In her scrounging, Anja produced a small amount of smoked venison and a few unmarked jars of what Rhys was not entirely certain. While the situation brought no comfort, Rhys did not dwell on it. They would make do.

The day turned long as they settled into the strange manor. They passed the hours by clearing the rooms as best they could, if only so as to not step precariously over wooden slats and shards of broken glass. In the end, exhaustion took them all, and Rhys and the others found themselves sunk into couches and piles of pillows, keeping close for warmth. As the night grew long and darkness enveloped them, all but for the light of a single candle, Rhys felt himself drifting, his head coming to lean against Anja’s shoulder.

That was when a firm knock sent a jolt through his spine.

In the space of a few seconds Rhys bolted upright, cleared a fallen bookshelf, and rushed to the front door with an energy he did not know he possessed. Behind the door stood Nayall, a cloak drawn up around his head, and an unfamiliar man with a tall, lean frame and dark hair and eyes. Rhys did not waste time with pleasantries, ushering the two men in and closing the door firmly behind them. Anja drew in close, the candle held aloft to illuminate the two men’s faces.

“It’s good to see you, Nayall,” said Rhys.

For a moment, Nayall appeared to let slip the smallest of smiles. “It’s good to see you too.” His good nature disappeared as he eyed Nina, standing back a few feet from the gathering. “Who is that?”

“She’s safe, I promise,” Rhys assured. He gestured her forward, to which she reluctantly complied. “Her name is Nina and she’s a mage. She’s a mind reader, and a good one too. And she’s promised to not be a problem.”

Nayall contemplated this for a moment, raising his brow. In the end he seemed to decide her presence was acceptable. When he turned back to Rhys, a somber expression had come over him. Rhys felt a tingling of unease. “I know there are things the two of us need to discuss, but right now there’s something I need to tell you. Something has happened.”

Rhys stiffened. “What’s going on?”

“Jessa has gone missing. No one has seen or heard from her in two weeks.”

Rhys felt the air leave his chest like a blow to the stomach. He could not breathe. The darkness around him turned to utter blackness, his eyes losing their focus. No. No. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen. Every muscle in his body clenched, his heart beating out of his chest. A firm hand gripped at his arm, steadying him. He focused on that feeling alone.

“What do you mean ‘missing’?” He asked slowly, each word feeling like dust in his mouth.

Nayall swallowed. “Some time ago she was taken to see a physician. They wouldn’t let anyone in to see her; that was the last time any of us knew where she was. One of her servants is an ally of ours and has assured us that Jessa is very ill…but we imagine that is a lie. The servant was acting very strangely; I know magic when I see it. As to what happened to her, and in what way she’s involved, I don’t know. All we have is suspicions and well-informed guesses, and my best guess is that - ”

Rhys did not need Nayall to finish that sentence. “Alrick has Jessa.”

Dark thoughts seeped into his mind, tainting every last sliver of hope. Rhys imagined a dark cell of cold stone and no sunlight, of days that passed without any knowledge of night and day. He remembered it well – he remembered how he’d craved death, just to have some release. He could imagine Jessa there now, their roles reversed. And then, because he could not stop his wandering thoughts, he wondered if she’d have the strength to do what he hadn’t. Rhys let out a strangled cry he hadn’t known he was holding in.

“We’re doing everything we can to find out more, I assure you. I was hoping for some additional information tonight, but…”

Rhys perceived a change in the Nayall’s voice, ever so slight, that caused him to shake from his terror. “But what?”

Nayall paused, looking toward his companion with a nervous glance, as if trying to decide whether or not to speak. When he spoke, his voice was even lower. “We haven’t heard from Laurita either. I’m afraid something may have happened to her too.”

If there was some small string of sanity holding Rhys together, it was lost with those words. He could not think. No. He spoke that word to himself again and again, not entirely sure if it was in his head or aloud. He wanted to claw out of his own body, for every inch of him felt on fire, consumed with a terror he’d never known.

“I’m sorry, I have to…”

He could not finish the sentence. He felt the hand on his arm slip away as he stumbled forward – where he was going he did not know. He could barely see in the darkness and so he stepped blindly into the hall, ignoring the voices behind him as he clutched at the wall, feeling his way around a corner. When he felt the solid wall behind his back he stopped, unable to push himself any further. The frantic sobs that had begun to bubble up through the panic had reached the surface, and Rhys pressed one hand across his lips as he slid his back down the wall, losing himself to a fear unlike he had ever known.

[Mollianne]

It was as if the king pressed the fingers of one hand at the corners of her eyes and squeezed until her eyeballs popped out and her skull pinched and collapsed in on itself. The manifestation of himself in her mind, created by his magic, grinned as he languidly crushed the memory in his fist. Jessa squirmed, cried out, let her magic run wild. It tore towards Alrick in a swirling stream of light and colour, shrieking at him as it dove for the memory that had once been so bright. It was dull, fading… Alrick swatted at it, but though it was pure, uncontained magic, he did not lose his focus. With one final push, his magic consumed.

And then….

And then.

Jessa was untethered. She heard a persistent wailing, close yet far, and knew it was her. Her mind screamed at the empty abyss, and her other memories surged forwards. She tried, desperately, to make something fit in the gap. But it was like a puzzle, when all you have are pieces that don’t quite fit and you are sure you have tried every last one. She was in freefall. She could see the king in the distance, sometimes above her, sometimes upside down, but he had not moved.

Except to welcome the deluge of memories. He pulled them out at random, squashing them in his palm. Jessa screamed. Her magic coiled like a spring, her mind scrambled to make sense of the gaps now in her life. What had she forgotten?

Remember. Remember.

But they were lost. Forever.

She was losing her grip on what was real. Scenes swam past her, and she couldn’t tell. Lady Tremont had said she would always know which were the pseudo-memories. She couldn’t. She couldn’t – her mind was failing. It was tumbling. Down, down, down, into the darkness.

How much had he stolen from her?

Who was she? What was she?

A dark part of her mind unlocked, and a swelling of memories poured over her. Countless nights in Alrick’s study. Pain, a whispered command, more pain. She saw memories that were not her own, of Rhys in Jasrah, in Novamor – memories her father had stolen from his head and given to her to show her the truth.

Her magic crashed over the king’s dark form, swallowing him whole.

And all went still.

A shiver raced through her, like the feel of icy water passing down her throat. Blackness pressed in on her, tacky and dirty. She rotted from the outside in. Her arms lifted to feel in front of her; it took great effort to move, as though she were suspended in a viscous liquid. She could make out nothing in the dark, and as her mouth opened to scream her throat filled with that dense tar. She coughed and spluttered but could not dislodge it.

Was this what death felt like? Was this her mind after it had been ripped asunder?

A tingling suspicion told her it was neither. The perverse liquid pressing against her was somehow familiar. She knew that touch on her mind. But it couldn’t be. Could it? She forced her legs to move, her feet making wet, sucking noises as she unstuck them from the ground one prolonged step at a time. Jessa slogged through the tar, and as she traversed deeper, she saw faint images lurking in the depths. She reached out, but the fluid restricted her movement. The image slipped through her fingers. But she had seen – her father, as a boy.

How could she be inside his head? Not just that – behind all his defences? She was sure his mind was a fortress. And here she was, an intruder right within its walls.

Another scene drifted past her, and all the resistance in the world could not have prevented her hand from shooting out to grab it.

The tar melted away, revealing a corridor. She peered around a corner, seeing the scene before her through her father’s eyes. The man down the hall was not someone Jessa remembered ever knowing, but she still recognised immediately who he was. He had the same broad shoulders as her father, the same dark hair – though this man’s was longer and held back in a tight ponytail. She might have mistaken him for a younger Alrick if not for the crooked nose and lighter brown eyes, almost hazel in the light.

Alrick’s brother, Ronard. Her uncle.

Though the woman with him had been the whole reason for her snatching the memory, Jessa struggled to look at her. Instead, her gaze dropped to the shock of red hair and the toddler to whom it belonged. The child tugged at the woman’s hand. “Come on, mama, I wanna see books.”

“One minute, my little rose,” her mother said. The slight exasperation the adult Jessa could now detect in her mother’s voice did nothing to dull the melodious quality of her voice. To Jessa, now, it was like hearing the first songbird in spring. To the young girl she had been, however, it made her fold her stumpy free arm across her chest and tug harder.

“One, two...” The young Jessa counted loudly – until, that is, she couldn’t recall what came after six and started over. The numbers echoed down the corridor, forming a bass line to the melody of her mother and uncle’s conversation.

Their conversation – Jessa couldn’t believe it. She had thought her father’s family had entirely ignored her and her mother. Yet here they were.

“Your Highness?” Her mother scrunched her dress in her hand. Her lip trembled.

“There’s a ship heading for Jasrah next week. It isn’t a passenger craft, which is probably for the best, but it’ll mean I’ll have to secure your passage another way. I’ll need some days to gather funds without raising some suspicion.”

“But not longer than a week, Your Highness?” Her mother’s voiced was hushed with awe. The prince nodded. A smile prickled at her lips as she looked down at her daughter. “And we’ll be free.”

“Remember what I said, don’t stay in Jasrah. Find some other town big enough to get lost in but small enough that it isn’t somewhere he’d look for you.”

She could see her mother fighting back annoyance at having this repeated – being treated like she was stupid because she wasn’t noble – but she had the presence of mind to hold her tongue. Jessa, however, did not hear her response or anything else. The memory seemed tinged red with Alrick’s anger and desperation.

How dare he take her away from me?

The memory dissolved into another. It was a few days later, and Alrick was in his brother’s room. He offered him a bottle of wine and a glass. Ronard squinted at it suspiciously. He swayed, eyes glazed with the haze of alcohol he must have consumed earlier. “Any occasion in particular?”

“Can’t a man want an evening with his brother? It’s been so long since we did this.”

Ronard eyed the bottle a second longer before snatching it and the glass out of his brother’s hand. The wine glugged as he poured it sloppily into the glass. She felt rather than saw Alrick’s smile. Instantly she was on a knife’s edge, and watched helplessly as the crown prince gulped a quarter of the glass in one go.

“I saw you with Emara.” Alrick was not smiling anymore.

You’re taking her away from me.

Do you want her for yourself?

I’d make a better king than you.

You don’t care enough.

I’m better at magic.

Should I show you what I can do?

It should always have been me.

The thoughts swirled in an angry flurry. But his brother seemed oblivious. He stared into his wine before taking another long swig. A grin tugged at his lips. “Good wine, Al.”

“It’s Alrick.”

Ronard didn’t notice his brother gritting his teeth. How could he not notice? Alrick seethed. Was he really so assured of his position – or that Alrick was no match for him – that he was not bothered? Jessa could still hear Alrick’s barrage of vitriolic thoughts.

"I saw you with her," Alrick said again.

Ronard waved a hand. "With whom?"

Alrick opened his mouth, bursting with ire, but Ronard just chuckled. "Oh, hush, little brother. We cross paths sometimes. The castle is big, but it isn't that big."

"I heard you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ronard frowned, rubbed his head, and stared at the burgundy liquid in his glass. "Gods, what is in this?"

"You're making her leave. You've got her a boat. You're taking her away from me."

Ronard sighed. He shifted in his chair, a high-backed seat with red and gold damask upholstery and clawed bronzed feet. He winced as his head bounced against the stuffed back. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"I heard you! You're booking her passage."

"Brother," Ronard said tiredly, giving up on the charade of ignorance, "she came to me."

"Liar."

"Why would I lie?"

Alrick just glared at him. “She wouldn’t leave me.”

Ronard barked with laughter at that, making Alrick’s fists clench. Ronard said, “Poor deluded little brother, she can’t wait to get away from here.”

“You’ve done something to her, then. Made her want to leave.”

“As much as we both know I could do it, why would I bother? I don’t care how she feels. If I want her gone, she’d be going even if she was kicking and screaming. But no, she came to me. And I was more than happy to oblige. It’s about time she and that daughter of hers left here. It’s not helping our family’s reputation, and you’ve gone soft and lost focus ever since she walked into your life.”

Ronard stood, staggering over to his rosewood desk. Papers were scattered all across its surface, but even in his drunken state he seemed to know where to find whatever it was he wanted. He glanced over his shoulder, thick brown eyebrows rising in surprise. “Oh, I thought our conversation was over. You can leave.”

Just then, Ronard gasped. He flung the paper in his hand away from him as though it were burning.

“What is it, brother?” Alrick asked, calmly, casually. He sauntered over to the fallen parchment. It was blank. He glanced at his older brother, who was gulping in air.

“It said... It said you-”

“It’s blank, brother. Perhaps you’re rather more drunk than you’d realised.” His tone was as light as a mosquito taking flight.

Ronard frowned, the words and tone striking a chord. He glanced between Alrick and the wine. The colour drained from his face. “What did you...?”

“Oh, nothing.” Alrick waved his hand, dismissing the blood-curdling rage that bubbled beneath the surface.

“Alrick, I’m not in the mood for your games and power-plays tonight. It’s getting quite tiresome, having to fight and beat you all the time.”

Not this time. “It’s just wine, Ronard. You’re getting paranoid.” Alrick laughed, and though it sounded pleasant enough, a shiver went through Jessa. She knew the horror that lay behind.

Alrick came over to his brother, handing him the blank parchment. Their fingers touched and Alrick remarked, blithe, “You’re burning up, brother. You should sleep. I would so hate it if you were unwell for the hunt tomorrow.”

The scenes fizzled, replaced by grass and hills and trees in so disorientating a blur that Jessa almost missed the prickling sense of foreboding. The world rocked slightly as she peered out of Alrick’s eyes in his memory. His gaze was fixed on a rich, purple, fur-trimmed cloak a few men ahead of him. Ronard. The man seemed to lilt slightly on his horse, though when one of his hangers-on urged his horse forward to check on him, Ronard half-heartedly waved him away. A smile cracked across Alrick’s face.

The party crested the hill, and the woods around Ovis spread before them. To the left was the sea, the surf crashing against the cliffs far below. Directly to the right were the woods. A branch snapped. The rest of the party charged, leaving behind only Alrick and his baffled older brother. He yelled, “Where are you going?”

No one seemed to hear him. Ronard glanced over his shoulder as Alrick drove his horse forward to meet him. “I guess they heard something. Did you?”

“No.” Alrick shrugged. “Let’s stick to the field for now. You don’t look well, brother. I fear you’d fall off your horse in all that underbrush.”

Away from the nobles and high-ranking officials, Ronard let himself deflate. He blinked a few times, slowly. “That wine was lethal.”

“Wasn’t it?” Alrick said lightly.

They trotted along the cliff for a little while, the shouts of the rest of the hunting party fading as they either moved too far away or else fell silent to avoid spooking some prey that was nearby.

Alrick looked out across the glittering blue sea, let the chirping of the birds fill his ears, felt the summer sun warm his cheeks. It would be a good place to die, really. It wouldn’t be unkind.

He pulled gentle on the reins of his horse, a glossy black mare who knew all his secrets. She had been a gift for his eighteenth birthday, and officially she was called Aurora. But one day he had brought Emara to the stables in the dark of the night, watched his favourite horse nuzzle his beloved as she laughed and touched his nose in awe, heard her whisper what a rose she was. After that, the mare had irrefutably been Rose.

Emara had not visited the stables in a very long time. She was always busy with that child. That would change. He just needed to deal with his brother first.

His brother’s chestnut stallion whinnied softly as Alrick focused on the horse. Alrick knew him almost as well as his own, knew every patch of sandy coloured hair across its brow and the stripe down his nose, knew how his muscles undulated when he was tense or nervous. Jessa saw flashes of a stable, the taste of apples, the feel of straw, the exhilaration of galloping across the hills.

They were memories. From a horse. Alrick was inside the mind of a horse.

His brother did not notice. He swayed atop his seat, his gaze fixed at a point in front of them. His face drained of colour. “Do you see...?”

Of course Alrick did not see. His brother was hallucinating, a side effect of the wine from the night before. But he used his chance, channelling all of his power into willing the horse to rear and gallop off. His brother had the best seat of any person he had ever known; without the drug Alrick could not be sure his brother would fall off, and controlling an animal took so much effort that he could have done no other magic.

Neighing shrilly, the horse reared. He did not rise as Alrick had intended, allowing Ronard to scramble to hold on. It did knock him off-centre with his leg awkwardly caught beneath him, however, so when the horse tore off – in the wrong direction to Alrick’s instruction, though the effect was the same – the surprise and lack of coordination fully unseated the prince.

He landed in the mud with a squelch, crying out as at the audible snap as he fell over his bent leg. He stared at the sky, winded and dazed. Alrick dismounted Rose as though he had no care in the world, and trudged over to his brother. He bent down beside him, resting a heavy hand on his chest. “You’re soft, brother. You are no king.”

Despite the growing horror Alrick could see in Ronard’s eyes, he still had the courage to burst out, “I’m soft?”

“I watch you: smiling, laughing, dancing at balls, taking nothing seriously. I’ve listened in on your council meetings, and I see the exasperation in mother’s eyes whenever you speak. You’re weak. You would be so easily controlled. You are. And your magic-?”

“I have always bettered you there.”

Alrick shook his head in mock sadness. “I let you beat me. I wanted you to think me weak, to underestimate me, never to suspect me. But I was always the one who should have been heir. But you were my brother. I didn’t want to hurt you. So I simply... helped you along in making yourself look a fool. When you became king the kingdom would eat you alive. Then I could take my rightful place.”

“Why the change of heart?”

Alrick could still see it. The humour, even now, lying on the floor in the grass and mud. He didn’t believe Alrick – his little brother – could do it. His blood ran thick and hot with anger and he called wildly for the horse to come back to heel. He didn’t even know if it had gone too far.

Then he heard the hooves. The rhythmic stamp beat in times with Alrick’s heart, with the angry thoughts changing in his head.

“Because you tried to take her. You cannot take her and my crown, not for a second.”

“But why kill me. Why not control me – make me abdicate, make me refuse to help your bitch of a mistress?”

Alrick flung his magic out, ripping through Ronard’s skull. “Do not speak of her. Not like that, not at all.”

Ronard panted, his eyes unfocused and staring blankly up at the fluffy clouds. Despite the attack, he did not acknowledge Alrick’s words. “It’s because you can’t control me, isn’t it?”

“Weren’t you listening, dear brother? I already have. I let you think I couldn’t. But now, now I just want to be king.”

“You’ll have to wait for mother to be so kind as to die, too.”

He heard shouts from the trees, jubilant as the members of the hunt fought over who had made the killing blow. Alrick glanced over his shoulder before standing. He looked over his brother, his shadow shielding Ronard’s eyes from the sun.

As he walked backwards to his horse, he said, “I love mother. And I need her tutelage. I can wait. But I can’t see your smug face a moment longer. And I can’t let you sail Emara out of my life. I need you gone. Now.”

He called out to Ronard’s stallion in his mind, and a frantic whinnying filled the air in response. The horse, who had been grazing calmly, suddenly took to motion, circling and heading straight for the fallen prince just as the first hunters emerged from the treeline.

Alrick shouted out, beginning to run towards his brother. But the horse reached him first, trampling his chest. The ribs caved in on themselves with a resounding crack. Alrick made himself scream.

“Help!” he cried out, as the joyful hunters fell silent with shock and horror. The horse continued to run, thundering into the woods. No one followed. Alrick allowed himself a small smile while his back was still turned, as he collapsed in front of his dead brother. He was not heartless; he hoped the horse would never be found.

“Help!” he screamed again, as the hunters descended upon him.

The memory faded with the screams in the air, and Jessa stood in the whirlwind, struck dumb.

Her father had killed her uncle. Her father had killed the future king and taken his place.

Something tugged at her, pulling her back to herself. Her senses darkened.

No. She wasn’t ready to go. This – being inside Alrick’s mind, no barriers – was not an opportunity she would have again. She reached out blindly; she thought of Safiya.

A dark image resolved itself, a wagon on a cliff. Children emerged, their white skin dirty, their bodies skeletal, their heads bowed. Grimy tear-tracks ran down their cheeks. They followed a soldier down a twisting, rocking path down the cliff to a black gaping mouth halfway down. Inside, they walked for hours through the labyrinthine system of caves until they emerged into a deep bowl of grass and trees. At the bottom, there was a nondescript wooden house. A man, dressed in the same black uniform that belied their allegiance to the crown, guarded the door.

...and then suddenly Jessa was looking through her own eyes, the reality of the room that had been her prison appearing from the darkness. She blinked slowly, watching the room spin and curve. Her mind was screaming at her, her memories still turning over themselves, trying to patch the dark swathes of emptiness that felt to Jessa that they might always have been there. She might have believed it, if she didn’t remember what her father had been doing. Things didn’t make sense, though she couldn’t point to any specific area of her life.

Her breath caught. What if that was because she had completely lost all her memories about something, or someone? Things didn’t happen in isolation, but could she forget an entire person? She went through a list: her mother, her father, her half-siblings and stepmother, Laurita, Ainesh and his family, Larend, Mahlia, Nayall, countless people she had met in Ovis and Jasrah… Rhys. Something felt wrong about many of them, most especially Rhys, but it didn’t help her figure out if a whole person was missing. What about a whole place?

She needed to stop. This wasn’t helpful. Her memories were ripping her apart; she didn’t need to make it worse. Her head ached unlike anything she had known, and she had experienced near-constant headaches in the past months. All she wanted was to stay in that dark room and curl into a ball.

But that room wasn’t safe. With that, Jessa’s focus turned outwards. She saw the man on the floor, out cold. She saw the pallid child wrapped up in blankets, not moving even to breathe. And beyond...

Jessa’s breath caught again, for an entirely different reason. She recalled, through the misty haze of her tornado mind, Laurita on the ground, blood seeping along the cracks in the flagstone floor and pooling around her head. The blood was all but gone; there was not even a stain to suggest it had been there. It was as if it had never been. But Jessa had seen. Jessa had-

Laurita’s crumpled form moved.

Jessa gasped. No, no, but she was dead. The confusion warred with the cold relief that washed over her like the sea lapping at her ankles as a child. The memory slammed into her, more vivid than something that had happened recently. The memory stole her whole attention, and she watched herself as a child paddle in the salty waters with her mother.

By the time the memory lost its grip on her, Laurita had pushed herself up and collapsed against Ainesh’s side. It couldn’t be...

Jessa met Ainesh’s gaze, saw the anguish directed not at Laurita but to Jessa. He breathed, “I’m sorry. He made me tell you she was-”

He cut off with a strangled noise and touched a reverent hand to Laurita’s cheek. Her friend’s brown eyes took in the scene before them slowly, as though simply seeing took a great effort. The eyes caught on the prone man on the floor.

“What happened?” she croaked, wincing as Ainesh shifted minutely and nudged at the gash framing her right eye.

Jessa shook her head. She didn’t know, or she couldn’t say.

“He did something to you, something awful,” Ainesh said to Jessa, before looking down at Laurita, “and as soon as he lost focus on us and we could move, you ran at him. I felt a burst of magic from you and the king roared, throwing you away with magic. You hit your head. He made me tell Jessa you were dead.”

“No, Jessa, no,” Laurita said dimly, as if she thought Jessa still believed it despite the evidence of her moving and breathing. Jessa wasn’t entirely sure Laurita was wrong.

“The next thing I knew, Jessa was screaming and screaming and then... silence. Before I could even think to move the king cried out and fell back, as though you’d tried to fling him back. He was out cold.”

All of that - the pain, the memories Jessa had seen in Alrick’s head – had been but a flash in real time? It had felt like hours.

The door burst open, revealing Alistair. He gasped in air as he rested his hands on his knees. Behind him, a soldier rubbed his head, looked about in confusion, and did nothing to stop Alistair.

“I heard... the most awful screams,” he panted, looking at Jessa. “Are you...?”

The words died on his lips as he saw the king sprawled on the floor at Jessa’s feet. A stunned silence permeated the room. Alistair’s gaze drew slowly back to Jessa, a question on his lips. Slowly, he shut the door on the guards, eyes still fixed on her. Jessa averted her gaze, not wanting to look him in the eye after all he had done, but she watched him from the corner of his eye. The question went unasked as he watched Jessa dolefully, then with a resolved shake he stood up tall.

“You need to leave. Now, before he wakes.”

“What-?”

“Come on.” Alistair hurried over to her, pulling her to her feet. Jessa almost protested before she realised – her restraints were gone. He had poured so much magic into destroying her mind that he had nothing left, though Jessa imagined his hold on his mage ring was as strong as ever. Those spells would be as common to him as breathing, and so long held that nothing could shake them.

She tried to yank herself out of Alistair’s grip, but her arms were like lead. Her legs wobbled, and then suddenly they felt like air and she dropped to the ground. Or would have, if Alistair hadn’t pulled her close. She struggled to get away from him, but what felt like massive movements to her were, in reality, little more than twitches. She was tired and heavy.

Was this a product of being restrained, poorly fed and sitting for weeks? Or was this the poison still sneaking its way through her body?

A metallic tang welled in her mouth, and somehow she found the energy to push Alistair away enough that she could turn. She vomited, a mix of what little food she had eaten… and blood. She started shaking. She could feel Alistair staring.

“What…?” He turned her around, apologising at the force as he tilted her to look at him. “Gods, Jessa. Your eyes are bloodshot. And your skin…” He lifted one of her arms, and she saw a faint red patch blooming in the crook of her elbow. She winced as Alistair bent her elbow, causing the skin to touch. “What did you take?”

She shook her head. Alistair cupped her cheek, a little too hard, with one of his hands. He forced her to look at him again. “What did you take?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“You don’t-”

Through the haze, she remembered something. She fumbled for her dress pocket, but her hand kept shaking and she couldn’t do it. “Pocket. Antidote.”

She was so tired. She wanted to lie down.

“No, no,” Alistair said. Jessa blinked, realising she was on the floor. Alistair held out a glass of water. Unfamiliar particles that looked like dust catching in the dim light, floated inside. “Drink.”

Alistair left her as she drank, going to check on the king. “If any of you have magic, now might be the time to use it to slip past all the guards down the stairs. They’re confused, but they still remember who they’re guarding.”

“Who are you?” Ainesh burst out, as though he’d been holding it in for some time. He and Laurita had stood by now, though Laurita leaned against him heavily and didn’t seem entirely cognizant of where they were. “Why are you helping us?”

Alistair glanced at Jessa. “A friend, I hope.”

Jessa shook her head. Memories of her professor flashed before her, but the proof that he helped Alrick was right there. He’d been looking after one of his child mages, which meant he knew about that and still stood at his side. “No.”

Alistair sucked in his cheeks, then turned his gaze back to the king. He rested a hand on the man’s chest. “I’ll call the guards in to help the king, and in the confusion you can slip away.”

Anger bubbled up inside Jessa. “Why don’t you take us? Say it’s on the king’s orders to move us.”

“Because then he’ll know. I have to help you, Jessa, but he’ll kill me.”

“It hasn’t occurred to you that you could just leave with us? You still want to help him. I can’t believe... What could possibly keep you here? Or are you just too scared to face up to your crime?”

“If I’m here, I can entreat him to exercise restraint.”

“Is this what restraint looks like? All of us here, a dead child-” her throat caught as she fought back tears “-an army of children kidnapped from their families and brainwashed.”

“I didn’t know,” Alistair cried, “I didn’t, I promise. Not until he brought Safiya to me.”

“And yet you know now, and you’re still here.”

“What was I supposed to do – ignore helping a suffering child? I took her in, just as I’ve taken in others who have needed help. Irina – you remember?”

“I remember that you allowed a mage to visit her every day and smother her memories until she no longer remembered who she was. You mean that kind of help?” Her words were venomous, and she didn’t regret a word of them.

Alistair looked at her, biting his lip in that way of his when he was upset. Good. Jessa looked away before Alistair could come up with some futile excuse. There was no excusing his actions.

Just then, Alrick inhaled deeply. Whatever Alistair was going to say died on his lips. He gestured at Ainesh and Laurita to join Jessa. “You need to go.”

He gave them no more warning before he yelled, “Guards, help! The king is hurt!”

The door burst open in an instant, and Jessa heard Alistair words like an echo ringing down the spiral staircase. The first few guards, looking dazed, piled into the room. They were entirely focused on their fallen king.

“We should be invisible to them now,” Ainesh said, a strain in his whisper and a bead of sweat at the corner of his eyebrow. “They can still hear us and feel us if we touch. Be careful going down the stairs. They won’t all have left their posts.”

It seemed to Jessa that she held her breath the whole, slow journey down the twisting stairs. They kept their backs along the inside wall, taking cautious steps on the narrowest slice to avoid the soldiers peering up at the commotion above their heads. Jessa nearly slipped multiple times, and Laurita would have if she hadn’t been held up by Ainesh and Jessa. Jessa was just glad the antidote seemed to have given her back her coordination. Ainesh probably was too.

Though her body was silent, her head was not. The bitter, hot anger at Alistair had kept her roiling mind at bay, but in the shadowy stairwell the confusion came back in full force. Random memories swam to the fore, and it took everything she had in her not to be overwhelmed by them – to remember they weren’t happening now and that laughing or responding to some question would get them all killed.

All through it, the wrongness persisted. It made her want to claw her brains out of her skull, piece by piece.

After a near-miss with a soldier rushing up the stairs and almost brushing her – a realisation that had had her frozen to the spot, heart racing and ears rushing, for far longer than necessary – they finally reached the bottom. Laurita slumped against the wall as Ainesh let her go to scout out the door and, presumably, use his magic to see what was beyond. Jessa moved to catch Laurita. For a second, she pressed her face into her friend’s shoulder, breathing in the fact that she was alive. Laurita dropped her head atop Jessa’s.

“I know,” she breathed.

“I love you, Laurita,” Jessa whispered into her shoulder. “Don’t ever-”

She couldn’t even say it.

“I heard something, back there.” Laurita’s voice was as soft as air. “You tried to k-”

“Not now,” Jessa said quickly. Not ever, she hoped. She wanted no one to know of her darkest moments, even if that hope was already dashed. “Ainesh?”

“There’s a few people on the other side.” A pause, after which he dropped his hand from the door. “They should be asleep now.”

They eyed him warily as he turned the handle and pushed it open one gentle tap at a time. Indeed, the first thing they saw were legs sprawled on the floor before them. Given the hallway was hushed and dark, they assumed no one had witnessed it and stepped through.

Jessa hadn’t tasted fresh air in possibly weeks – for even the stairs had been fusty and dry – so she gulped down the sweet coolness that pressed into her like welcoming hands. It hit her, then. She was free, and she never wanted to go back.

“Whoa, Jessa.” Ainesh had his hands under her arms, apparently holding her up. She tried to focus her gaze on him, but his face swam. The whole corridor would surely be spinning if it wasn’t so dark. That was a comfort at least; though this part of the castle was little used, it would still be brighter if it was daylight. Her eyes would have some time to prepare for the glare of daybreak. “Here.”

She found herself on a stretcher and blinked down at it. Beneath her feet, the physician sprawled and snored softly. She saw him standing over her, apologising to her. Then, on the floor again, then protesting as she was moved. What was real, and what was in her head?

“Laurita, are you feeling up to...?”

Jessa didn’t know what the question was, or the response, but she felt a tingle on her scalp – familiar, but she couldn’t remember from where – and then a heavy weight pressed into her back.

Laurita’s groggy voice whispered in her ear, “I think I’ll... sleep now.”

“Stay awake, Laurita,” Ainesh said.

Jessa battled against the pressure at her own brows and lost, letting her eyelids droop closed. The stretcher, held aloft by magic, bobbed along underneath her. She lost all concept of time and distance, instead succumbing to dreams that were like memories. Or perhaps it was memories that were like dreams. Jessa didn’t really know. All she knew – and even then only in a faraway sense – was that she should be thrumming with adrenaline and fear. Yet there she was, so focused on the past: picking out a book in the university library and devouring it; struggling to make friends at school; her first awkward kiss years before; and her last, a bare few months ago.

The real world didn’t feel real.

“Jessa, shush,” Ainesh said, right in her ear. He was tense, but there was concern in the back of his tone that said he didn’t have time to worry now but very much wanted to do so. “You’re just… babbling.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled into her hair. She had a lot of hair. She’d never really thought about that before. Weird.

The stretcher came to a juddering halt as a voice barked at them to stop. Jessa tried to sink into the stretcher, but there was nowhere to go. She cracked open an eye and almost jumped at the tangle of lank brown hair in her way. She twisted her head around enough to see Laurita behind her, and sighed in relief. Though it was nowhere near her original standard, she had done a decent job of altering the features that most marked her as a Novarian. Jessa wondered if she’d changed anything about Jessa other than her hair.

She slumped back on the stretcher just as a body stepped into her view. They wore the brown outer robes of the castle physician. But he’d been asleep, or walking away, or working on something in his office… Jessa frowned, not remembering.

Beyond the physician, Jessa saw the guard stop before them. Gruffly, he asked, “What’s this?”

“Lady Elena and her maid Valeria took ill suddenly. I’m taking them to the infirmary.” That voice wasn’t the physician; it was Ainesh.

“The infirmary is that way.” Jessa didn’t see which way, but she could guess it was not whichever way they were heading. “Not seen you before; you new?”

The guard had lost the formal edge to his voice. Jessa could see Ainesh relax as he realised the same. He chuckled. “Oh, yeah. The infirmary’s busy this time of year what with the Spring Procession, so the physician hired me to help deal with the backlog. But I guess I got all turned around. I’ll be on my way – that way, you say?”

Ainesh hurried off before the guard had time to think of offering to escort them. They had barely put any distance between them – a few corners at most – when they heard a sound that stopped Jessa’s heart.

In the distance, a bell tolled. Their absence had been noticed.

“Jessa. Jessa!” Ainesh said insistently. “Where should I go?”

The words were like a slap in the face, bringing the memory to the fore. In the same pocket where she had kept the poison antidote was the note Mahlia had given her. It had been from the other servants, in case she managed to escape. She fumbled in her pocket and withdrew the note with shaking hands. The words on the page jumped nonsensically; with a sigh she handed it to Ainesh.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, then closed his eyes. Jessa watched as every muscle in his face began to twitch with exertion. The note shook in his hand as badly as it had in Jessa’s. When he opened his eyes, his brow sweated, and he looked like he desperately wanted to sit down. “Okay, we should be completely invisible, but only for a minute or two. I can’t hold it longer than that. Not anymore.”

Ainesh started running, his footsteps slapping against the stone. He was banking on their invisibility to prevent people from taking notice of the odd sounds. The tolling of the bell and the shouts from the guards, mixed with the confusion of all the gossiping guests stumbling from their rooms on the floor above Jessa, helped to hide the noise. The stretcher lurched forward to keep up with him, and Jessa gripped the edge to stop herself from slipping off. At each corner, her stomach dropped as the stretcher tipped precariously.

The stretcher lagged behind Ainesh by a fair few paces, and every guard Jessa saw was already slumped on the ground by the time they got there. She knew when it happened each time, for there was a flicker of magic that she feared was their invisibility slipping for a fraction of a second.

They came to a door most people would miss next to the large tapestry hanging from ceiling the floor. It was a scene of a long dead queen, a giant boar dead at her feet after a hunt. Jessa shivered, whispers of what she’d seen in her father’s mind coming back to haunt her. They slipped through the door into a well-used but still somehow musty stairwell. The stretcher tipped as Ainesh barrelled down them and almost knocked down the servant at the bottom.

“What...?” he said, then let out an undignified squeak. “Where did you come from?”

Their two minutes were up. Ainesh threw caution to the wind, thrusting the note into his face. Jessa watched his caterpillar-like eyebrows wiggle as he read it. He glanced at Jessa and Laurita on the stretcher, seeming confused. Jessa supposed he was expecting her red hair, but mostly she was still fixated on his bushy brows. “This way.”

There were no guards down here yet, and most of the servants were their allies. They made quick work of the long corridor, stopping outside the storerooms.

“I’ll round everyone else up,” he said by way of goodbye. “We’ll do our best to distract them.”

They abandoned the stretcher, propping it up in a quiet room across the hall before entering the storeroom. Laurita leaned heavily against Ainesh, and every so often he tapped her cheek to stop her succumbing to sleep. Jessa saw the fear in his eyes, but she felt distant from it as though this was happening to someone else and she was just an observer.

“Where’s Nayall?” she asked loudly. She started peering around the teetering towers of crates filled with fabrics and grains alike.

Ainesh glared at her. “Voice down. And he’s not here, why would he be?”

Jessa thought about those words for a moment, then said, “Where’s Nayall? He likes just popping out of hiding places to scare me. I’m quite sure he’s here. He has to tell me something about someone. I... forget the details. But he was quite adamant.”

Ainesh stared at her as if she’d grown another head. She shrugged and resumed her search until a hand pulled her back. She tried to shrug him off but he gripped tighter. “Jessa, stop. You can talk to Nayall when we get out of here.”

“But he’s here.”

“Okay.” Ainesh’s tone changed, knowing it was better to agree than to fight. “But he’ll only come out if you’re really quiet. Here, let’s sit behind these crates and wait.”

He had guided her, Laurita still plastered to his side, to a small space blocked in by boxes that smelled of linen and dust. He sat her down on a crate off to one side, and propped Laurita beside her. “Make sure Laurita stays awake. Can you do that, Jessa?”

She nodded, her attention already drifting to Laurita. Ainesh had left, so he didn’t see her jump to her feet and stifle a scream. Who was that? She looked nothing like her friend. “What have you done with her?”

The woman frowned at her through hazy eyes. She slurred, “It’s me, Jessa.”

Jessa’s eyes narrowed, recognising the voice but refusing to believe. Before she could investigate further, Ainesh returned with a man in his wake. The man looked like a rodent. A ferret, maybe, or a rat? His hair was a wiry brown that was littered with greys.

“Nayall!” she exclaimed, then frowned as the man stepped into the room and his pale, leathery skin from being outdoors registered in Jessa’s brain. “Not Nayall. I thought you were getting Nayall.”

The man’s eyes went wide. “Your mind...”

“I don’t know what he’s done to her. She seemed normal at first, but she started babbling and focusing on weird things. She doesn’t seem to be fully aware of the gravity of the situation – that we need to get out of here. I don’t know what’s happened. He was trying to... I don’t know, do something to one of her memories. Hide it from her-?”

“Who are you?” Jessa interrupted. She took a frightened step back at the intensity of his gaze, knocking her back against a crate that wobbled but did not fall.

“Oleg, we’ve met a few times before now,” he said gently, though he didn’t really look at her more than into her, somehow. His words, when he continued, were slow and rambling. “It looks worse than that. I can see gaping tears, darkness. Something – or many somethings – is missing. Memories, you said? Her brain is frantically trying to piece things together. I can see it, putting memories where they don’t belong, or even... maybe her magic will even destroy any memories that don’t fit, though I can see it hesitating and putting them aside, so that’s a last resort. She’s just trying to make sense of the chaos. But I think it’s messing with her ability stay in the present, to not confuse it with memory.”

“What? Can you do something?” The pitch of Ainesh’s voice rose. Jessa eyed him in confusion. Nothing seemed wrong to her. She felt quite at peace for now.

“I’m not... I don’t know much about mind magic. I always just wanted my plants, to help them grow and give them life. An experiment went wrong – I just wanted to see inside, see how they worked at the base level – and now I can see everything. I don’t have much control over it. I see through illusions, see into someone’s mind, can see the smallest pieces that make up every living thing. I can do simple things on instinct, stitch together some wound, but I can only do more with plants. And even then, it’s not formal magic. It’s just instinct; it might be wrong.” He twisted his lip, looking over his shoulder and listening to the very real chaos in the castle beyond the door. “And we need to leave now.”

With a final glance at Jessa, he turned on his heel and headed for the back of the storeroom. Jessa helped Ainesh drag Laurita, who was mumbling about the pain and didn’t seem to have heard any of the conversation, after the servant. Looking at his back, Jessa remembered who he was. He was a gardener. As if it was a revelation, she exclaimed, “You knew my mother.”

“Yes. We talked about her last time we met.” He heaved some crates out of the corner of the room.

“Oh.”

Once he had cleared away the crates, Oleg pressed his hand against a stone right at the join of the two walls. It was darker than the rest, and she heard a faint click. Gesturing to Ainesh, they pushed at the wall to the right. It swung inwards, revealing a rubble-strewn passage. Jessa could hear echoing drips of water against stone. She took a step back, remembering the dark nights of her captivity with only that sound as her companion. She shook her head.

“Will they know to follow us?”

“I’m sure someone knows of the passage. It’s an old servants’ route, leading out beyond the castle grounds. But we never use it and it was boarded up until recently.” That explained all the rocks lining the path. “We’d been clearing it in secret, basically as soon as we all made the alliance with her. In case anything went wrong and we needed an escape route.”

“Let’s go, then,” Jessa said, pulling Laurita over to the men.

“Jessa, the ring.”

She stared down at it without comprehension.

“He can track you with it. You said you had a way to get rid of any magic within the stone without it affecting the compulsion on your mind to wear it.”

“Oh. Did I?” She frowned, struggling to remember. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, it was familiar. Jessa shrugged. “I guess I can try.”

She tilted her head, feeling for the threads of magic within the stone. It seemed easier than she remembered magic being in the past. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t really thinking. She recalled the other times she had practised, remembered all the bubbling fears and worries. Her mind was empty of them now. She saw all the threads of magic clearly in her mind. The slivers of blood gem that had been mixed with her wedding ring pulsed brightly. She found the thread that flowed from her head to the stone – darker and stronger than the rest – and carefully sidestepped it, knowing that was not one she could break. For the rest, she grabbed them all at once and, without thought, yanked hard. They came undone. The stone pulsed once and went dark. Jessa smelled burning.

“Oh Gods, Jessa!”

She looked down at her hand, saw the blackened skin around the ring. “Huh.”

“Are you alright?” Ainesh asked impatiently, as though he was repeating himself.

“Yes,” she replied, as though that was obvious. But it wasn’t. It should be hurting. She said again, “Huh.”

Ainesh looked like he wanted to say more, but he just shook his head. “Let’s go then.”

They picked their way as fast as they could, with Laurita lagging and swaying as she was, through the old passageway. It was cold and dark, making Jessa shiver. She wanted to turn back, back towards the dimness but not blackness of the castle. The walls pressed in on her, and she would have stopped if Ainesh wasn’t at her back pushing her forwards.

Eventually, the ground beneath the rose. Oleg shoved on the ceiling and a hole appeared, through which the flickering light of the streetlamps filtered in. Jessa shielded her eyes, though she was grateful again that it was not day.

A woman waited by the entrance, a pile of cloaks tossed over her arm. They were passed out between the four of them, and they each pulled them closely over their heads. “Go quickly now. The guards passed by here earlier but they’ll surely come back. I hope you know of a way out of the inner city that isn’t the main entrance.”

Ainesh smiled grimly. “This has been my home for most of my life, and I was a mischievous teen. I have my ways.”

They started walking, keeping to the shadows. She wasn’t entirely sure how they avoided attention, for there were multiple times they came across groups of sentries who just… stormed past. Oleg was in the lead, following Ainesh’s whispered directions, and she supposed he might have something to do with it.

Then they came to the turning towards the Tremonts’ manor. Ainesh slowed, unable to stop himself from looking across at the dark shadow reaching for the sky. It was swarming with guards. Ainesh was breathing hard. “They don’t have any prisoners. That’s… that’s good, right?”

Jessa didn’t answer. She didn’t really know what had rattled him so much.

They moved on, darting across the open street and the one after that until they were against the wall of the inner city. Ainesh made sure Laurita was steady before taking the lead. They shuffled through the brambles that grew in the gap between the nobles’ gardens and the old, imposing wall, until Ainesh stopped. He smiled. He pointed at a crack in the wall, just big enough for a human to slip through. “Someone’s been through here recently.”

Beyond the inner city, and despite the late hour, there were enough people that they easily melted into the background. Ainesh strode forward, an increased vigour in his step, and the others struggled to keep up. As they walked, the busy streets grew quieter and quieter until it was only them and a few stragglers on the cobbles. They were in a residential district now, and Ainesh led them to a pretty stone house that leaned into the one on its right. He hadn’t even knocked on the peeling red door when it was pulled open and a whirlwind of dress and hair barrelled into him.

“Ainesh!”

“Priti,” he breathed, relief making his shoulders sag. “You got my message. You all got out?”

“Yes. And we sent word to everyone else we’ve been in contact with these past few months. They’ll stay, I imagine – they didn’t have anything to do with Novamor and barely saw Jessa. But we left via-”

Just then Jessa found herself enveloped in a hug of her own. She flinched back before seeing the man’s short blond hair. “Larend.”

“We figured he wouldn’t be safe. He’s been so close to you since you arrived.”

Larend smiled at her weakly. She saw his hands shaking. “Are you cold?”

“No,” he replied, confused. He glanced at Laurita, saw her swaying, and turned to Ainesh.

Ainesh passed a hand over his face. “I’ll explain everything when we’re safe. Is everyone ready to go?”

“Go? Go where?”

“They’re swarming the manor. They’ll find the connection to this place eventually. We need to go to Nayall. Laurita-” His words caught in his throat. “Well, she would have known the way.”

At the sound of her name, Laurita perked up. She frowned and declared stubbornly, her words slurring, “I know the way.”

“What happened?” Priti asked.

“Not now. She needs a healer, and she’ll be right as rain.” It sounded very much like Ainesh willed that to be true, but his sister didn’t have the heart to say otherwise. Within a few minutes, the rest of the Tremonts were gathered and ready to go. Jessa saw Lady Tremont watching her, so she smiled. The old woman did not smile back.

They walked for seemingly hours through the city, and Jessa was quite sure they’d walked past the fountain of the woman playing the lute multiple times. Her feet were sore, her limbs ached. She had been sitting for too long to be as active as this, and all adrenaline was gone. Absently, she felt someone strong scoop her into their arms. She snuggled into them and let the world fade away…

She was startled awake by the sounds of excited chatter. Jessa made little sense of it, only Laurita’s name coming through clearly. She pulled away from the warmth of the wool cloak and peered out. She squinted against the candlelight, but thankfully she had grown used to the dim light so it did not hurt her eyes. She took in the room, realising she recognised it. It was one of Nayall’s safehouses – the one where Odaren, and presumably his sister, stayed.

The man holding her carried her across the room, shielding her from all the questions she could hear in the background. He – she looked up and realised it was Ainesh’s father – was following a small woman who was babbling about the lack of rooms and would Jessa be okay sharing with Laurita and some of the other girls? Before Jessa could answer, a door opened.

It was the door to Odaren’s room.

She peered in, startled to find him staring straight at her. She blinked at him, a calmness falling over her that mirrored Odaren’s. She nodded at him. After a pause, his eyes flickered with recognition. He nodded back.

And then the door was closed, and she was being carried down the corridor to her new home.

“You’re safe now,” Ainesh’s father said, placing her on one of the threadbare beds in the room. To Jessa, it felt like luxury.

As for safe, she wasn’t quite sure. But then the world faded away as exhaustion took her, and it didn’t seem to matter at all.

[Rosabeth]

There was no use worrying over something Rhys could not change, but that hardly stopped him. Once that all-consuming terror, bordering on hysteria, that which had washed over him like a tidal wave diminished, it manifested into a naging anxiousness that would not let up. He paced the halls relentlessly as thought moving might somehow distract his thoughts. It did not, but he could hardly sit either, for he knew he'd be overwhelmed once again. So he paced with Jessa's ring held tight in his grasp, so tight he imagined he'd find an angry red welt in its shape whenever he let go. The metal, even with its beveled edges, dug painfully into his skin, but that pain was a focus he desperately needed.

He felt the others' eyes on him, though they said little. Nayall and the other man had left soon after relaying the message, when it was clear they were needed in the city and that Rhys was hardly in a state for discussion.This left the other three. Nina sat far away, glancing his way only occasionally before giving up on the situation altogether and wandering off to find a bed for the night. Anja, with her pursed lips and slightly narrowed eyes, looked very much uncomfortable and unsure. It was only Victor, watching Rhys with helplessness, that tried to intervene.

"Rhys, you have to relax; you have to at least try. I'm sure she's fine."

Rhys didn't bother to look Victor's way. "You know that's a lie."

"Well, not all lies are bad. Sometimes you need a lie to keep you sane. Come on, Rhys. There's no use fixating on the worst case scenario. If you can't do anything you might as well assume the best."

But Rhys could not. It was not in his nature to assume the worst, nor was it in his nature to fixate endlessly, but this was out of the scope of normality. This was Alrick. This was Jessa. Rhys knew the man's capabilities, and he knew the rage that would course through the mad-man's blood if he suspected - or knew - the full truth of all Jessa had done. He knew more than enough as it was. Rhys did not fixate on the worst because he was a glutton for anguish - he fixated because he was not stupid enough to believe anything else.

Victor had a point, though. This sort of mental state was unsustainable, and Rhys could feel his worries eating him from the inside. He turned, then, toward the back of the manor, slipping silently out a servant's entrance where no one could see. Though it was spring, there was still a chill to the nights in Ovis. He had not brought a jacket or cloak, and for that he was thankful, for the burst of cold air did his mind good. A well sat not far back from the manor. The nearby trees gave coverage to their location, but Rhys still felt for the dagger at his side. He sat down atop the well's stone sides, drawing up water and taking a deep, slow breath before dumping it over his head.

The icy water sent a shock across every inch of his body, and Rhys let out a gasp as his skin burned in the cold night. Yet, for the first time that evening, Rhys' mind was gloriously clear. He drew more water, washing away the grime and sweat of many days of riding from his hair and skin, leaving his shirt to drape over the well's edge. When he was done he sat for a moment, blue-lipped and shivering, and let himself think. With a clear mind, there was only one thought that repeated itself over and over again, yet this time with finality and reluctant acceptance.


There was nothing he could do. Not right now.

Victor and Anja openly gaped as Rhys strolled back through the manor shirtless and dripping wet, but if they had comments they did not make them, not even Anja. Rhys found an empty room easily, and after some digging uncovered relatively clean clothes from who he could only assume was Lord Perrant. Lord Perrant was clearly a larger man than Rhys, for the shift hung loose and the trousers needed tightly belted, but they were clean and dry and good enough for his needs. Clean, dry, and of a calmer mind than anticipated, Rhys laid down on the bed, pulling a quilt tight around his shoulders in the room’s chill, and stared blankly at the wall ahead. He did not want to sleep, not now, but Rhys could feel the exhaustion of a long day’s ride in every muscle. In the darkness and the silence, unpleasant thoughts crept back into his mind, but Rhys shut his eyes, grasped the ring once more, and willed sleep to come.

When Rhys woke to cool, grey light filtering in through the curtains, reality came barreling back. He could feel his heart begin to race, his calm from the night eroded into nothing but a veneer. Rhys breathed deep and long, staring up at the ceiling. He could face another day of worry. He could, because there were no other options.

Anja and Victor were already milling about downstairs when Rhys appeared. Though they had not been speaking, Rhys felt his appearance had somehow quieted the room further, as though they dared not even move in his presence.

“Hey,” Victor said. He watched Rhys’ expression carefully for any flinch, any indication that his erratic behavior would be making another appearance. When Rhys showed no such signs, he could see the relief on Victor’s face.

“Are there any bows?” Rhys asked.

Victor and Anja glanced at one another, baffled. “I think I may have seen one around somewhere yesterday,” Anja answered before scurrying off. When she returned a few moments later she carried two bows and a quiver of arrows. Rhys took one, leaving the other in Anja’s hands. It was a practical weapon, with nicks and scrapes on the arms from well-worn use. It was not the usual ostentatious piece made for display in some lord’s study, hung delicately above a mantle. Someone in this household was a hunter, and for that Rhys thanked them.

“I think we ought to find some food.”

After scribbling a note for Nina explaining their absence, the other three set off into the woods near the manor. Victor branched off from the others to gather kindling, disappearing into the brush while Rhys and Anja settled into a nook behind a large cluster of trees. They did not speak, for Anja was not the type to ask questions or prod, particularly not when emotions were high and sympathy might be expected. It was precisely what Rhys had expected, and exactly what he cherished in that moment. Her silent, calculated movements and watchful eyes as she scanned the forest for movement offered a distraction from Rhys’ intrusive thoughts, and he found himself soon slipping into his sister’s mindset. For a blissful hour or two, his thoughts were only of the forest and the hunt. He worried for its end, for that was when he would need to find a new diversion.

They returned to the manor with two rabbits in tow, skinned by Anja after Victor looked utterly aghast at her initial suggestion he offer a hand. Nina looked as though she might kiss them all at the sight. They kept the fire lower than Rhys would have preferred, but a large plume of smoke rising from the chimney of a manor supposedly abandoned was sure to bring about questions, and Rhys rather liked their privacy. And so the day passed, with slowly roasting food and Victor’s perpetual idle chatter to keep his mind appropriately preoccupied. He thought a great deal of Jessa, but dwelling for too long only brought on an unwelcome panic, and he forced himself to listen to Victor prattle on about this and that, calming his heart the best he could.

Daylight came and went, and when a second sunset plunged them into darkness once more Rhys could not fully control the panic that threatened to consume him once more. No news. He did not know how he would manage another night without news. He could hardly think beyond that, of the terror of days that came and went with Rhys trapped in the prison of his own mind. Eventually he would have to think of Miriyam, to carry out the plan for which he’d come to Ovis. He was not certain he could in this state.

Three deep knocks at the front door reverberated throughout the manor, and the four of them grew very still. Rhys pushed down the lump that formed his in throat as he pushed himself up from his chair, grabbing the nearby chamberstick and walking slowly toward the door. His body screamed at him to run but his mind needed the brief moments to collect himself. He breathed deeply, his hand shaking as he put his hand to the door handle and pulled.

It was not Nayall, but rather the same man from the previous night, shrouded by the hood of his cloak. “May I come in?” He asked.

Rhys stood back, ushering the man in and closing the door behind him. The man did not waste their time. He withdrew his hood, gave a polite nod to the others, and turned to Rhys with a solemn expression. “Lady Jessa has been found, Lord Rhys. She is safe at one of Nayall’s safe houses.”

Though the man continued to talk Rhys did not hear a word of it, for his mind had gone blank, a strange lightness spreading through his body. Safe. The word echoed in his mind. The relief nearly leveled him with the force with which it hit. Jessa was safe. He let out a breath he did not know he’d been holding in, the tension in his head seeming to dissipate along with it. For a moment he felt as though he might collapse as a great weight lifted off him, and he pressed his hand firm against the wall. That was when he realized the man was staring at him expectantly, his brow somewhat furrowed.

“I’m sorry?” Rhys asked in embarrassment, pushing himself off the wall.

“Nayall sent me so that I might bring you there, assuming you are able and ready?” The man replied, speaking in a steady, even voice as though Rhys was a bit slow.

“Yes...yes, of course. Of course!” Rhys turned frantically toward the others, searching for his cloak among the pile where they’d tossed them. Anja appeared at his side seemingly instantaneously, grabbing his arm.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Anja.”

“I’m not letting you go into Ovis alone,” she hissed, lowering her voice as she narrowed her eyes at the man standing near the door. “We don’t even know him.”

“He’s one of Nayall’s men; that’s good enough for me.”

Anja scowled, gripping Rhys hard enough to force him towards her. “I made a promise that I was going to protect you. I can’t do that from here if you’re gods know where.”

Finally finding his cloak, Rhys fastened it around his neck, taking Anja’s forearms in his hands and looking her in the eye. “Anja. I will come back for you - I promise. And I promise I will not do anything stupid or rash or dangerous while I’m gone. Let me do this.”

Anja kept his eyes for a long moment, as though trying to win some silent battle, before looking down in a huff and twisting her arms out of his hold. “I don’t believe you. You always do something stupid.”

This time Rhys turned to Victor, giving his friend a sharp nod. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Though Victor did not look pleased by the notion of remaining in the manor with Anja and Nina for an undisclosed amount of time he did not argue, simply returning Rhys’ gesture with a reluctant sigh and a small smile.

Duan showed no impatience as he stood waiting near the door, his face a mask of neutrality. When Rhys approached the man opened the door, turned to the others and gave a second polite nod, and ushered Rhys from the manor in one sweeping movement.

The night did not share the previous night’s chill, and as Rhys pulled up the hood on his cloak he let the rest drape open in the breeze. They took a brisk pace, cutting through worn paths in the trees rather than taking the road that carried on west of the manor. It was a small trek to the nearest village - where Rhys could only presume they headed, based on their orientation - and they took it in a comfortable silence, all but for a few moments of questions.

“I just realized I never got your name,” Rhys said.

“Duan, my Lord.”

“Are you a mage too, Duan?”

“No, my Lord, but I have loved ones who are.”

Rhys nodded. That he understood well.

“But I also think,” Duan continued, “that one doesn’t need to be a mage to understand what is right and what is wrong. I like to think I would be here regardless of who I loved.”

They continued the rest of their walk in silence. Soon, the edge of the village loomed in the distance between the gaps in the trees, still-lit lanterns illuminating it against the black sky. It was late enough that the streets were empty, the only movement from the silhouettes in windows as villagers milled about in their homes. Eventually they came upon a house near the edge of the village, though Rhys could not detect anything different or out of sorts about it. When Duan gave a quick rap on the door a pair of blue eyes looked out through a peephole, widening as it took in the sight of them, followed by the sounds of locks latches. A frail-looking old woman with white hair piled high on her head and a floral shawl wrapped around her shoulders opened the door, hurrying them in. When Rhys did not move fast enough he felt the woman’s hands grip the back of his shirt, giving him a push.

Rhys followed Duan closely, though his eyes wandered about the house. Another woman - this one younger, perhaps only slightly older than himself - sat in a rocking chair at the far end of the room, a small child asleep on her lap. She paid him little mind, hardly even noting his presence. It was something Rhys found rather odd until Duan bent down and lifted the woven rug from the floor, throwing it back to reveal a hatch built into the wood. Rhys raised his brow, looking about at the old woman who watched them disinterestedly.

“It’s an old smuggling tunnel - heavily used by your friends, I believe.”

With a quick thanks to the old woman, Duan lifted the hatch, revealing a descent into darkness, lit only with a faint light from within. Duan gestured for Rhys to enter first, following closely behind. Once inside, Rhys could see the source of the dim light from before. A torch hung in a sconce on the stone wall of the tunnel and Duan maneuvered around Rhys to remove it, hold it aloft. The journey through tunnel felt endless, and without even the stars to guide them Rhys felt as though he could somehow find himself lost, despite the fact that they’d only come upon one divergence in the path. It was impossible to tell for how long they traveled, or for how far, but Rhys knew not to complain. He imagined them now somewhere beneath Ovis, the guards above patrolling the city walls without a clue of what lurked beneath their feet.

When the tunnel finally ended Rhys found his head popping up through another floor, this time meeting a middle-aged man with a disinterested face who rather looked like he would like to go to bed. They slipped out the back door of the man’s home, finding themselves in a dark alleyway somewhere within Ovis, greeted by a gentle drizzling of rain. They moved differently in the city - sometimes quickly, in a half-sprint, while other times they crept along alleys as Duan poked his head around corners or waited for stray passersby to leave. Rhys could only follow Duan’s every movement and hope the man knew where they were going, for even if he had known their destination Rhys would have found himself hopelessly lost.

The moment they finally arrived Rhys almost did not realize they’d come to their destination, for from the outside it was nothing but a two-story wooden house, its boards old and weathered. Duan rapped on the door quickly, then slowly, in a pattern Rhys had forgotten almost as soon as he’d heard it. Much like the first house they’d approached, Rhys saw a set of eyes peer out at them, taking a particularly long, hard look at Rhys. Duan murmured something Rhys just out of Rhys’ earshot. Whatever he’d said seemed to be enough for whoever stood on the other side of the door, for it opened a crack and Rhys found himself physically pulled into the house in a flash before the door was shut and locked firmly behind him.

Rhys had not realized how many people could be fit into one cramped space until he took in the sight that surrounded him. The house opened to a sitting room - or at least, what he imagined to have once been a sitting room - littered with makeshift bedrolls, all occupied. About half of the people in the room slept soundly, the other half huddled with others in conversation, eying Rhys suspiciously from their beds, wary of this newcomer. Rhys wondered vaguely of their stories, and if they were all mages like Nayall, but these thoughts were overshadowed by a rather more prominent one.

Jessa was here, in this house. Rhys could hardly comprehend it. It had been months since they’d last seen one another, or even exchanged a letter. Months still since they’d shared more than a tearful kiss in dire circumstances. In reality, it had been since Kolonis since they’d last truly been with one another without fear or the promise of death hanging over them. So long had he waited that he could feel his stomach twisting in knots, like a boy mustering up the courage to approach a girl he’d long admired. It felt ridiculous to think those thoughts, to feel those nerves tingling in his body, and yet the very thought of it nearly brought a laugh to his lips. When he smiled, it felt brand new.

Duan had wandered off into the back of the house, but not before directed Rhys to the second floor. Rhys climbed the steps two at a time, practically bounding, though his hands still shook and his breaths were short and shallow. The last door on the left, Duan had instructed. Rhys faced the hallway, his heart practically bursting from his chest. It was much like the night before, but with all his fears and worries replaced with an elation that warmed him from the inside. A small voice prodded at his happiness, reminding him of the circumstances. Jessa had been missing for two weeks. Her safety alone could not account for her state. What had she faced? What had she endured? The questions were almost too horrible to contemplate, and so Rhys did not. Perhaps it was simple minded of him, but Rhys needed this relief. He would face whatever awaited him, but he would not let it overshadow his joy.

Just as Rhys started down the hallway the last door on the left creaked open, and Rhys could hear his heartbeat in his ears. The woman who exited the room did not have red hair or pale skin, but neither did that diminish his mood. Quite the opposite, really.

Laurita caught Rhys’ eye as she turned, staring wide-eye with shock. For a fleeting moment, Rhys thought he saw a tinge of sadness in her expression, accompanied by a slumping of her shoulders he could not understand. Her expression quickly altered, though, as a smile spread across her face. She rushed down the hall, throwing her arms around Rhys with a squeeze.

“Your here!” she said breathlessly, pulling back to look at him once more before giving him another hug. Rhys could not help but grin back at his friend. “I knew you were coming, but still…” Rhys saw it again, a flash of that same expression from before. Laurita still smiled but her jaw was tight, her eyes strained. She was holding back, but what Rhys did not know. “It’s good to see you.”

“Are you alright?” Rhys asked, holding Laurita out at arms length, looking her up and down. She seemed untouched, as far as Rhys could tell, but Rhys knew as well as her the miracles of a good mage’s healing. “I’d heard you…” Rhys trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

Laurita’s smile tightened once more, and this time Rhys could see it starting to falter. There were cracks in her sunny demeanor, cracks that grew with each word. Rhys was too afraid to ask, too afraid for what her story might imply.

“Rhys, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Rhys felt the happiness within him slip away at those words. “What’s going on?”

Laurita pressed her lips into a thin line, her eyes looking as though they were beginning to well with tears. “I should have told you some time ago, but I was too afraid of what you might do if you knew, and now things have got so out of control and I…” Laurita took in a sharp breath, glancing away. Rhys thought he saw her blinking away tears. “Jessa isn’t right, Rhys. She hasn’t been for some time, but especially not now.”

Rhys felt a sudden chill overtake him. “What do you mean, ‘not right’?”

“She’s been acting strangely - evasively - for weeks, maybe months. She wouldn’t talk to me when I proded. Any time I tried to ask about you she -”

Laurita’s words were cut short by the sound of another door opening, this one close on their right. Rhys glanced toward the door as a nondescript blond man poked his head out, looking bleary-eyed at Rhys and Laurita. He blinked a few times into the dim light, his eyes fixed on Rhys with suspicion. The man stared at him with a certain recognition, though as if he was still putting together the pieces.

“I heard voices,” the blond man said.

Laurita grabbed Rhys’ arm, trying to pull back his attention. “Rhys, I -”

“Rhys?”

It was the blond man who spoke this time. At the utterance of Rhys’ name, whatever puzzle the blond man had been assembling in his head was complete, for he now stared at Rhys with a look of utter discontempt.

“What are you doing here?”

The blond man approached now, having shut his door and fully come into the hallway. He stared at Rhys with anger brewing in his eyes, his whole body tense. All Rhys could do was stare back dumbfounded.

“Excuse me?”

“You have no right to be here.”

Rhys turned to Laurita who now had one hand pressed to her face, her eyes closed tight in frustration. “Do I know him?”

“No,” the man answered, “but I know about you. I know what you did to Jessa.”

Rhys could only stare at the strange blond man who was growing more red-faced by the second. He hardly knew how to respond to his unexpected aggression, nor did he particularly care to. “Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t really care, to be quite honest, but now is really not the time.”

As Rhys took a step forward the blond man took a step back, putting himself squarely in Rhys’ path. Rhys felt ire rise within himself. “Move.”

The blond man bristled, gritting his teeth. “You cannot see her - I won’t allow it.”

Rhys’ patience was wearing thin - quickly. He glanced down the hall, at the door to where Jessa would be. It no longer filled him with the same excitement, but with a building trepidation. He took another step only to find himself blocked yet again, the man standing resolute.

“Larend,” Laurita chided, warning in her voice. She took a step toward Rhys but neither Rhys nor this man named ‘Larend’ seemed to pay her any mind.

“I will not let you hurt her again,” Larend said. His voice wavered, but he stayed firmly planted, his face hardened. “You don’t deserve to see her ever again after what you’ve done. I will not let you lay a hand on her.”

Rhys needed to see Jessa - now. Every word that came from Larend’s mouth made Rhys want to slap the determination off his pretty face. Rhys strode forward until he was nearly face-to-face with Larend, watching as the man’s eyes quickly darted back toward Laurita. “I love Jessa, not that I need to explain myself to you of all people. I do not think you are in any position to tell me to do anything”

“That’s not love. You’re a monster - you and your family. You should be ashamed for even coming here. How -”

Rhys did not hear what else Larend had to say, for in that moment Rhys’ fist made contact with the left side of Larend’s face. Rhys felt a momentary jolt of pain run through his hand has he watched the man fall to the floor, letting out a whimper as he clutched at his face. His jaw would not be broken - Rhys had not hit with enough force for that - but it would leave a lovely bruise. More importantly, Larend was now out of the way.

“Rhys!” Laurita exclaimed from behind him, but Rhys was already stepping around Larend’s crumpled form, shaking out his hand. His thoughts were singularly focused. He saw nothing but the door before him, his blood rushing in his ears. What had Laurita meant by “acting strangely”? What was wrong with Jessa? A thousand possibilities ran through Rhys’ mind in an instant, but he did not entertain a single one. It was too late to contemplate now when he could see for himself. As Rhys approached the solid, wooden door, he prepared himself for the worst. He knocked twice, out of courtesy, and turned the handle.

The moment he opened the door, whatever fears he entertained dissipated in an instant. His stood stock still, his breath catching in his chest. In that one moment it was as if the past months were washed away, for Jessa was there in the flesh, as real as him. She appeared just as before; her long copper hair looked as though it was faintly glowing in the dim candlelight, her eyes somehow still bright in the darkness. Gods, she was beautiful. He took in the sight of her - so unbelievably real and present - and felt tears welling in the corners of his eyes. She sat on the edge of a bed, staring blankly ahead. It struck Rhys as odd, for her to look in such a way, but he was not of the mind to think on it. It took all his strength to speak through the tears he struggled to repress.

“Jessa.”

At her name Jessa stood, startled, as though she had not heard his knocks nor noticed his presence. She stared at him for a moment but her eyes did not seem to see him, not in the way they should. Suddenly her eyes fixed on him, and with a prolonged stare recognition hit. He heard a quick, low gasp, astonishment in her eyes.

“Rhys?”

He closed the space between them in an instant, pulling her tight against his chest. One arm encircled her waist, the other weaving through her hair to hold the back of her head. It was not until she was in his arms that he noticed things he had not seen from a distance. She was too thin, thinner than he remembered, her waist feeling small against his hand. Though he could feel the warmth of her body against his, her skin felt cool to the touch as he let his fingers graze the nape of her neck. Anger welled up inside him that she should be like this, but it mixed with terror at the thought of knowing the truth behind her state. In that moment Rhys could no longer hold in his tears and he let out a choked sob, kissing the top of her head.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered, his voice hoarse as he struggled to speak through the lump in his throat. A torrent of relief and fears and a love that threatened to burst from his chest clouded his mind, his every sense chaotic; so much so Rhys almost didn’t realize that Jessa’s arms were limp at her side.

He pulled back then, his hands sliding down her arms as he took her hands in his, her fingers icy to the touch. “What’s wrong?” He asked. His thumb rubbed over her knuckles, and in doing so found an unfamiliar silver ring on her finger. A wedding ring. The lump in his throat grew, and then, upon turning his eyes down to her hands, he nearly cried out at the sight. The skin around her ring was black, almost charred looking.

Rhys gaped, shock running down his spine. “Jessa, what happened to your hand?”

As he spoke Jessa flinched, her hands slipping from his grasp. She wrapped her arms around her waist, her body suddenly tense in a way it hadn’t been only moments ago. When Rhys found her eyes they were wide and confused, flecked with a fear he didn’t understand.

“I think you should go.” Her voice was small, so impossibly small, and it wavered with each word. Rhys’ hands - still outstretched - fell limply to his side.

“What? Jessa, I-”

Rhys did not miss the way Jessa flinched at his voice, her eyes scrunched up and her jaw held tightly. She looked nearly pained in every movement, though her eyes looked almost disoriented. Rhys’ skin prickled at the sight. Nothing about this was right.

“Go, please,” she said again. Her spoke with more clarity this time, but the strangeness of her every look, her eyes darting away, avoiding Rhys’ at all costs, every stilted movement - it was jarring. Unsettling. Rhys reached for her hands again desperately, trying to make some sense of what he saw, only for Jessa to flinch away once more, digging her fingers into her sides.

Rhys bit on his tongue, pushing back the strange, choked sound that came involuntarily to his lips. Each small twitch, each rejection Rhys could not understand hit him like a blow to the stomach, knocking his breath from him. He grasped at thoughts - something, anything - that might somehow right things, for as Jessa avoided his gaze, shrinking into herself, he could feel himself crumbling to dust.

“Jessa, please, I love you. I’m here. Tell me what’s wrong.”

The moment those words - I love you escaped his lips, he could see the effect hit Jessa just as her avoidance hit him - with an incredible force, leaving her wounded and barely shaking. She pressed her eyes closed hard, her face screwed up in concentration. What was she thinking? Rhys wished for a terrible moment that Nina were there to tell him, hating himself immediately to even wish for such an intrusion on Jessa’s mind. Yet Rhys’ world was senseless, and to see his every emotion laid out raw, only to be met with aversion, felt as though some small part of him had died.

His head throbbed, his heart beating erratic and hard as he fought with every ounce of strength he had left not to fall apart on the spot. When he could not stand it for a second more, Rhys followed Jessa’s request. He left.

The quiet in the hall outside beared down oppressively on him, leaving him alone with the thoughts he wanted nothing to do with. Laurita was there, leaning against the corner, her face tight with that same sadness he’d seen before. The moment she saw what Rhys knew would be clear to the world, his emotions too exposed to even attempt to hide, she hugged him tight, letting out a sigh. “I’m so sorry.”

Rhys did not know how long they stood like that, for all he could think of was the way his body trembled and his thoughts ran wild. There were tears on his cheeks he could not hold back, and his body shook with silent sobs. It seemed to take an age to bring his mind under some sensible control, his breathing returning to something resembling normalcy. When he’d calmed, Laurita led him silently down the stairs and down another hall, eventually pulling him into a dark kitchen. She lit the candles on the center of the table against the far wall, practically pushing Rhys into a bare wooden chair before fetching him a cup of water and thrusting it in his hands.


“I know you’d likely prefer wine right now, but this is all we have.”

Rhys stared at the cup in his hands without really seeing. All his tumultuous emotions had fizzled out, leaving him empty in a way he had not felt in a very long time. They sat in silence for some time, Rhys still piecing together his thoughts. It was in this silence that he heard footsteps in the hall, a moment later an unfamiliar face peering around the corner.

“I’ve been looking for you!” The man exclaimed, crossing the small distance to Laurita. He stood beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder as the other lightly laid atop her hand. “Are you feeling alright?” He spoke with such softness, each movement of his hands gingerly placed, that Rhys could not help but stare at Laurita. She smiled up at the man, placing her other hand on his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I’m fine, I promise. You can stop worrying.”

It was then that the unfamiliar man seemed to truly see Rhys. In that moment, Rhys too was able to size him up. The man was a good deal shorter than Rhys with dark hair and warm, tanned skin, though not as deep as Laurita’s. His jaw was square, the shape of his eyes distinctly foreign. He was certainly not Etrenian, though neither was he Novarian. Though Rhys felt with certainty he had never seen this man before, the man’s expression implied that feeling may not be mutual. He reminded Rhys much of the blond man - Larend - in the way Rhys felt himself being observed with a certain sense of recognition, but one in which all the pieces had not yet been placed. Something in this man’s eyes seemed to change, then, as he looked to Laurita with raised brows. With her nod, the man uttered a single “ah”.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Ah,” the man said again, looking suddenly uncomfortable as he met Rhys’ eye. “Uh, no, not exactly, but it’s funny you should ask, because I know something of you.”

“Oh?”

“I’m Ainesh Tremont - Jessa’s husband.”

Rhys could only sit in stunned silence. For all the time he’d thought of his marriage, worried sick at what sort of a man he might be, Rhys had never once thought that he may one day meet him face to face. Finding himself in the moment, he truly could not think of a single thing to say. He was too emotionally wrought to feel anything at all.

Ainesh shifted uncomfortably in place, waiting for some response that never came. “Well, this is awkward.”

And so it was. Or rather, it should have been. Instead, Rhys merely found himself confused. Ainesh’s hand still rested on Laurita’s shoulder, and they’d spoken with such fondness surely he could not be as horrible as Rhys had once imagined Jessa’s husband might be. Certainly, if he watched Laurita with such care, and Laurita so openly allowed it, there could be no thoughts for Jessa in his mind. Rhys was not sure how to feel, though there was something of an inkling of relief.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Ainesh said slowly. He had not looked away from Rhys for a moment, still studying him intently.

Rhys coughed, clearing his throat. “Neither am I.”

They stared at each other for a moment, a strange mutual understanding passing between them at the impossibility of their situation. Rhys would need to speak with Ainesh later, that much he was certain, but now he could not think of such things. His mind was very much elsewhere.

Ainesh turned to Laurita then, concern returning to his face. “I feel like I interrupted something.”

“Rhys just spoke with Jessa.” Laurita spoke so quietly Rhys almost missed the words.

Ainesh grimaced. “Oh.”

Rhys was at his wit’s end, his voice strained as he spoke.“Can someone please tell me what happened to her?”

Laurita swallowed hard. “Gods, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“The beginning is usually a good place.”

Laurita nodded, her fingernails absentmindedly scraping against the wood table. “It must have started before I ever came back, sometime just after you left to meet with my queen. I noticed it soon after returning. Any time you were mentioned she would get very strange, avoiding speaking about you, avoiding even saying your name. She wouldn’t respond to any questioning, always making up excuses or ignoring me entirely. It got bad for a while. We were barely speaking. I was so angry at her because I didn’t understand, and she must have been angry at me for not letting the subject die. Finally she told me. She believes you cheated on her, Rhys.”

Rhys’ stomach dropped. He felt ill at the thought. “That’s not true! You have to know that’s not true. I would never do that to her - please, you must believe me. I swear I-”

“Rhys,” Laurita said, laying her hand flat against the table, outstretched toward him. “I believe you. I do. Of course I took her seriously, but her story never made sense to me - it would have happened just when you left for the army, a time when you wouldn’t have even been here. But Rhys, you have to understand that she doesn't just believe this out of paranoid. She truly thinks she witnessed you kissing another woman with her own eyes. I don’t know how, though I of course have my suspicions,” her eyes darted to Ainesh.

“These last two weeks, though?” Rhys asked, afraid of the answers to the hundreds of questions he yearned not to ask. “Nayall told me Jessa has been missing for weeks, that you went missing last night as well. You have to know something about that.”

Rhys realized he had prodded at something Laurita would have likely rather left alone, for she winced at the mention of it, Ainesh’s hand tightening around her shoulder. “If it’s too much -”

“No.” Laurita shook her head, letting out a shaky breath. “You need to know. I assume Nayall told you what he knew up until last night? Ainesh and I were together last night. We heard the guards coming ahead of time, luckily, and I was able to disguise myself as a maid. Alrick had us brought to where he’d been keeping Jessa. We don’t know how long she’d been there - the entire two weeks, maybe. All I know is that when we got there Alrick threatened Ainesh and I, and when Jessa tried to speak up for us he…” Laurita swallowed, hesitating. “He tortured her.”

Bile rose in Rhys’ throat, his hand gripping the table with all his might. He had never known such fury like that which burned in him now, threatening to consume him from within. For that moment he thought not of his despair or heartbreak, but only of hatred, pure and unadulterated.

“He was in her mind, in her memories,” Laurita spoke slowly, pushing herself through words she herself did not want to say. “It’s hard to know exactly what happened - it all went so fast in the moment. All I remember was hearing him speak something of a memory involving you, of a kiss, maybe? Then it sounded as if he threatened to take away memories of you if she did not give away our secrets - everything he wanted to know. The next thing I know, Jessa refused. There was so much screaming, Rhys, and I couldn’t just sit there and watch. I tried to attack the king but I was thrown back. I hit my head hard. After that, I don’t remember anything until I awoke to find the king unconscious. That was when we escaped.”

Take away memories. Rhys balked at the very concept. It was not something he was aware could even be done, or how it would be done. But Rhys did not underestimate Alrick; if anyone could do it, it would be him. When the reality of that notion hit, Rhys let out a pained cry, pressing his hand to his mouth to stifle the sound. No. No, Jessa could not forget about him. That was not possible. He would not - could not - believe it.

“Did it work? What you said about the memories?” Rhys did not want the answer, but in his heart he knew it already. He knew how Jessa had acted before him. He now had context for the confusion, the reluctance, for every time when she pulled away. He knew it from the way Laurita stared at him with such sadness, and the way even Ainesh regarded him with a certain pity. Rhys wanted to scream.

“We don’t know everything, and we don’t know exactly what she does and doesn’t know” Laurita said, he voice breaking. Her face could not hide her terror. “We know enough to know things are bad, though. Her mind has been ripped apart, Rhys. Alrick didn’t just take away memories - her mind might be destroying them on its own.”

Rhys could not breath. It was as if the word had stopped; even his own heart seemed to have stopped. “Can it be stopped?”

This time it was Laurita who was holding back sobs. “I really hope so.”

[Mollianne]

He was there. He was gone.

He was Rhys. He was not.

She saw that dark room, heard the silence where there should be screams. She felt Rhys’ arms around her, squeezing the life out of her as she stood limp as a puppet. She saw Alrick at his shoulder, promising something unspeakable if she did not hurt him. She heard his voice in her head: Jessa, please, I love you.

A loud break brought her thoughts crashing back to the present. The room was empty save for the five beds with their sunken straw mattresses, so she looked down uncomprehendingly at her own feet. She must have stood on a loose floorboard, but she hadn’t realised she had moved. Then she looked up and realised she was by the boarded window. The last she knew, she had been by the bed and Rhys had…

She wasn’t sure what Rhys had been doing. Her memories were a tangled spider’s web; she didn’t know whether everything she had just remembered of Rhys had happened minutes ago, or whether it was just some – or even none – of it.

There was one thing she remembered, however. At some point, Rhys had not been Rhys. And she was quite sure a later Rhys had said he loved her. Was that Rhys real? Was any of this real? This room, her friends beyond that door – were they all an elaborate fantasy? Was this another of her father’s tricks? She might never have left his clutches at all. Her friends were imposters for all she knew.

And Rhys – what reason would the real Rhys have to say he loved her? But then, what reason did the fake Rhys have? He had always maintained that Jessa meant nothing; why the change of tactic?

Because it wasn’t working, a dark part of her said.

Because it isn’t the king, said the part of her that desperately wanted her to be safe. But if it wasn’t the king, then she could only conclude that it was real. Rhys was here despite everything she had known since seeing him in that alleyway. She couldn’t reconcile the man she had seen kissing another woman only days after the divorce and the man who had claimed he loved her despite it. She had nothing to give him. There was nothing chaining them to one another; he did not need her to quell any feelings of loneliness when he was free to love anyone.

She knew the Rhys she had seen in her prison was fake, then it stood to reason that all versions of Rhys she had seen in the castle were fake too. That meant they had been spouting what Alrick wanted her to hear, painting Rhys to be a villain more sinister than he was.

Rhys had cheated on her – that, she could not ignore nor deny. But perhaps he still felt a kind of duty to her, something he had decided was love out of necessary and could not break the habit now they were not married. Other flashes of memory joined that alleyway – Rhys and Selene locked in a passionate embrace, Rhys and Niraya holding hands and kissing on a rooftop. Rhys had been doing it all along. He had given her the only kind of love he could: one of necessity, an afterthought. Was she worth anything else?

It was not a question she could answer, but she knew she didn’t want to be. And, really, that was that mattered. She wanted more than Rhys could give her.

And, of course, there was still the chance that this was all just another trick.

“Jessa?”

She started, looking up from the folds of her dress, and realised she was sitting on the floor. As she sat back, a snarl of her hair caught in the splintered wooden slat beneath the window. Her arms, which hugged her knees over the folds of her destroyed dress, fell limply to the cold floor. She whispered, “Are you real?”

Jessa wasn’t sure Laurita had heard her. She watched as her friend closed the door with a quiet snick. Her hair curled around her chin and dropped only to barely graze her shoulders. Hadn’t it always flowed down her back like a black waterfall, almost as long as Jessa’s? When Laurita turned, Jessa saw her dull brown eyes. The spark, which had prevailed even after everything with Odaren, was gone. Jessa could see it in the way Laurita seemed to drag herself across the room and collapsed in front of her. Cool fingers reached for her own. Jessa didn’t move away, but she did stare at them. It was safer looking at Laurita’s hand. Her hand looked like Laurita; her face did not.

“I’m real, Jessa,” Laurita said. She did not ask any questions, though the confusion was plain in her tone.

Jessa shook her head, jerking her fingers back from Laurita’s and burying her hands in the folds of her dress. Screams filled her ears. When they quieted, leaving her ears ringing, she breathed, “I’m still there. This isn’t… it isn’t…”

Laurita’s hands found hers, gripping her tightly. She was an anchor to Jessa’s body tossing in the waves. Jessa focused on Laurita’s shimmering form until the world stopped spinning and Laurita no longer looked like jelly.

“Jessa,” Laurita said, tugging on her hand, “you’re with me. You’re here, you’re safe.”

“I don’t… how can I… he’s not here. He can’t be here.”

“Who, Jessa? The king isn’t here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

She laughed at the absurdity of it, feeling Laurita’s flinch through their clasped hands. Jessa knew enough of her own mind. She could feel the tender, gaping wounds that, if she fell into, would swallow her whole. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that she was broken, that she was not herself and would never be again. Her father would be hurting her for the rest of her life.

“Not him.” She gestured at the door. She tried to say his name and failed, instead emphasizing, “Him.”

Laurita whipped her head around as though someone stood at the door. When she turned, understanding flooded her eyes. “He’s here, Jessa. I tried to tell you he was coming before… before.”

“The king captured him.”

No, that wasn’t right.

“That was months ago.” Laurita echoed Jessa’s thoughts.

“It was too easy,” Jessa whispered, her thoughts skipping like stones on the rippling surface of a murky lake.

“What was too easy?” she heard Laurita ask, but whether or not Jessa replied she did not know.

They should not have escaped, not without encountering guards or magic or something. At the time, she had trusted Ainesh’s skills and that the servants had been planning such a getaway for awhile. But now, in this dusty, lifeless room she saw just another prison. An illusion. Everyone she had seen – Laurita, Larend, the Tremonts, Rhys – were illusions. Either her mind had truly and she had created this fantasy of safety herself, or Alrick was trying a new angle. Because this? There was no way it was real. Not after weeks of terror and darkness. That couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be over.

Distantly, Jessa felt a pressure on her hand, the brush of lips on her forehead. When she opened her eyes, she was alone.

***

Though the door creaked open with barely a breath, Jessa jolted awake instantly. Her gaze fixed on the door, bracing herself for Alrick's wide silhouette. But the person illuminated by the flickering candle cupped in leathery hands was not the king. Lady Tremont, resplendent in a deep purple cloak lined with brilliantly white feathers despite the squalor of the safe house, stepped into the room. She kept her head held high as she strode into the room. Her hair was coiffed into a tight chignon; not a strand was out of place. Of course Lady Tremont would care enough to make sure she was presentable even in these dire circumstances.

Or... or that was what Alrick wanted her to think. Jessa looked over the woman's shoulder, expecting to find her father's shadow looming in the corridor. There was nothing.

"Oh my, you need a bath." Lady Tremont scrunched up her nose. "And you're still wearing those old rags!"

Jessa, who had apparently fallen asleep on top of the thin cloth that counted as a blanket, shied away from Lady Tremont. There wasn't really anywhere to which she could escape however, and Lady Tremont caught the hem of Jessa's once-white dress with long, deft fingers. "It's torn to pieces! This will not do. You will feel much better if you are clean."

Jessa doubted very much that that was true. Still, she allowed Lady Tremont to potter out of the room, clapping for someone to help – the gods forbid a lady get her hands dirty. Jessa eyed the bucket of water that was brought in dubiously, but she did not complain as she was ordered to strip – covering her breasts and groin despite Lady Tremont’s tsking and eye rolls. “You know how many times I’ve seen a naked body? Do you think I care?”

Jessa didn’t have time to respond before the water was dumped over her head. She gasped as the iciness over her skin. The woman who had done it threw her a sheepish smile before taking a rag and a thin, grainy bar of soap and reaching for Jessa. Before she could do anything, Jessa held out her hand. “Thank you, but I can do it. I’m sure you have better things to be doing.”

The woman looked between Jessa and Lady Tremont, shrugged, and left. Jessa glanced at the old woman. “I’ll call you in when I’m done.”

Lady Tremont rolled her eyes as she left the room. Jessa made quick work of scrubbing the grime from her skin. She had grown so used to the dark grey grittiness of her arms that she was actually surprised to see her pale peach skin underneath. The room and Jessa’s mind were blissfully quiet, the slide of the soap lulling her into a rhythmic trance. It was nice, not thinking.

Her hair clung to her back, dripping water that tickled her skin, when she called Lady Tremont back in. The old woman was not alone. Laurita followed her in, a small smirk lighting up her face though it did not truly meet her eyes. “Her ladyship suggested I give you something to wear.”

“Where’s my dress?” Jessa asked warily, following Laurita with her eyes as she stopped next to a small trunk and flicked it open.

“It’ll be used for rags,” Lady Tremont said with a dismissive wave.

“Ah, this will do,” Laurita said, shaking out a light green dress from the depths of the trunk. She handed it to Jessa, along with some undergarments. Preferring it to being naked, Jessa slunk into the dress without inspecting it properly. Cold air pressed on her back.

“This is-”

“Beautiful?” Laurita asked sweetly. Jessa tugged at the gold strap that passed across her collarbone, feeling the gaps between the layers of folded green fabric connected to the strap and threw Laurita a glare. “Come on, Jessa, it barely shows your cleavage. I could have given you much worse.”

Honestly, despite the unnerving emptiness all down her back, Jessa didn’t really care. Who was to see her anyway? Laurita and Lady Tremont she could easily handle. And Lady Tremont had been right; it was better than wearing her torn linen dress. It had begun to itch, and it reminded her too easily of her captivity.

Laurita was still smirking as Jessa retreated to her bed, pressing her back to the wall despite the splintered wood. Jessa wondered if this was meant to be another form of torture. It was rather banal for Alrick, but she wouldn’t put anything past him.

The shrieking scrape of wood on stone brought her back into the room. Laurita was pulling over two spindly chairs. She slumped into one, while Lady Tremont gracefully lowered herself into the other. The two shared a glance, and then Laurita started to talk. She told Jessa of the comings and goings of the past day, she shared her still-growing worries about her brother who had been silent and submissive ever since Jessa had visited a few weeks before. Then, as if she could bear to talk of him no longer, Laurita swiftly steered the conversation to Ainesh, laughing – an almost empty sound – as she regaled Jessa with his attempts at lightening the atmosphere amongst the mages gathered in the safe house. Ainesh was up to his usual tricks, stealing all manner of trinkets from everyone and returning them with a flourish and a wink.

Through it all, Lady Tremont simply stared straight ahead, at a point just above Jessa’s shoulder. It was only when she felt a tingling in her head that she realised what was happening. Laurita was distracting her.

She whispered, “Get out of my head,” but the prickling did not cease. Louder, she snapped, “Get out!”

“Jessa!” Laurita gasped. She leaned forward, reaching futilely for Jessa’s hand. Softer, she said, “We need to know what’s wrong, so we can help you.”

“Yes, help me, I’m sure.” She knew that slithering intruder in her head. She knew him. Had he not done everything he could already to break her mind? What was left?

“You’re tearing yourself apart, Jessa. Oleg was right.” Lady Tremont had turned, talking more to Laurita than Jessa. “There are gaping holes in her memory. Too many for me to really comprehend. I saw her memories before, so maybe I could place some of what’s missing, but honestly, a lifetime of someone else’s memories is too much for one person to know. My magic knows it, but that doesn’t mean I can recall it all. So no, before you ask, I can’t replace what she’s lost.”

“People live with amnesia, though,” Laurita said. “This is… different.”

“Well…” Lady Tremont looked down at her hands. Was she… uncomfortable? Surely not. “That might be partially my fault. The pseudo-memories Jessa and I created to keep King Alrick from finding the mind block and breaking it… well, she can’t separate what is real and what’s not anymore. All she and her magic sees are holes in her memories and a whole lot of other memories waiting to fill the gap. She’s trying to make them fit, but of course nothing can replace what is lost. After a while, she rejects it. And destroys the memory.”

“You’re not just talking about the pseudo-memories.”

“She doesn’t know the difference, so no. She’s trying whatever looks like might make everything make sense again.”

Laurita bit her lip. “You said you thought removing the pseudo-memories could help.”

“It still might. I really don’t know. At the moment she’s got so many more memories in her head than she should have. If we take out the pseudo-memories, then maybe she’ll be able to make sense of what is left without trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, so to speak. She’ll be able to follow what remains in a logical order and accept that she has truly lost some memories.”

A weighty silence filled the air. Jessa brought her knees up to her chest. Her thoughts swirled, and she could barely make sense of what Lady Tremont was saying beyond this: the woman wanted to enter her head again. The notion beat in her skull in time with the pump of her heart.

“Can you remove the pseudo-memories without…?”

“I’ll have a better idea than anyone else would. My magic made them.” Lady Tremont sighed. “But no. I can’t promise that some real memories won’t get caught in the crossfire, though real memories would be far harder to remove so I should notice with reasonable ease. But… I can’t promise that it won’t hurt, especially as she’s trying to make the pseudo-memories real too.”

“It hurt him – when he destroyed her memories. It would hurt you, too.”

Jessa flicked her gaze between Laurita and Lady Tremont. The old woman nodded slowly. Her expression remained calm. “That is true. And this is not easy magic. To create the pseudo-memories, Jessa and I shared a rather large meal together. We do not have that luxury here. I won’t be able to do much before I’m entirely drained.” She chuckled. “I’m not as young as I once was.”

Laurita smiled tightly, then looked at Jessa. “Jessa? We just want to help you. Will you let us?”

Lady Tremont leaned forward. “I won’t do anything without your permission, Jessa. I told you that then, and I tell you that now.”

Jessa’s head spun. Was this real, or was this Alrick tricking her? The room began to spin too, objects and the women in front of her losing definition until they were merely swirling colours. It hurt to be. It hurt to think. Jessa hated it, feeling herself, feeling her intelligence slip through her fingers. Did it really matter, in the end? Either this was real and they would give Jessa back to herself, or it was Alrick and he would take whatever was left of her away. In both scenarios, she would no longer feel the confusion threatening to break her. Jessa had always hated not knowing things. If she must lose the only thing she had ever prided herself on – her brain – it would be better to lose it fast.

She found herself nodding, heard the sighs as the tension in the air gave way.

And then she was inside herself, bracing herself for the intrusion. Her magic sprang forth at the first sign of the new presence, and Jessa scrambled to hold it back. It struggled against her grip, but she refused to let go. No, we don’t fight.

Her memories withdrew from the tornado inside her, drifting towards the shadowy presence on the fringes of her mind. At first, she felt a mere prickling in her skull as the other’s magic sifted through the memories, casting some aside seemingly at random. They blinked out of existence, and with each one, a sigh echoed through Jessa’s mind as a tension she had not known was there seemed to loosen.

More memories flashed past her as they were caught up in the storm beginning to form around the other presence. It grew and grew until it was all Jessa could see, all she could feel. And then she was within it, standing right by the other magic, seeing what they were seeing. She saw each memory as it was pulled from the storm, analysed, and cast aside. Some winked out of existence. Jessa’s magic squirmed.

She saw a flash of red hair and reacted. It might have been her, but all Jessa could think was of her mother. She couldn’t lose her – she refused. She lunged at the memory and let her magic loose. Almost simultaneously, a pressure in her head tore free. Her skull seemed to rattle. She screamed.

Not again, not again. She couldn’t. Anything but the torture.

“Stop!” a guttural shriek came from beyond Jessa’s head. It was not Jessa’s voice, but it was familiar, and it was broken. “Lady Tremont, break out of it, please!”

Jessa felt the scratchy hemp blanket curl in her hands as she contorted with the pain. Her magic ran rampant through her, trying to purge the unfamiliar presence from her mind and bring all her memories back towards safety. Hot tears trailed down Jessa’s cheeks as she thrashed and cried out. Her head flung back against the wall.

And everything went still. Quiet, but for gasping breaths. Between the breaths, someone spoke.

“Oh Gods.”

For a while, Jessa felt nothing. Awareness came to her slowly. The mattress against her ear. Sweat coating her arms. Her head, ringing and aching as if a lump of stone had been dropped onto her. She cracked open an eye. She heard the murmur of concerned chatter, saw formless shapes huddled around a dark purple form lying prone on the floor. She watched idly as the form was lifted into the air and taken from the room.

A face swam in her vision. She closed her eyes. “Go away. Don’t hurt me anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Jessa.” She didn’t recognise the voice. It warped in her head, becoming deeper, dark as a starless night. “We just needed to do something. And now-”

“Just kill me,” she whimpered. “Please stop doing this.”

“That’s the last thing we want. Jessa, please, can you open your eyes?”

She shook her head, burrowing into the blanket. “You keep saying that. But you keep hurting me. Just let me die. Let my friends go, and let me die.”

“Jessa, it’s me. Laurita.”

“No, no.” Her hands curled tighter around the blanket. “You’re not real. You wouldn’t do this to me.”

“We don’t want to, but we can’t leave you like this. But we are real.” The mattress depressed as someone sat down and gently pulled Jessa up. “Look at me.”

Jessa felt the order reverberate through her skull. She opened her eyes, looking into Laurita’s guilty face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you.” Revulsion shivered through Jessa’s veins as she realised what the woman in front of her meant.

“Laurita wouldn’t. You’re not her. Stop this now, please. I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop this.” She was talking to the ceiling now, as if Alrick watched her from above.

Cold fingers pulled her face back down, holding firm even as she squirmed. “Jessa, I’m real. Lady Tremont is real. This place is real. He doesn’t have you. I promise you, you’re safe. All of this is real.”

Jessa shook her head.

“Is there anything I can say that will make you believe me?” Desperation clung to the woman’s every word, as tightly as the fingers on Jessa’s chin. “I can tell you something, something only I would know.”

“He’ll have seen her mind. He knows everything.” Something prickled at Jessa’s memory. She squeezed her eyes shut, barking at the woman when she tried to speak. She needed to think. There was something. Something he didn’t know. What… what was it?

“Rhys,” she breathed. “I need to speak to Rhys.”

A stunned silence filled the room, the same silence after the loud bang of a drum. “You… want to see Rhys?”

She shook her head. She remembered the silence – and the wrongness of it – after she had been forced to torture “Rhys”. Rhys aversion to magic was the only thing she could be sure Alrick didn’t know. “I don’t want to see him – I need to.”

[Rosabeth]

“What?”

They exclaimed such perfect unison, both gaping at Rhys in disbelief. What separated their reactions was Victor’s evident concern contrasted by Anja’s evident frustration. She swore under her breath, turning toward the far wall. Thunk. The dagger embedded itself in the wood paneling, adding to the growing collection of cuts marking its surface. Rhys had noticed his sister’s new source of entertainment as soon as he’d entered the manor, having nearly walked in the blade’s path. Rhys shrugged it off; Anja’s aggression finding a non-human target was always a preferable alternative.

“I don’t…get it,” Victor said lamely, slumping down in the chair across from Rhys. He looked as lost as Rhys felt. “I just don’t understand why he’d do this – any of it. I’m hardly defending him, but at the end of the day Jessa is his daughter. How do you do something like this to someone you love?”

You don’t, Rhys thought, though he said nothing. It was the same question Rhys could not wrap his head around. That Alrick was soulless, cruel, and unrepentant was hardly a question, but to his own flesh and blood? When he looked upon Jessa, did he see neither the child she once was, nor the reflection of her mother in her face, a woman who – at the very least – he must have felt some fondness for? Rhys was not sure what was worse – that such a man could disassociate from his own child, or that he could hurt her regardless.

They listened to the deep thud of metal against wood again and again, nearly rhythmic in its repetition. “What are you going to do?” Victor asked.

Rhys’ sigh came in time with the next strike of the blade. It was fitting, really. His thoughts and fears felt much knives lodged in his chest, cutting deeper with each breath. “Hope. Try. Do what I came here to do.”

“She’ll be ok, Rhys. I’m sure of it.”

It was a bold-faced lie, but it comforted none the less. Rhys pulled the best smile he could muster, which was to say one that hardly inspired confidence. He ran his sleeve against his burning, reddened eyes. It came away wet. If Victor had noticed, he politely stayed silent as Rhys rubbed against his eyes. When had he become like this, unraveling at the seams? It was not he who’d had his mind ravaged, holes burned haphazardly in his memory. It was not he who’d been alone. It was his responsibility to find the strength to endure this, to bear these blows with stoicism, for if not him then who? He must weather this storm; he had no choice.

Rhys stood quickly, moving to the bookcase on the far wall. He glanced absentmindedly over the books, using the moment to compose himself, and shamefully to hide his face from Victor. The exercise did what it needed, for as his eyes scanned the titles of a number of dull old books he found his breath once again, the burning in his eyes subsided. It was just as he found himself prepared to face his friend once more that a certain book caught his eye. It was hardly anything out of the ordinary, it’s tan binding and worn lettering blending into the other volumes. It was the title that had caught Rhys’ attention, withdrawing him from the moment – “The Early Years of the Barichene Wars: A Collection of First-Person Accounts.” He ran his finger along the spine, pulling the book from the shelf in a bewildered daze. He knew this book. Not personally, of course, but he remembered its name. Jessa had spoken of it before, of it being one of the best existing primary sources for the wars. He remembered the delight in her voice as she’d described its contents to him, her passion palpable. Maybe…Rhys’ thoughts trailed off, entertaining the improbability of the notion that a book could change anything. It was ludicrous, of course, but Rhys couldn’t help but take some heart in it. He gripped the book tightly, pausing a moment before slipping it into his jacket.

“I need your help,” Rhys said finally, turning back to Victor with a clear mind. “I imagine we’ll be here some time. Go into town and see what supplies and food you can find.” Rhys placed a pouch of courenes in Victor’s hand. “Hunt, if need be. I’ll try to be back tonight but I can’t make any promises.”

Some sliver of consciousness in the back of his mind alerted Rhys to the fact that the distant thudding had stopped a moment before Anja’s face appeared at his shoulder, his heart racing in surprise.

“You’re leaving again?” Her eyes narrowed, her voice full of disapproval.

“I’m bringing Nina to Nayall. He could use someone with her skills.”

“And what about Miriyam?”

“That’s what I need you for. You know how to get in touch with our contacts.”

“Yeah, what’s left of them,” Anja muttered under her breath. Rhys didn’t dignify her jab with a response.

“We know Miriyam is here but we don’t know where, or what she might look like, but someone has to know. Ask around for any information you can dig up – southern nobles who are acting strangely, newcomers who aren’t widely recognized or who everyone seems to accept but no one knows why. She may be able to change her face but she can’t hide entirely, not if she wants any contact with the nobility.”

Though Anja looked as though she might argue she kept her lips pressed shut, fighting back what Rhys was certain to be another allusion to Jessa’s betrayal of the blood book. That she was keeping quiet was something, though Rhys wasn’t sure he liked it. He would take Anja’s criticisms over her pity any day.

“Rhys, I didn’t come all this way to sit in this house all day waiting on your whims,” she said finally through tight lips.

“Well I didn’t come here expecting to find Jessa had been tortured, or that her mind is tearing itself apart, or that she won’t even touch me or look at me. I suppose we’re both playing it by ear, aren’t we?”

Even Anja, in all her haughtiness, had the sense to back down.

“I know it’s not easy,” Rhys said, “but we don’t have a lot of options right now. I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know,” Anja replied with a sigh. She turned, throwing the knife in her hand haphazardly into the distance. Victor jolted as it whistled past his head, lodging itself in a recently-righted bookcase. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.”

Anja shrugged. “Just…when you get all wrapped up in the disaster that’s your ex-wife, don’t forget about the fact that we’re here too.”

It was uncouth, but for Anja it was as close as Rhys could expect to an indication of her worry. Rhys squeezed his sister’s shoulder before she deftly shrugged out of his affection. “I won’t. I promise.”

***

It was a very long walk. In the daylight the trek from the manor to the nearby village offered the pleasant distraction of the springtime foliage, even if the oppressive rain kept their heads bowed, the hoods of their cloaks drawn up. The tunnel into Ovis offered no such distractions. Rhys and Nina each held a torch aloft as they made their way through the tunnels, their footsteps echoing in the cavern. They’d barely said a word between them except to exchange general remarks about the rain and clouds. Neither of them seemed to much mind the silence; Rhys had plenty to occupy his thoughts. Yet as their travel dragged on, Rhys felt a nagging question at the back of his mind, one he’d thought a good deal on during their long ride through Etrene but that had become lost in the recesses of his mind ever since. The question begged for an answer.

“Nina, can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask but I don’t have to answer.”

Rhys ignored the girl’s evasiveness. “Why did you really want to come here?”

Though Rhys did not turn to catch Nina’s face, he could feel a heaviness in the air. Nina cleared her throat. “You need a mage,” she said simply. “Besides, you know I have history with Miriyam. I can be useful there.”

“You’d risk your life to be useful?” Rhys asked. He was glad for the darkness of the tunnel so that Nina could not see the incredulousness clear on his face. “No offense, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that.”

“I helped with Tristan, didn’t I? That was risky.”

“The mage ring is a risk to all mages. You had a reason to have some personal stake in that. You don’t with Miriyam. What do you care who she hurts in Ovis?”

“Her ambitions are just as bad for people like me as are the king’s. She’s dangerous too.”

“Not to you directly; not if you stayed in Jasrah.”

Nina had no immediate response to that. Rhys took it as a small victory. He pushed further. “What did Miriyam do to you?”

“Nothing! Nothing more than what I already told you. I left before she could do anything.” Nina’s voice rose as she spoke, growing louder and higher with each sentence. “Look, is it really that hard to believe that I might just be trying to do the right thing? That I might want to make some…atonement for helping her?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Rhys sighed. “I just think there’s more to it.”

“Why do you think there’s more to it?”

“Because you’re sixteen, Nina! Look, I was sixteen once too – I know you’re not always rational.” Rhys could practically feel the glare coming from the darkness. “But I also know that sixteen-year-olds with families they care about don’t run off to put themselves in danger like this. What about your mother? The people in Jasrah who’ve been looking after you? Don’t they matter to you?”

“I told you my mother isn’t coming back anytime soon.”

“You don’t know that. You’re still a child! Your mother wouldn’t leave you for long.”

“Don’t call me a child!” Nina snapped. Her echo carried long after she quieted, bringing the conversation to a sudden halt. When the echo cleared and the two of them once more grasped at their composure, Nina let out an exasperated huff.

“Fine. Do you want to know the truth? My mother’s not coming back because she’s dead. Happy?”

Rhys felt as though he throat had closed up, a waves of horror and embarrassment washing over him.

“Oh, so now you don’t have any more questions,” Nina muttered bitterly.

“But you said…”

“That my mother was in Antascia selling her art? It wasn’t entirely a lie. She had planned on going, but I was supposed to accompany her. She had a bad feeling about this war, especially with Jasrah being so close to Novamor. She wanted to get us out while we still could. We were planning on riding out the war in Antascia; we didn’t really plan much further ahead than a few months at a time. This was about the time that I first ran in with Miriyam. I didn’t tell my mother about it, of course. But she knew enough to know that I was out late, coming home in the middle of the night and spending all my time with people I wouldn’t tell her about. She started preparing for us to leave seriously then. She just wanted an excuse to get me out of the city, to get me away with whatever I was involved in. Then, things took a turn for the worse.”

Nina stepped forward to walk beside Rhys, their torches casting a wide glow before them. “Eventually Miriyam started asking me to do thinks I wasn’t comfortable with. My mind reading wasn’t just used for finding people that would be “sympathetic to her cause” – which I now realize just meant more mages she could manipulate or non-mages who she could use as fodder. She wanted me to use my abilities to find people who were having doubts about her, or who were thinking a little too much for themselves. I realized where that was going pretty quickly. One day I just stopped showing up. The next day she appeared at my house. I tried to play it off as though I’d just been busy, to not give anything away, but she’s good at coercing you into saying things you don’t want to say. When I told her I didn’t want to associate with her anymore she just…left. I think that was the scariest moment of it all, watching her walk away, because I knew then I’d made a horrible choice.

“Something I knew about Miriyam from taking peeks into her mind when I could was that she preferred to hurt people by proxy. It’s sick, but I think she found emotional suffering far more satisfying than hurting someone physically. When my mother never came home that evening I worried – when she didn’t come home for three days I panicked. I knew it then in my gut, but it wasn’t until the fifth day when I found a pouch containing my mother’s ring in it on my doorstep when I knew for certain. Miriyam killed my mother to punish me. Lying about where she’d gone was easier than having to take everyone’s pity for being an orphan.”

Rhys floundered, reaching out as though to gently press a hand to her shoulder in some sort of comfort before withdrawing it, thinking better of the gesture. The lump in his throat had only grown, his chest squeezing as his mind ran over Nina’s words again and again. He didn’t need any convincing to believe the story she’d weaved, for he’d lived the most painful parts of it. He could still feel the blood wet on his hands, caked into the clothes he’d burned rather than washed. He felt the weight of his brother’s body slung over his back. His mother’s screams still rang in his ears at night. He knew what it meant to have those around you punished for your choices.

“I’m so sorry, Nina,” Rhys whispered.

“Yeah, well, now you know.” Her words were curt, her voice choked up. She coughed again, twice, though to Rhys it sounded something like a broken sob. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you really handing me off to this Nayall and leaving it at that, or are you going to let me finish what we both came here to do?”

Rhys swallowed, looking straight forward. “I have a plan.”

***

The woman at the safe house to whom Rhys had been instructed to deliver Nina certain took interest in the spindly, towering girl with wild blonde curls flattened in the rain. She waved Rhys off, pulled Nina aside as she began speaking animatedly about a number of things which meant very little to someone without an ounce of magic in their body. Nina shot Rhys a meaningful look before he left, one that hinted at an unspoken promise between them, and the anger most certainly to be directed at Rhys should he break it.

The safe house was far more lively in the daytime, if lively was a word one could truly use to describe a place such as this. People weaved in and out of rooms at a dizzying pace, brushing up against one another in the cramped conditions. Very few gave Rhys more than a cursory glance. To them, he assumed, he was yet another mage here to take shelter. There was no sight of the blond man – Larend, Rhys remembered – and Rhys did not give wondering about the state of the man’s face more than a moment’s thought.

He was in the midst of looking for Laurita when her familiar face appeared from around a corner, her eyebrows shooting up at the sight of Rhys.

“Oh good, you’re here.”

Rhys did not attempt to hide his surprise. After the previous night he had hardly expected his presence to bring any amount of relief. Laurita grabbed Rhys’ arms, pulling him to the side of the hall as she meet his eyes. “I’m about to tell you something that’s going to surprise you and I need you to promise me you’re not going to get your hopes up.”

Rhys could only stare, his mind a thousand places at once, running through numerous scenarios that could not possibly be true. Laurita let out an exasperated groan. “Can you stop thinking about this and just promise me?”

“Fine, I promise,” said Rhys.

Rhys could see Laurita biting the inside of her cheek, looking around as she took a moment to compose her thoughts. When she fixed her eyes on Rhys once more she held him more tightly. “Jessa asked to see you. As in, as soon as you can.”

Rhys’ promise was broken in that instant.

“Rhys,” Laurita chided, seeing every bit of Rhys’ rising hope in his wide eyes. He was almost certain he could hear her heartbeat, for he felt as though it must be thundering.

“You can’t say something like that and expect me to not get ideas.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know how else to introduce it. Jessa is...well, you already know what she’s like, but it’s stranger now. She seems to think that we’re all fake, that this is all some illusion her father is making her see. I don’t like what that implies about what she’s seen in the past,” Laurita said darkly, her eyes briefly glancing away. “Either way, for some reason she seems to think you can…answer that question, I suppose. She won’t explain it to me further, presumably because she thinks if she tells me and that I’m really a figment of her father’s illusion that I’ll use that against her? Ugh, I don’t know.”

Though Rhys tried his best to listen to each of Laurita’s words, his effort was woefully inadequate. He’d had no great hopes of seeing Jessa again so soon, not after her rejection. He could feel his face flushing as his heart raced, his mind almost painfully alive with enough feeling he felt it might bow him over. Laurita could see all of this plainly, but she seemed resigned that there was little she could do, that Rhys’ suffering was his to take.

Laurita led Rhys once more to Jessa’s room, but this time she wedged herself between Rhys and the door, grabbing Rhys by the front of his shirt. “I know you’re excited – I get it, I do – but please don’t do anything that will make things worse.” Rhys frowned at the insinuation, though he offered no defense. “We’re already walking on eggshells around her and I’d rather not be taking any steps backward in whatever progress we’re making. Please? Just…let her lead. I know you mean well, Rhys, and Gods I wish she could see that, but we have to take what we can get right now.”

She waited a moment in silence, observing to see if Rhys had internalized her words of warning. Whether she was satisfied with his response Rhys could not be sure, but eventually she stepped away from the door, pressing her back against the nearby wall with a sigh, biting her thumbnail.

The moment Rhys pressed open the door for the second time felt much different from the first, and yet the instant he set eyes on Jessa took his breath away all the same. After everything they’d been through, he was not certain that seeing her would ever warrant a lesser response. It was in this second look, so much more careful that the first, that it truly hit Rhys the state in which Jessa was in. With her ragged, dirtied dress and tangled hair, the thinness of her body had felt somewhat more understandable. It was the appearance of someone who’d been through a great ordeal, who still claimed the physical appearance to prove it. Now, as Rhys stared at Jessa, clean and dressed in a fine green gown Rhys knew at first look could only be something of Laurita’s, did her appearance feel so very jarring. Through the cutouts in the dress’ neckline Rhys could clearly see Jessa’s pronounced collarbones, emphasizing further the sharper angles of her body.

Rhys tried not to stare, though this proved to be a rather difficult exercise for Jessa’s eyes were on him as well, watching him cautiously. He could see her muscles tense as he inched closer into the room, as though she might jump should he get to close. He swallowed hard, trying to hide the way in which each of her flinches and wary looks drove a knife into his heart. Slowly, Rhys made his way to the bed across from Jessa’s, sinking into the thin mattress. He clasped his hands in his lap, his fingers running over his wedding ring again and again, the cool metal providing something tangible to hold onto, something that felt real and not like this nightmare he’d been thrown into unprepared. When Rhys looked up from his lap into Jessa’s eyes, he could only manage to say one thing.

"Hello, again."

[Mollianne]

It felt at once as if all the air had been sucked from the room, leaving her with only a thin straw to gasp in precious oxygen. She stared at the bed on which Rhys sat, transfixed by a point just below his knee. How did one respond to such a greeting? She couldn’t respond in kind; hello was too casual for everything that had happened between them. How could he... what was he even doing here in Ovis?

Jessa pressed a hand to her forehead. No, this was not the time. This meeting was not about them, not about her pain. Not when she could hear her father’s voice in her head, in her dreams, everywhere, whispering, whispering, whispering. Her fists clenched around the blanket, pulling it out of place from when she had made the bed for something to do with her jangling nerves. She needed to focus. Her mind was a blur, dissolving and reforming in a dizzying whirl. She stared harder at that place below Rhys’ knee, willing it to ground her.

The cacophony in her head quieted.

Her knuckles going white from clutching the bedspread, Jessa forced herself to look at Rhys’ face. She couldn’t look him in the eye, but it was important to see his reaction to her questioning. Words could be fabricated, but she could hope there would be something in his look that would tell her the truth.

“Would you let me use magic on you right now?” With her words, the air rushed back into the room. She watched Rhys as his brows knit in confusion. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand move, worrying at and twisting one of the fingers of his left hand. He seemed not to even notice he was doing it.

“Yes,” he said. Besides the confusion, there was no hesitation in his voice. No question. For a moment, Jessa was quite lost for words. Then, like a shelf of books tumbling onto her head, Rhys’ answer truly sunk in. Her heart pounded against her ribcage. If he wouldn’t hesitate, if he’d just let her use magic, he couldn’t know. He couldn’t be Rhys.

“But I…” he said, trailing off as if he had lost the words.

Everything drew to a halt. She hoped, desperately, that his next words would tell her she was wrong. That she wasn’t still in Alrick’s clutches. That this safety wasn’t an illusion.

“Well, whatever it is you want to do might not work.” He seemed to struggle to find the words. With a sigh, he leaned forwards. In the same motion, he rolled up his left sleeve, revealing a thin white line criss-crossed with dark thread. Halfway up, a shadow poked through his pale skin. Jessa frowned, her bottom lip jutting forwards in confused contemplation. What was that?

“It’s like a blood amulet,” Rhys said, answering her unasked question, “only…” He gestured lamely at the scar. Jessa’s mind buzzed with questions, but she didn’t have the voice to ask any of them. The idea of talking with Rhys, as though nothing had happened? It was unthinkable.

“Why?” she finally bit out.

Rhys shrugged, pulling his sleeve back down. Something on his right hand caught the light, but by the time Jessa tried to focus on it, his hands were back in his lap and she could not see. Rhys said, “It’s harder to take it off me.”

Jessa’s gaze flickered between Rhys’ arm and her hands, where her blackened finger and destroyed ring were hidden behind bandages. A vague memory of a mage trying to heal her burn stepped forth into the light. She saw herself thrashing, refusing the help, not wanting another’s magic anywhere near her. The mage had given up.

Focus, Jessa.

To her surprise, she felt a thread of her magic at her fingertips. She pulled it back in horror, realising what she had intended. Perhaps he had given her permission, and perhaps he had something under his skin to protect him, but she couldn’t use her magic. It hurt. She could feel a dark emptiness deep in her core where Alrick had ripped a piece from her; it mirrored the black holes in her mind. She felt quite sure if she gave it too much attention she would be sucked in to see a universe filled with horror that had no name, no description.

And anyway, even if she couldn’t use her magic on Rhys, what did that prove? She had the proof on her finger that it was possible for someone to add their blood to the mix and be exempted from the block. Rhys might still be an illusion, one that only Alrick could touch.

“Why?” she asked again, her voice the quiet scratch of pen on paper. “Why do you need it?”

She glanced up at Rhys in time to see his face slacken. She couldn’t name the bottomless emotion she saw in his eyes – or, she could, but it didn’t make any sense that he could look so grief-stricken.

“You don’t-” He cut off. When he started again, his voice was gentle as though he thought she might break with his explanation. “I have an aversion to magic, Jessa. It-”

“Hurts you,” she said, the relief flowing through her at odds with their conversation. “I know.”

“Then what-?”

She didn’t want to explain. She owed Rhys nothing. She brought her knees closer to her chest, pressed her face into the folds of Laurita’s dress – noting idly how different the silky fabric felt against her cheeks to her usual linen – and let out a sob. This was real. Laurita was real. They were all real. This wasn’t some dark corner of the castle, another illusion brought to torture her into acquiescence. Her elbows dug into her knees as she pressed tighter into herself, her hands curling over her head.

Safe. Actually safe. Well, as much as she could be when she could feel her brain turning itself into knots she was increasingly unsure she could ever untangle.

She flinched at the sound of footsteps coming towards her; she had almost forgotten anyone was there with her. Her cheeks burned with the realisation that she had allowed Rhys, of all people, to see her break down. Though she did not look up, she could feel his presence before her, as though the air had moved to accommodate him. An expectant pause hung between them, soon broken by a quiet sigh. She felt the comforting edge of a book slide against her foot.

“Please leave,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure he had heard her, but eventually she heard those same soft footfalls moving away from each other. They did not move fast; Jessa could count seconds between each one, as though he were being dragged away.

By the time Jessa cracked open an eye and saw the decrepit book on the bed, Rhys was halfway to the door, shoulders slumped. Gingerly, Jessa picked it up and stared at the faded lettering without comprehension.

“What is this?” she asked dumbly. She hadn’t meant to speak. Rhys stiffened, stopping immediately. He straightened, turned too fast, and his eyes sparkled. Jessa tore her gaze away. She couldn’t… she couldn’t look at him, nor let her thoughts go there. She sucked in a deep breath. She hated herself, hated him more.

“I saw it on the shelf in the manor – where I’m staying.” Rhys seemed to trip over his words, as if he believed he was on borrowed time and needed to say everything all at once. Jessa couldn’t imagine why he would care. “I thought you’d probably be desperate for a book to read before long, and it is one of your favourites.”

He smiled as he spoke, but it looked wrong. It looked strained, unsure; it was a mockery of the smiles she had seen him give her in the past. But, of course, they had been wrong in a different way. She saw a flash of one of those smiles in her memory, rows of books behind him flickering in the candlelight and a chess board between them. “I’m rather glad it was you.”

Jessa squeezed her eyes shut, though she refrained from clapping her hands over her ears, as if either could even prevent the memories in her head. She needed something else to focus on, so she opened her eyes and stared down at the book again. One of her favourites, he had said – why would he even remember such a thing? After the third try, the words formed into something of a cohesive title, but it left Jessa empty. He hadn’t remembered after all.

“I’ve never read this.”

“What?” Rhys frowned, shaking his head. “No, no I’m positive. The Early Years of the Barichene Wars – I came into the sitting room back home-” Jessa flinched “-once, and you were by the window and it was that book, I’m sure. It was falling apart, and you just laughed at yourself as you admitted just how many times you’d read it. I sat down beside you and the next thing I knew you were telling me about the passage you’d just read. You spoke so fast I could barely follow, though I couldn’t stop listening to you either – what was it? Something about the Duerma, a racial minority in the Barichene mountains…”

He looked at Jessa and she saw that flicker of grief again as he saw her expression was empty of recognition. Dully, he said, “You… don’t remember…”

Rhys’ voice was already fading out as Jessa opened the book’s cover. It felt as heavy as lead as she flicked to the contents page, her eyes scanning, scanning… stopping. Her breath caught: Chapter 7, The Duerma Revolt. They didn’t appear in many books except as an afterthought; Jessa had never found one that shared her belief that they had been a crucial block in the pyramid that had caused everything to come crashing down into the endless years of horrific violence and war. Had this book encouraged that belief? How couldn’t she remember?

A weight pressed down on her, and the book slipped from her fingers. If she had forgotten this, she could have forgotten so much more. She buried her head in her dress, clutching at her scalp. She imagined her intellect pouring from her skull, her hands not big enough to dam it. Through the gaps in her fingers her knowledge filtered out and was washed away by the current. She gripped tighter, knowing it was not just knowledge but her very self slipping through her fingers. Who was she without her books, her years of schooling and private study, without history in her heart and mind. She had neglected it these past months for a cause that transcended personal desire, but it was always waiting for her.

Her father could take anything from her, but not that. Anything but that. She let out a strangled sob. Her tears seeped through her dress. She was in freefall, breaking into two. Somehow, she sensed someone near, as if the air had parted around them, and she reached for them wildly. Their hand was right there, as if it had always been waiting for her. It was rougher than she remembered, lined with faint bumps and scars she would never know the stories behind, but it was home. Her heart stuttered and slowed, and she gasped in air. She knew it was wrong, could see this hand cupping another’s cheek, but it paled in comparison to the hole cracking Jessa apart. She hated herself for the comfort his hand brought, but she was selfish and starved. She needed it – needed anything – that helped remind herself that she was still Jessa, that she was still alive and present.

“Well, I always said I wished I could forget reading some books just so I could experience them all over again,” she joked brokenly, because it was true. Because she needed something to claw her out of the bottomless pit into which she was slipping. She dropped her forehead to the book, the cracked leather a comfort on her skin. It smelled of parchment and home. A fire burned in her heart; maybe she had forgotten, maybe her father had tried to strip her of everything she was, but she could read. She could pry her intellect back from her father’s cold vice grip one page at a time. And Rhys, he had given her the way.

“Thank you,” she whispered, gratitude filling her heart. For a few beats, she forgot everything else and lifted her gaze. Their eyes met, locked, and it was just them. The world blurred and retreated, and nothing had changed. Then she realised she still clutched his hand, and reality crashed back in like a hailstorm biting at her heart. She dropped his hand as if it burned. The man she thought she knew and loved had never existed; in his eyes she had seen just a shadow of him. It was likely that she had imagined it in her desire to believe she hadn’t been alone – that Kolonis hadn’t been a dream. In that heartbeat, she had seen the man who had kissed her, held her and loved her. Perhaps Rhys had meant it, in his own way, and in his eyes just then she had seen that same yearning for the break from reality that Kolonis had been. It was what they had been, to Rhys: a holiday romance, intense and heady but quick to fade when real life crept back in.

She couldn’t fault him for not sharing her feelings, but he should have told her. She deserved better than finding out by seeing him pressed up against another woman, oblivious to the rest of the world. Didn’t she? Didn’t they deserve a proper ending, however Rhys had viewed them?

“Why are you here?” Her voice broke. She brushed her hands underneath her eyes, feeling her lashes stuck together by tears. She sniffed hard, pulling in every ounce of strength she had. It wasn’t much. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“No, I don’t,” Rhys agreed without hesitation. “Not in that way. A relationship isn’t about debt. I do owe you something, though – a thousand apologies for that reckless plan we dreamed up months ago, for believing it could be easy, for trusting that that bastard was your father and wouldn’t want to harm you, for watching you go back there when I should have pulled you closer, for not being by your side every day for the past few months-”

“Stop,” Jessa begged.

“Jessa,” Rhys said, voice cracking. “I’m not here because I owe you something. I’m here because I love you and I want to help you.”

Why? Why did he keep saying that?

“This isn’t love.”

“Jessa, please. I… I didn’t, I could never… It doesn’t make sense.”

It stung that he would say such a thing when Jessa’s life was unravelling before her. Thoughtless. Cruel. Her eyes flashed. “Don’t tell me what does and doesn’t make sense. I saw you, Rhys. I saw you kissing her. And I watched you for months, pining for Selene – and how can I blame you? She’s the woman you wanted to marry. And all that time… my father, he showed me some things… that wasn’t the only time you went behind my back, kissed someone else-”

Her words choked off as she turned her head away. She couldn’t look at him, so she only felt the mattress dip as Rhys crouched by the bed and rested his elbows near her feet. “What are you talking about? The only – only – time I’ve kissed someone else since the day we married was that moment of weakness with Selene the day we got back from Ovis. You saw that, and you understood. Jessa, I would never cheat on you. I love you. Please.”

His voice was strained, broken, and she couldn’t make sense of it. She didn’t want to try. She wanted to be alone. Curling into herself, she said, “Just… go. Please.”

[Rosabeth]

Jessa is alive. Jessa is safe. Jessa is here.

These thoughts were to be his truths, fragments of hope amidst the chaos. Rhys repeated them again and again until his worries were quelled the best they could be. He fixed his gaze forward into the darkness of the cellar below the steps on which he sat. He’d found the staircase quite by accident, looking for any small bit of the safe house not brimming with a dozen onlookers. In this part of the house – tucked behind a corner with the many voices no more than a distant murmur – there was a semblance of peace, and Rhys clung to it desperately. It was at the top of that staircase where he’d gathered these truths, and also where he’d let himself truly comprehend it all.

Even prepared, steeling himself at every moment for an unpleasant turn, Jessa’s scorn burned him still, each word leaving its mark. He’d thought, perhaps, that in knowing the accusations against him he could brush them away, taking heart in his knowledge of the truth. How foolish he’d been. That’d he’d ever thought he could sit calmly by as he listened to his world collapse around him was incomprehensible to him now. It hardly mattered that the lies Jessa believed were based on nothing, or that Rhys was steadfast in his love – neither of those things changed reality. He accepted now what he should have known all along, that there was nothing that could ever soften the blow of feeling that which he held dearest shatter in his hands.

Every ounce of that despair wanted nothing more than to drag him down, and in quiet, fearful moments Rhys gave himself to it. Yet, there was light still. Rhys grasped at Jessa’s ring tight between his fingers before bringing it to his lips, bowing his head as he let his eyes close. He could still feel Jessa’s touch against his hand, her cool fingers somehow feeling like fire against his skin. He’d felt the rawness of her emotion, seen how she fought to hold herself together and felt the desperation in her grasp. She’d needed him then in a way they’d once needed each other. Her touch, in all its desperation, had given Rhys a moment of wholeness and hope, and when she’d caught his eye in those brief moments he’d seen that truth in her too. He did not care if she would fight that declaration at every turn, that in this state she would surely find a thousand reasons to explain it all away. He knew what he’d seen, what he’d felt. Rhys held onto that hope with everything he had. That hope would get him through.

A soft cough from behind alerted Rhys to the fact that his rumination was not entirely private.

Ainesh – for that was certainly not a name or face Rhys would forget – stood a foot or two back with his hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes pretending to focus on something very interesting on the ceiling. As Rhys stared, Ainesh glanced down, his eyes widening in false surprise.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was you.”

Rhys’ face did not alter from his blank stare.

“Yeah, that’s absolutely a lie. Can I join you?”

Speaking with Jessa’s husband – the word tasted like ash on his tongue – hardly felt desirable, given the state of things, and yet Rhys didn’t know how to even begin to attempt to shoo the man away. He imagined his attempts would fall on deaf ears, if the brazen lie gave any indication. With a shrug, Rhys made room beside himself on the step, letting Ainesh plop down beside him.

“I feel like we didn’t really properly meet last night. Ainesh,” the man stated, holding out his hand. The distance between them made for an awkward length for a handshake, what with their legs practically flush together on the narrow step, but Rhys gripped the man’s hand anyway. “Rhys.”

“I don’t mean to be rude but…you seem weirdly okay with this. Last night you looked a lot more like how I feel,” said Rhys.

“Oh, this is incredibly awkward for me as well, don’t get me wrong,” Ainesh exclaimed, his voice almost a laugh. “I supposed I just decided that prolonging this or avoiding it all together was just going to make things inevitably worse, so I thought that maybe just going for it would make it more bearable.”

“And is it? More bearable, I mean?”

“I think that depends on where this conversation goes.”

With those words, Rhys couldn’t help but laugh. The noise sounded horribly foreign to his ears, and yet with the laugh a small bit of tension released, and Rhys let out a sigh. He did not trust this man yet – he hardly knew him. Still, Rhys had seen the affection between Ainesh and Laurita, felt the ease with which she’d spoken to him. That meant something. That he was here, under the protection and with the trust of Nayall meant something too. At the very least, Rhys had no reason to be immediately suspicious. Besides, Rhys admitted to himself, there was something about the man’s relaxed presence that put him more at ease.

Despite Ainesh’s casual demeanor, talking proved to be an entire other hurdle. They sat in marked silence for an entirely too long stretch of time, each of them staring into the darkness of the descent, each too hesitant to speak first. When the silence became too much to bear and even Ainesh grew tired of the sound of his nails tapping on the wodden floors, the man began to laugh.

“This has somehow managed to be both more and less awkward than I was expected.”

“What were you expecting?” Rhys asked dryly.

“I’m not sure. I was expecting you to be more…” Ainesh waved his hands around haphazardly, as if somehow the flailing motions would bring some thought to his head. “Well, I guess I thought you’d be more…forceful.”

Rhys stared. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I,” Ainesh shrugged. “I suppose you just spend all these years hearing rumors about a person and you just expect some sort of an impression.”

Rhys couldn’t contain his snort. “What you’re telling me is that I don’t make an impression?”

“Given your family’s reputation I’d classify that as a good thing.”

“Reserve your judgement until you meet my sister.”

Ainesh let out a low chuckle, and with it the lull returned, the two men stewing in their joint discomfort. Rhys was not sure how much of it he could take, what with so many unanswered questions hanging between them. As Rhys glanced at the pleasant, good-humored man beside him, he could not stop his foolish question from blurting out.

“Do you love her?”

Ainesh sputtered, grasping at words with eyes wide in disbelief. “That’s one way to start a conversation. No pleasantries, then. Love her? Of all things, this is really what you’re concerned about?”

Rhys regretted his words immediately, but there was no retracting them. He crossed his arms, pulling into himself with what even he could recognize as an unnecessary amount of defensiveness. “What exactly should I be concerned about?”

Ainesh gawked. “Maybe that I’m a murderer or abuser or a crony of the king’s or any number of horrible things?”

“That was my concern when I’d first heard of you,” Rhys admitted, “but after seeing you here, and with Laurita…well, let’s just say I trust Laurita’s judgement enough to think that I can probably reasonably put those fears aside.”

Ainesh laughed, nodding along. “I’m sure Laurita will be pleased to hear of your ringing endorsement of her judgement.”

“Am I wrong?” Rhys asked.

“No, of course not. I’m mostly just surprised. Maybe that’s my own bias showing, but I didn’t think you’d be quite so trusting, if I’m being honest.”

“I’m surprised you’d think I’d care about any of those things, given that if you believed the stories about me that’s exactly the category of people I’d fall into.”

At this, whatever ease had begun to build between them fell away in an instant, Ainesh stiffened, his lips pulling into a grimace. “Ah, yes. That.”

“Isn’t that what you think of me?”

“No. Well, not exactly.” Rhys raised his eyebrows, waiting for clarification. Ainesh met his eyes with no trace of humor left. “But can you honestly tell me all the rumors about your family are baseless?”

Ainesh knew the answer to that question without Rhys needing to answer, and so he did not. He stared off back down the staircase, turning the ring on his finger. “I’m not going to pretend I’m proud of everything I’ve done.”

“I know the rumors about what you did to Jessa are false.”

Rhys winced. “I could never…I could never do that.” He hated that there was a part of Ainesh – a part of anyone – that ever believed in that grotesque image he’d painted of himself. He hated himself for weaving the tale, hated everything it represented now: a sad relic of a plan burned down from the inside.

Ainesh seemed to believe this much of Rhys, at the very least. The man was quiet now, bringing his legs up a step so that he could rest his arms on his knees. The air was still thick between them, but something of the edge of the awkwardness was wearing away, if only bit by bit. “To answer your question, no, I don’t love her. Not that way.”

Rhys felt foolish for the feeling of relief that flooded over him. Of all things to worry about this felt hardly worthy of concern, and yet it acted as a small comfort. In some ways, it was almost a nice worry to have. Even in the direst of circumstances, it felt like the strange evidence of man’s enduring simplicity that he should still feel jealousy.

“I’m very fond of her,” Ainesh continued, “but more akin to the way a brother feels for his sister. It was my grandmother who knew her first, who took her under her wing. She was the one who made the block for Jessa’s mind, the one with the false memories. I don’t know if anyone told you that. I think once you’ve seen every bit of someone’s mind – dozens of years-worth of memories – it has to only be natural that you feel some sort of bond. It was through my grandmother that I met Jessa. It was only when we heard about the marriage the king was proposing for Jessa that my grandmother offered me as an alternative. It was a small favor of decency to do so, really. That man…” Ainesh’s jaw hardened, his teeth gritted, “no one deserves that fate. There’s more to it than that, of course; every marriage like ours is filled with a thousand back-room agreements, and my Novarian brother-in-law certainly had a thing or two to do with it, but I think for your interests the details aren’t your primary concern. I married Jessa to protect her, to offer her some small amount of safety and someone to trust. There was never anything more to it.”

“I do wonder, though,” Ainesh said, his somber tone dissipating as the corners of his lips turned up. “Did you really think I did? I mean, you saw me with Laurita last night. Surely that has to be something of a tip off.”

Rhys frowned. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to feel conflicted about your feelings.”

If Ainesh hadn’t already been eyeing Rhys with keen interest he certainly was now. His eyebrows looked as thought they might fly off his forehead.

“Not now,” Rhys amended with a shake of his head. “Not like that. But early on? I was engaged to another before I married Jessa; those emotions didn’t just disappear overnight.”

“Ah, yes, Jessa did say something about that.”

Rhys’ stomach twisted, too afraid of the answer to ask as to what exactly Jessa had said. Had she told Ainesh of Rhys’ moment with Selene that first day back in Jasrah? Was that what Jessa had thought of when she’d seen whatever it was that so convinced her of Rhys’ infidelity? Had one moment – long before he’d ever come to see Jessa in another light – cracked her trust in him enough to let in these insidious thoughts? Rhys willed the thoughts away before they led him down a path he did not wish to go.

Rhys groaned, pressing his face into his hands. “How am I supposed to fix this?”

Ainesh leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. “I wish I knew too.”

“How do you talk to someone who hates you?” said Rhys.

“Jessa does not hate you, trust me on that. She’s conflicted. Confused. If she hated you she wouldn’t be this distraught by you being here. She wouldn’t flinch every time someone says your name.”

“She thinks I’ve betrayed her; she’s convinced of it! How am I supposed to contest something she’s certain she saw, especially at a time like this? If I even suggest that what she saw wasn’t real she’ll accuse me of using what’s happened to her memory against her, of using it as an excuse to hide my own wrongdoing. How am I supposed to fight against that?”

“It’s my fault, you know,” Rhys continued, feeling himself spiraling with every word yet unable to stop the words from tumbling out. “Jessa coming here in the first place was my idea. I should never have suggested it in the first place. I should have known the danger. No. I did know. I didn’t think.”

Ainesh was no longer lounging. He sat straight, watching Rhys intently with every word, his brows furrowed. “There’s no way you could have known the king was capable of this.”

“But I could have said no. I could have asked her to stay with me. We had a second chance months ago; she was with me – she was safe. If I’d been stronger…”

“She’s an adult with her own mind, Rhys,” Ainesh interjected. “You have to accept the choices she makes.”

“But don’t I have a responsibility as her…” Rhys stopped himself before he could say the word on the tip of his tongue, the word Ainesh knew as coming from the look of pity on the man’s face. He looked away, him and Rhys united in that moment in their discomfort. Rhys continued. “Don’t I have a responsibility to protect her if I can? If I knew she’d be in danger shouldn’t I have done something?”

“She knew the risks.”

Ainesh was right – that much any sensible person could see – and yet Rhys could feel himself grasping, desperate for reasons to blame himself. He couldn’t say why this desperation clawed at him, the need for guilt growing. Maybe it was his mind struggling to reconcile Jessa’s coldness with his love. Maybe still it was an attempt to create an alternate past, one without separation and longing. Or, Rhys thought, maybe it was months’ worth of regret finally finding purchase in something capable of punishing Rhys in the way he deserved.

“I’m sorry,” Ainesh said quietly. “I can tell you love her.”

“With all my heart.”

In the following moment of calm, Ainesh withdrew a thin silver flask from his pocket, proffering it wordlessly. He kept it held out when Rhys stared, waiting patiently for Rhys to take it from his hand. Rhys unscrewed the cap, sniffing the contents when peering inside proved fruitless in the dim light. He recognized the smell immediately. “Wine?”

“Keep your voice down,” Ainesh urged, shushing Rhys for good measure. “We’re in short supply around here and I’m not keen on sharing.”

“Except now?”

Ainesh shrugged, gesturing for Rhys to drink. “Look, we could all use a few drinks around here, but I think you need it a little more than most right now.”

Rhys was hardly in a position to turn down alcohol. The flask was not large, and Rhys knew he could have downed it all easily, instead taking a respectable drink before passing it back to Ainesh. To Rhys’s surprise his offer was met with resistance, Ainesh shaking his head and pushing Rhys’ hand back.

“I’ve got more where that came from.”

Now was not the time to be modest, and Rhys did not need telling twice. He drank deeply and with enthusiasm, wishing for a less limited supply. It was not enough to dull his thoughts or bring a smile to his lips, but it was something. In these circumstances, Rhys was living on small somethings.

Rhys passed back the flask. “You have no reason to be this nice to me, you know.”

“You’re not my enemy, Rhys,” Ainesh said with a frown. “Sure, one conversation isn’t going to get rid of all my reservations, and I don’t know that I’d be putting you in my list of “top 10 most trustworthy people I’ve ever known”, but you seem nice enough.”

“Nice enough?”

“I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours - take what you can get.”

The smile that crept across Rhys’ lips chipped away at the weight that pressed down on him, bit by bit. “You’re not the worst yourself.”

“Even if you’re contractually required to hate me because I’m married to Jessa?”

Rhys laughed despite himself. “Even then.”

[Mollianne]

Jessa was restless. From three of the five beds in the room – that was really only big enough for only three – gentle snores grated on Jessa’s frazzled nerves. She rubbed at her arm, glancing at the unoccupied bed nearest hers. Laurita wasn’t back yet. She had left a few hours ago, apology in her tone, saying she had errands. Jessa hadn’t asked what, the habit of the last few months still firmly instilled in her mind. Instead, she had asked after Lady Tremont.

“She’s tired, but she’s also strong. She’ll be fine, and she wouldn’t want you worrying about her.”

With those words Laurita had hugged her, hard and long, and gone, leaving Jessa to stare at four walls she already quite despised. On Laurita’s bed was a ghost, the memory of a man she could only hope she would not see again for some time. But his presence, she couldn’t shake it. She couldn’t forget those brown eyes locked with hers.

Perhaps she could, she thought darkly, when her mind was done with her. But really, she would rather remember than that. Her thoughts wandered, wondering how it would be to forget Rhys entirely. Her chest tightened painfully as her heart betrayed her. She just… couldn’t. She would rather remember the pain. No matter what he had done or how differently they had viewed their time together, it had still happened. It had shaped who Jessa was now. She would selfishly cling to feelings she had never felt for another person, even if she suffered worse for it.

But she didn’t have to stay in that room. She stood, wincing as the bed creaked and Laurita’s dress rustled along the floor. She hugged her arms around her body, as if that could ward off the chill that seeped in through the ramshackle wooden walls. Her back was bare; of course it would not help.

The hallway was quiet save for gentle snores in the rooms lining it and muted voices wafting up from the floor below. The house seemed painted with gloom. Yet the air tasted of freedom. She crept down the corridor, ignoring the cold bite of the wood on her toes. As she neared the staircase, a door opened. A man stared at her, startled, as though he looked at a ghost. There was a half-eaten bowl of a watery liquid in his hands. Over his shoulder, she saw a dark brown hand shackled to the wall. Despite everything, she knew what that meant. Her brain seemed to calm.

“Can I speak to him?” Jessa asked.

The man shrugged, balancing the bowl in one hand to wave her in. “You’ll not get much from him but be my guest.”

The door closed with a quiet snick, leaving Jessa and Laurita’s brother alone. She watched him stare sightlessly at the corner of his bed until something seemed to alert him to her presence. He looked up, the movement causing the candlelight to dance off the blood-red amulet hanging around his neck. Their gazes met, and he seemed to really see her, just as before. She came closer, and as she did so she noticed the angry welts on his wrist. A trail of dried blood led back to an angry, recent wound. He was still trying to escape. But for the moment, they were both calm. They saw the other reflected in their eyes. They both bore Alrick’s mark; they were kin.

Jessa sat on the floor before the bed, crossing her legs. “Hello, Odaren.”

***

She was surrounded by darkness. She could feel nothing, see nothing. The sound of her own breaths filled her ears. A deep inhale, a whooshing exhale, repeat. Her heartbeat joined the tune. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum…

Where was she? Her eyes were shut and no matter how hard she tried, her eyelids clung to each other. She flailed out blindly, her knuckles smacking against slick, wet wood. She gripped it, anchoring herself, and then she heard it: the whispering rush of a boat’s wake, waves lapping at the hull like a cat’s tongue licking at its milk. Spray misted her face, cooling her burning skin. The saltiness of the sea was in the air, in her nose and hair.

Finally, she opened her eyes. For a moment, the rise and fall of the world disoriented her, and she focused on the horizon until she grew used to the waves. And then she smiled. It had been too long since she had last been here, the brilliant twinkling blue blanket of the ocean spreading before her eyes. She had gone most of her life without stepping foot on a boat, but a few months of it being a daily occurrence had given her the taste for it. It felt like coming home.

There was someone in the boat with her: the boatman, Jaq. He was... the Marinons... which meant... Jessa snapped her head to the left, seeing the shimmering coastline in the distance. She saw the spires and domes of the old Solena Palace rising into the cerulean sky above a palette of brown roofs. In front of it all, the docks spread dirty and haphazard, countless boats swaying in the breeze. Jessa imagined if she listened hard enough she would hear the dockworkers and sailors, rowdy but in their own way organised as they moored and unloaded cargo and passengers alike.

Jasrah.

Jessa’s gaze caught on the strip of golden beach extending from the city, watching the featureless figures of children play in the sand and splash in the shallows. She spun slowly, following the beach as it crept along the shoreline until it ducked under a large rocky archway which connected to the cliffs and one side and extended like an arm into the sea on the other. It reached for an outcropping of rocks on the other side, leaving a gap wide enough for a large boat. Through that gap was a single, empty pier, more bronzed sand, and a simple house nestled into the cliffs that she knew was the Marinons’ but also seemed wrong. She stared at it as if hypnotised by the dread and fear those sea-swept walls inspired. She needed to get away.

The Marinon house disappeared quite suddenly from view, Jaq making the distance of 15 minutes in an instant. He had not yet turned towards the city. He was heading out to open water; the boat was not made for such journeys. “Jaq, turn back!”

He did not hear her. He started to hum. No matter how loud Jessa shouted above the surf, her words more frantic with each attempt, Jaq didn’t hear her. His humming grew louder, the melody cresting with the waves. It was a familiar tune, a lullaby from her childhood, accompanied by a man kissing her forehead and wiping her tears for her mother while he, too, broke down.

“Please turn back,” she begged.

“Can’t,” he replied tonelessly, “storm.”

Because Jessa could even consider the nonsensical argument, the sky cracked open with a thunderous rage. The boat tossed wildly in the churning sea, leaving Jessa to cling to the side of the boat as sea spray spat in her eyes so she could not see. Her hair whipped her cheeks as she was thrown to the deck.

“Don’t fight it,” a voice said.

“Jaq?” she screamed, her voice lost in the wind.

“Stop fighting, or you’ll never save them. You’ll never save yourself.”

It didn’t sound like Jaq. It sounded like...

The boat went still, as though the whole world had just held its breath. Jessa opened her eyes to a light blue sky painted with a herd of woolly clouds. There were no signs of the storm anywhere. Jessa turned, saw Jasrah as little more than a speck in the distance, and realised too that she was no longer on the Marinons’ boat but a rowboat. Out on the open sea that was more than a little dangerous, but Jessa hardly questioned it. Jaq had vanished, and this also seemed unimportant.

Ahead of her was a small island, barely enough room for a tree and a couple of people to stand. A man was tied to the tree, and even though he was a couple hundred yards away, she could see his face as clearly as if he stood right next to her. He stared down at the sandy ground, skin withered and dulled from captivity. He looked up, their gazes locked: Free me, his eyes begged.

Jessa didn’t need telling twice. She picked up the oars, not questioning that she knew how to row, and shot towards the island. She came upon it fast, beaching before she had time to slow or brace, and then next thing she knew she was outside the boat, the water lapping at her feet. Brushing sand from her face, Jessa stared at the boat that was no longer there. She blinked. Then, she turned her gaze inwards and stifled a gasp. Someone was still tied to the tree, but it was no man. Copper hair blew into a face she had known every day of her life, for it was herself she stood before.

Her mirror cried, “Help me!” as a dark figure approached from the water’s edge. She knew those wide shoulders and dark glare anywhere. Her father stopped before the captured Jessa, a dark smile playing at his lips as he lifted his hand and watched Jessa convulsed.

“You will never be free from me.”

You will never be free, you will never be, you will never… The words echoed in the air, growing in intensity until other voices joined in. Jessa clutched her head, sinking to the sand, closing her eyes… Darkness, darkness.

“Jessa! Please, you need to wake up,” a fretful voice hissed in her ear. The world seemed to shake, until she realised it was just Laurita jostling her awake. She blinked at her friend. “Jessa, now!”

Laurita’s frenzy finally broke through Jessa’s stupor and she bolted up. “What’s happening?”

“We need to leave. Find some shoes – leave everything else.”

Everything about the situation – the tautness of Laurita’s voice, the other women hastily throwing cloaks on over their thin nightgown to stave of the early morning chill, and the bunched line of people revealed outside when they rushed to the door – told Jessa now was not the time to ask why. There was a panicked hush in the air, as though everyone was close to bursting with the need to speak but knew they much stay as silent as death.

Laurita, meanwhile, frantically rifled through her small box of clothes and belongings. She withdrew some papers, stuffing them crumpled and haphazard into a bag draped across her body. Jessa waited, her heart beating loud in her ears, until Laurita finally stood and yanked her out of the room by the elbow.

“I thought you said leave everything,” Jessa whispered.

“Yes, well, best not leave anything too incriminating behind.” Laurita patted her bag nervously as they walked, as if checking she hadn’t dropped it in the last couple of seconds. They joined the stream of refugees heading for the stairs.

“Is this another drill, mama?” Jessa heard a little boy ask in a small voice, dust turning his brown hair grey and his hand clutched tightly by a tall, thin woman who hurried faster than the boy’s legs could carry him. His mother shushed him.

At the stairs, Jessa glanced over her shoulder towards her old room. Expecting to find the corridor empty, her heart stuttered on seeing a man and a woman hanging back at the end. Jessa’s hand lurched for Laurita, who stopped awkwardly with one foot on the first step of the staircase. “Are they okay? Do they need help?”

Laurita peered around Jessa and shook her head. “Waiting to set this place alight.” Laurita offered no more information. Jessa swallowed hard, but tried to reassure herself that Laurita would not leave people to die. They knew what they were doing. They’d make it out.

The main room downstairs was nothing like the press of bodies Jessa had seen on her arrival. At the front door, two more people waited with wide stances and daggers clutched in their hands. Their eyes were wide with fear, but the blades were steady. One of them met Laurita’s gaze and they nodded at each other, before Laurita and Jessa hurried to catch up with the throng heading for an alcove tucked into a dark corner. A baby’s cry rang out from below. Though no one stopped walking, there was a collective intake of breath. People looked over their shoulder, as though their demons would be summoned by a single noise. Faintly, Jessa heard a man’s voice soothing the child. The cries rang in Jessa’s ears long after they quieted. Jessa reached out and found Laurita’s waiting hand. There were babies here. Children. Jessa’s head spun.

“Oh Gods,” Laurita breathed as they reached the alcove, looking back at the guards by the door. Their eyes were wider, their stances deeper. “They’re here.”

The illusion of peace shattered. Everyone around them seemed to straighten, hearing something Jessa couldn’t, and then they started running. People tripped as they descended into the cellar, pushing and crying out. Above, Jessa heard the crackle of a fire. Laurita’s hand gripped her tighter and pulled her down the stairs. A few seconds later, the man and woman from upstairs joined them, the woman’s eyes leaking tears as her face strained and her brows sweated. The women from the front door were not far behind them, their backs to Jessa as a cacophonous bang seemed to shake the house, including the foundations.

“Jessa, come on!” Laurita hissed. But her mouth hadn’t moved. It had come from inside her head. The strange, synchronised actions of everyone else suddenly made a lot of sense.

They flew down the stairs, joining the huddle of people in the cellar. An elbow in her stomach, a woman’s hair flying into her face as they turned, an arm against her back… Jessa couldn’t breathe. Everyone was too close. The bangs from above reverberated in her ears, and was it her imagination or could she feel the heat of the fire above them on her cheeks as it crashed through the floor to ground level? Her fingers tightened around Laurita’s. Her vision started swirling, and her mind followed suit, flashes of escapes, of war and death and suffering threatening to overcome her. A sob escaped her lips.

“No, no, Jessa, not now.” Laurita’s free hand was on her chin, tipping Jessa to look at her as the crowd jostled for the small hole in the wall that signified their freedom. “Stay with me. We’re going to be fine.”

The people in front of them crawled through the hole in the stone cellar, and then it was just Laurita and the four who, Jessa had realised, must be doing something to stave off the people trying to get inside.

Thump. Jessa's heart jumped into her throat at the noise. Above, the shouts of men and women joined their heavy footsteps above Jessa's head. She heard them screaming about the fire when Laurita pushed on her head and Jessa dropped limply to the floor. She didn't need telling twice, crawling through the narrow gap in the wall. The space was poorly lit, so all she could see were the feet of the refugees running from the safe house, splashing in pools of pearly groundwater. The sound echoed in the tunnel. She scrambled out of the way so Laurita could come through, and then noticed there were two men waiting for them. She recognised them both. One was the man who had let her see Odaren only a few hours ago. And, head lolling on the first man's shoulder, mumbling under his breath, was Odaren himself.

Laurita threw herself at her brother, who did not even react. She clutched him, breaking down, as the last four refugees crawled into the tunnel. Jessa watched in fascination as the hole grew smaller, pinching together like pursed lips, and was gone. One of the women, seeing Jessa's wide-eyed stare, said simply, "Illusion. It'll hold for a while."

Another had bent down and begun dragging stones - the same shape and size as those lining the cellar walls - in front of the hole. Jessa knew what they intended. The illusion gave them time to seal their escape route, and when the illusion broke, it would look like an unbroken wall. Jessa had no doubt that magic would be involved to produce such an effect.

"What were you thinking?" Laurita whispered, though it was clear she expected no answer. She already knew. Jessa, however, was left very confused. Yet she kept her mouth shut as Laurita pulled back and cupped Odaren's cheek with her hand. She glanced at the other man. "Is he...?"

"He doesn't know where we are."

"It better not be permanent." Laurita's voice was ice.

The man fidgeted under Laurita's glare. "No, no. He'll have his sight and hearing back when we get there."

"And you're going to get him there how, exactly?"

"I've dealt with drunken brothers before. We'll meet you there." He rolled his eyes. "He'll be safe with me, Laurita. I promise."

"He better be."

Without a backwards glance, the man started lugging Odaren in the direction of the other refugees. Laurita watched them leave, lingering for a moment when they were swallowed by darkness, then turned to inspect the mages' work. "It looks good. Just caving the tunnel in left."

"We know what we're doing," the woman who had spoken to Jessa said. "You need to get the Lady Jessa out of here."

They walked in silence down the uneven tunnel, the echoing drip of water the only sound to break the silence. When they came to a junction, Laurita turned to the right. Jessa couldn't say for how long they walked, or how far they had gone. Adrenaline still raced through her blood, and the only thing she cared about was getting away.

Jessa bumped against Laurita's back, not realising her friend had stopped. Laurita pointed up at a grate above their heads. "Can you jump up to that?"

Jessa twisted her lips, but nevertheless nodded. Laurita went first, unscrewing the grate with magic and sliding it silently onto the cobbles above. She jumped, catching the edge, and pulled herself up. Jessa eyed it dubiously, but it was that or potential capture. She bent her knees and flailed out as she jumped, her fingers making purchase on the rough edge at the last second. She dangled for a moment, completely unsure what she should do. Laurita saved her, helping to drag her out of the hole. In one fluid motion, the grate was back over the hole and they disappeared into the shadows of the alleyway.

Without preamble, Jessa felt her face begin to change. Our of the corner of her eye, her hair drained of colour to a dull brown. Laurita lightened her own skin and lengthened her hair, turning it into a golden blonde for good measure. "Hood up. Let's see if you fare better as a peasant than Rhys would." She realised her mistake too late as Jessa recoiled. "Sorry."

They ducked out of the alleyway. Smoke drifted above the rooftops, a black smudge on the lightening sky. It was far larger than a common fireplace chimney could spew. Jessa swallowed. It was too close; they needed to get away. She started widening her step, desperate to put as much distance between them and the safe house as possible, but Laurita put a hand on her arm. “We need to blend in.”

Laurita ducked her head and shoved her hands into her pockets. Jessa mimicked her, and together they joined the rest of Ovis’ early risers. It took all Jessa’s focus to avoid looking over her shoulder. Instead, she stared at the lines of homeless people sleeping or shuffling to get comfortable against the city’s buildings. Jessa’s heart ached that she had nothing to give them.

Bumping against her shoulder, Laurita said her name and nodded at an empty patch of wall on their left. Jessa frowned, but then she saw Laurita’s wide eyes. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she slunk to the floor beside her friend, watching dumbly as Laurita produced a threadbare hat and turned it upside down. That’s when Jessa looked up and saw them. The red cloaks of the city guard. A hush fell over the street as everyone turned their gazes on the men walking down the centre with their hands hovering over their sword hilts.

One broke off from the other, approaching a skeletal woman curled up on the floor not too far from Jessa. “You seen a girl – red hair, green eyes, pale skin, about this tall-” he lifted his hand to Jessa’s height, “-doesn’t look like she belongs ‘round here?”

Jessa held her breath as the woman gazed up at the soldier sightlessly. A pause, and then the woman shook her head and turned over, grumbling to herself. The solider puffed up in indignation, but chose to ignore the slight in favour of his duty. He moved on, asking the question to each person between the first woman and Jessa. Each time, Jessa lost a little more of her breath. She tried not to look, to keep her gaze on her knees. Breathe, breathe. Maybe they’ll give up. Maybe…

“You seen a girl?” The voice was so near. Jessa squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her legs. A pain shot through her shin as someone kicked her. “Hey, you.”

Oh, Gods. Jessa looked up slowly. Her pulse hammering in her throat, in her head – so fast she thought her heart might just stop. The white man glared down at her with bright blue eyes and repeated the same question as the others. Jessa was glad she had heard it so many times, for she didn’t hear a word of it above the buzzing in her ears. She managed, somehow to shake her head. The guard lingered, his eyes narrowing. He must have sensed her fear, he must have…

His gaze slid past her, settling instead on Laurita. A few moments later, he was moving on.

“Yeah!” a child’s voice shouted in the silence. “Yeah! I saw a girl like that. She went that way.”

Jessa’s head snapped up, instantly finding the young, dirt-encrusted girl. She wore rags that looks more like a tent over her shoulders and she was pointing… the way she and Laurita had come. Jessa blessed the girl and thanked the Gods. The guard called over the one who had questioned Jessa, and they hurried past the rest of the beggars in the direction the child had pointed. Jessa did not breathe until they turned the corner. Only then did she drop her forehead onto her knees and exhale.

“My coin,” a high-pitched voice demanded. Jessa looked up to see a dirty hand thrust in Laurita’s face. Laurita smiled wanly, flicking a flew courene at the girl whose eyes lit up. The child’s voice softened. “Thank you, miss, thank you.”

Laurita waited a few moments more before standing up and brushing herself off. She then led Jessa on a wild, twisting route through the city. At first, Jessa tried to focus, recalling buildings or landmarks she recognised from a lifetime spend within these city walls. After a while, it all blended together, blurring into a city she couldn’t name from any other. It was a little unnerving, feeling so lost in a place that had been one’s home for so long, but equally Jessa had never really come to these parts. Her life had been sheltered, the city viewed mostly from the carriage as she travelled between castle and boarding school after boarding school. She certainly had rarely visited these parts, the south-eastern slums.

When they finally came to a stop, it was outside a familiar door. Until now, she had only come here blindfolded and tripping over her own feet. And at night. In the morning light, it looked much less important despite what Jessa knew lay beyond the door. Laurita stepped towards the simple wooden door, knocking an elaborate rhythm into the wood. After a second, the door opened and the women slipped inside.

Laurita exhaled heavily, closing her eyes and slumping against the wall. Her illusory appearance melted off her, and Jessa felt herself change, too. Laurita rubbed a tired hand across her forehead. “He escaped, Jessa. After months of trying to get through to him – and I thought I was doing, you know? – Odaren just… They found his blood amulet lying on the bed first. I’d just got back and they called for me. I thought he must have gone, that I’d never see him again, but he was just… just standing outside. He was calling them, acting like a beacon. He didn’t even fight me as we brought him back inside. He only fought when we wrestled the amulet back onto him so he couldn’t tell them where we were going next.”

Jessa wordlessly pulled Laurita into her arms. “Everyone got out. You had a plan and it worked flawlessly.”

“I was naïve for hoping he’d just… get better. But we always knew the risk. I just… Jessa, how did he even get out in the first place?"