69. Chapter 69
69
Nelle
I n utter panic, I burst into my father’s office. The door slammed against the wall as I skidded to a messy halt in the middle of the room.
My father ruled from this room. A room that looked like any other executive office with its rolling chairs, leather couch and coffee table, and a glass desk with a computer and caddies filled with paper clips and expensive fountain pens.
Similar, yet set apart by the obvious wealth and history that came with our world. An eighteenth-century Persian rug sat beneath his desk; a Mamluk steel sword, Chimu headdress, and Mongolian ceremonial dagger hung on the wall in between Flemish tapestries, Moroccan copper plates, and landscape oil paintings. Sitting beside one another, on the baroque bookshelf holding first editions, were his inkwell and quills and the ornate silver urn that held the finely ground dust of our ancestors’ bones.
Where would the Alverac be? Filed away in a cabinet? It seemed ridiculous and callous that the parchment which contained my life would be slipped into a swinging folder with a tab, and stashed amongst other business information. But that’s where I headed first, to yank open the cupboard doors to the filing cabinet hidden behind them, before pulling all the folders out and tossing them onto the floor after I’d searched through them. Next, I hit my father’s desk, rifling through the drawers, trying to find the ancient parchment.
I couldn’t find it.
Where the hells is it?!
Fury and hysteria collided, sending me soaring into a blinding panic. A desperate need to shatter and ruin things overcame me. Grabbing the first thing that came to hand—a Greek bronze paperweight from his desk—I threw it across the room at a painting, as a terrified wail wrenched from my throat. The paperweight ripped through the canvas, cracking the wall behind, and fell to the wooden floor with a jarring thud.
I hurled everything I laid my hands on. Indian water jugs and jade statues gouged the walls. Glass and porcelain exploded in the wake of my fear. Furious gusts of dark magic swept gild-edged books and rare artifacts off shelves.
A pair of footsteps. My mother’s voice rasped, “Nelle?”
I swung around, panting fearful breaths, an urn clasped in my white-knuckled grip. “The Alverac. Where the fuck is it?!”
My father, in his custom-cut tuxedo, studied the room, now thoroughly wrecked. He ran his fingers through his graying hair that suddenly seemed more salt than pepper, the skin on his hand more leathery with age spots. There was anxiety straining around his mouth as his shoulders slumped and his hand fell from his head to fall limply against his thigh. From where I stood vibrating with anger and panic, I could smell the cognac in his breath and see it shining in his eyes.
It was my mother who stepped toward me, her heels crunching through shards of glass and porcelain, and clay. “Master Sirro—”
“Told me enough. Told me what I should have known all along. The Alverac…”
At the mention of the Alverac, my parents shared a look of despair and guilt and sorrow.
I couldn’t bear to see the sorrow carving deep lines into their faces as if they were grieving for me before I’d actually died.
Oh my gods … what is in that contract?
They’d known all along of the Alverac’s true nature and kept it hidden from me.
My mother shifted to stand beside my father. Her bony hand gripped his upper arm, and she looked so frail against his tall, broad figure. She’d withered away over the years. Years, I realized, that had begun well before the Alverac had been signed.
My line of sight glanced over my father’s shoulder to the only wall within his office that was adorned with a single item—an oil portrait of our family when I was five years old with a bright, toothy grin.
Of course, it would be in there.
“The Alverac,” I demanded from my father, taking a long step toward him.
I’d never seen such hopelessness wrapped around him. It was as if he didn’t know what to do. The messy state of his office reflected his mind.
Fury burned through my bloodstream at his silence and inability to act. I shrieked and heaved the urn against the wall, right behind him. It shattered into slivers and scattered all over the wooden floor. “ Open the godsdamned treasure trove! ”
He stared down at his feet, at the fragments of the centuries-old urn spinning by, his brows drawn over hazy eyes that were gone somewhere else.
“ NOW! ” I roared. My father flinched, and his gaze snapped upward to meet mine.
He swallowed thickly and nodded. Moving to the wall, his hand slipped into the pocket of his pants and he brought out a key. Not a usual one with teeth, but a simple flat circular black stone, and he pressed it against the wall, his fingers spread wide.
The wall, along with the portrait, rippled like a disturbed glassy lake and it faded away to reveal a secret space beyond. Inside the gloomy crevasse, pale light, much like glowworms, began to faintly shine, casting an eerie glow over the treasure trove of Great House Wychthorn—armor and weapons infused with magic, shelves spilling over with trinkets and jewelry and raw cut gemstones; silver and gold and Roman bronze coins; vials of poisons and curses, and dark artifacts that made my senses sing wrong, wrong, wrong .
He disappeared inside, and a moment later reappeared with what I assumed was the Alverac.
Behind him, the entrance to the trove faded and rippled, and the office wall reformed to solidity.
He raised bleak blue eyes as he held the scroll out to me.
Hurrying forward, I snatched it from his hands, tore off the ribbon, and unwound the roll of parchment. As I scoured its contents, I paced back and forth, finding myself drawing to a halt beside his glass desk.
The words at first made no sense because my mind and heart were racing too far ahead, too fast. I took in a deep breath and read through it again, slowly, carefully. The language was ancient and unwieldy, but I’d gotten accustomed to picking apart the cumbersome words during all those years tucked away in the library.
The blood in my veins chilled to hoarfrost when I finally understood what I was reading, what those amendments made at Valarie’s request meant. And my heart faltered as I took in Graysen’s neat signature and mine—wild and wide—exactly as I’d felt scratching it at the time. The blood now dried to a dirty dark brown.
The Alverac shook in my trembling hands. My world tipped and swayed as if wet sand had been sucked out from beneath my feet by a retreating wave. My knees buckled, and I stumbled against the desk, my sweaty palm skidding along the glass top as I tried to support myself.
My gods, what was written in here in stark indifferent wording?
“It’s not a marriage contract.”
My father closed his eyes and breathed out pain. “No.” When he opened his eyes, they shone with silver. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he blinked back the moisture before clearing his throat. “It can be. It’s been bestowed very rarely, and those in the past have used it as such.”
I’d always assumed—a stupid wishful thought—that Graysen and I would never marry, as he’d vowed all those years ago in the aviary. But on rare moments, I had contemplated the idea of being his wife. What it might be like for me. For us.
I’d thought that marriage to Graysen gave me some sort of right. Some sort of life. I’d never be on an equal footing with him, yet I’d believed we’d co-exist. That maybe he’d send me away, let me live elsewhere. That’s what I imagined I’d be granted—freedom.
I now knew this wasn’t the case for me. “But not the Crowthers,” I said, straightening and meeting my father’s weary gaze laden with heartache.
“No, when it’s signed in blood, it reverts to its original form. The Alverac is an ancient agreement. A pact. In the days of long ago, when one person was enslaved to another.”
Enslaved— the word razed through me.
“Graysen Crowther can make you do anything he wants by willing it, and no one can interfere.”
By willing it?
“He owns you, Nelle.”
It was such a small word— owns . One syllable. But what it encompassed …gods, what it meant to me… my entire body, my heart, my soul, my safety. I’d handed myself over with a scratching of letters strung out to spell my name on a sheet of aged parchment—transferring ownership of myself to someone else.
His head hanging low, my father braced his hands against the back of a chair, and when he spoke, his voice was raw. “He can do whatever he wants with you.”
The words chased one another in my mind. A serpent swallowing its tail— endless. There were endless things, endless possibilities, endless cruelties he could inflict.
I dug my fingernails into my palms, grinding them deeper, welcoming the sting as blood seeped out. Graysen had told me that so many times and I hadn’t heard him, I hadn’t been listening carefully enough— In one month’s time, you’ll turn twenty and I’ll own every single inch of you .
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Breathe, just breathe. Keep calm.
The Crowthers had purposely made me sign in blood.
They’d never been after an alignment in Houses. They hadn’t chosen Lise or Evvie. They’d been after me all this time, and the Alverac would grant them total control over me in all aspects.
Just by willing it…
My mind whirled with all the pieces of the puzzle Graysen had given me and the pieces I owned myself.
I was requested to meet with you.
I was the only one there and…I couldn’t save her!
What use is a blade against a Horned God?!
She whipped me until I couldn’t stand, until I’d almost passed out.
And …I’d been locked away in darkness the same year.
“Tabitha,” I breathed, opening my eyes.
My mother had been standing in front of the couch, but at Tabitha’s name, she collapsed, the cushion groaning and the fabric of her dress whispering against the leather.
My mother…
My mother knew Tabitha Crowther.
I slapped the rolled parchment against my thigh. “What has our House done to theirs?” Because this was starting to make some sort of sense, if only in relation to me. “What did you do?”
All the color had drained from my mother’s face and her pinched lips were a white line. She reached for her pocket. For that small vial of pills, she kept on her at all times. Her hand shook as she tipped the vial upside down and white pills rained into her cupped palm.
I stormed toward her, flinging an arm wide. “What. Did. You. Do?” A wrathful gust of wind knocked the pills from her hand, sending them flying all over the floor to disappear into the mess of debris. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”
My mother winced and she drew in a shuddering breath. For a long moment, I stared at her as if she were a stranger. I took in her gaunt, lined face and the hopelessness in her lifeless eyes. She’d once been radiant and beautiful, and in this forlorn way, she still was, but her beauty hadn’t been ravaged by time and guilt. She’d done something to the Crowthers, something so terrible it had been decaying her from the inside since.
My mother smoothed her hair with trembling fingers. Though there wasn’t a strand out of place, the gesture seemed to settle her. A moment later, she placed her hands on her lap, folding them on top of one another, and spoke softly. “Tabitha Crowther was my best friend since childhood. We were thick as thieves, she and I.” She may have smiled, but whatever it was quickly faded. “Years ago, when you were seven years old, she phoned to warn me. She knew the Horned Gods were coming for you that night. And just like Tabitha, she gave no thought to herself or the fact that she was betraying the Horned Gods.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “I’d never breathed a word about Tabitha. About what she was, what she could do.”
“She was other? ” The shock of it left me breathless.
That was why the Horned Gods were there the night of the car crash.
My mother nodded. “I never divulged her secret to anyone, not even with your father. Just as she’d done the same for me. She’d never told a soul about you, either. Not even her husband, Varen, knew.”
I was other …as Tabitha Crowther had been too.
And then I remembered Graysen had been there that night as well. He’d have listened into his mother’s phone call.
“Your father overheard me talking to Tabitha. And in my panic, I hadn’t realized what I’d said. I’d been worried for her too.” She glanced at my father, but he didn’t meet her eye. She sucked in a breath and squared her frail shoulders. “Your father made me choose. He said, if we could give the Horned Gods someone else, it will divert them from you.” She wet her dry lips with her tongue and this time, when she looked toward him, he turned away from her fully. Perhaps because he couldn’t face what he’d asked her to do, perhaps because he couldn’t look at her while she told me the truth. I watched him make his way to the window, his back to us both as he leaned his palms against the glass and stared at the lightning forking across the rolling black clouds.
My mother’s gaze dropped to her hands as she rotated the wedding ring around her too-thin finger, the gold band too loose to fit properly because of the weight she’d lost. Deep creases gouged her brow. “You were fast asleep in the family room when Master Sirro arrived at the estate, and you never knew he visited you. I don’t know by what miracle, only Zrenyth knows, but he detected nothing other about you.”
I shot a look at my father’s turned back. “And Master Sirro accepted that without talking to me, investigating further?”
He kept his gaze on the roiling storm. Down below, stretched out on the vast lawns, the marquee was flooded with light and life. “It was a tumultuous time between the Houses, Nelle. The Horned Gods did not tolerate others . Families were betraying one another.”
“Your father told Sirro he suspected Tabitha. That the rumor started with her—that she did it to protect herself,” my mother said, lifting tear-filled eyes.
I took a step back from both of them, my shoes sliding through splayed books and broken china.
“I did it for you, Nelle.” My mother clapped a hand to her quivering mouth. “I gave her up, Nelle. I gave up my best friend for you. I’d do it again without hesitation.” She spread her other palm against her stomach as the words tumbled from her tongue in a heaving mess of anguish. “But it killed me betraying her. I died the day I saved you.”
And she had. One day she’d been my mother, full of smiles and laughter, the next, a quiet shadow. Perhaps the tithe prison wasn’t only about me losing control of my power. Perhaps it was more about her not wanting to face the child she’d chosen over her best friend.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
The creature shivered, unfurling, and my powers seeped outward as I descended into a nightmare of chaotic thoughts. I didn’t see the rush of wild wind buffeting the room, skittering loose paper and thin cardboard, picking up the broken porcelain like spindrift. Nor did I hear the crackling sound of compressed glass coming from the desk and windows.
“ Nelle—”
I could only feel my heart weighed down with grief. Torn between sorrow and guilt, the heaviness pulling me down, down, down, and the horror roaring in my ears— Me. I was responsible for Graysen’s mother’s death.
No wonder Graysen had despised me.
“ Nelle. ” I finally heard my father sharply urge, “Calm.”
I blinked, coming to, seeing what my roiling emotions had wrought as the turbulent storm winds continued to tear through the office, whipping the ends of my hair across my face. My mother hunkered down with her arms crossed over the top of her head to shield herself from the scattered wreckage of antiques and ancient artifacts spinning through the air and crashing against the walls.
I tugged at my magic, reeling the power back in, and everything that had been whirling around the room froze for a brief eerie moment before dropping to the wooden floor with a clatter like a deluge of hail.
I didn’t apologize. I was past that now.
My mother dropped her arms, straightened, and glanced about the debris with wide terrified eyes before finally meeting my flinty gaze sharp with accusation. “Graysen was there when the Horned Gods came for Tabitha and he couldn’t save her. His aunt punished him for it. Because of what you’d done,” and I included my father with a swift hateful look, “she whipped him for a full year. He was a child!”
Torment shadowed my mother’s unblinking stare. She crumpled against the leather couch and expelled an anguished sound, bunching her bony fingers into her skirt.
My father stood before the tall window. The stormy sky seemed to be held up by the trees behind the wall of glass. I wearily padded up to him. “Father.”
He looked exhausted, yet there wasn’t a single grain of regret in him either. His jaw clenched and defiance gleamed in his gaze. “They were coming for you. They knew there was an other amongst us. I simply handed them the wrong one.” He tipped up his chin. “I expect it didn’t take the Crowthers long to figure it out. Your mother was the only person outside their family who knew what Tabitha was.”
“And so I was saved and their mother killed. How is that fair?”
His eyes hardened. “Our world, our place in it, isn’t fair, Nelle.”
No, he was right—it wasn’t.
He stepped toward me, reaching out to take hold of my shoulders, but I retreated swiftly, batting his touch away. For a split second, surprise and hurt swam in his gaze. Then determination seeped into the tension lines around his mouth and both of his hands fisted. “I won’t let the Crowthers take you. I’ll keep you safe.”
I snorted, taking another step back, and the sound of broken glass grating beneath my heels filled the silence between us. Safe. He thought to clip my wings and keep me safe. I’d never been safe. I was coddled. Kept swathed.
My jaw clenched. “For how long? Until I turn twenty. That’s in a few weeks.”
“Nelle,” he said in warning, his tone roughening. The severity on his face deepened.
Lies. He couldn’t stop this then, he couldn’t stop this now.
Anger burned down my throat, great swathes of it filling my belly. He’d kept me caged all this time. I was only going from one prison to another.
My father spoke firmly but quietly. The same threat that hovered over my life. My childhood. “It’s not only the Crowthers who’d want you.”
The Horned Gods.
I blinked, pausing in my retreat. “Is that what they want? Revenge? To turn me over to the Horned Gods?”
“I suspect as much. We’ll all die. None of us will be spared like the Estlores were. Not Evvie or Lise, or her unborn child. They want retribution. To make us pay for Tabitha. We’ll all swing by the noose. Every single one of us… I-I have to think of your sisters, Nelle.”
“Can’t I run?” Gods, I could, couldn’t I? Couldn’t I flee? Run as far as I could go?
“The Crowthers will hunt you. There’s nowhere you can go that they can’t find you, and we’ll be punished for letting you slip away. They’ll demand our deaths as payment.”
My eyes widened, and I shook my head in denial. “He won’t… He wouldn’t do that to me…” But as the words fell from my mouth, I realized I didn’t know that, not really.
We’d grown together over the weekend. Graysen cared for me. I knew it. Felt it.
But was it enough?
Was it his truth?
Because now I knew I hadn’t shown myself after the Uzrek at all. He’d lied to me. He’d known all this time I was other .
I stumbled back, my worldview tipping sideways, upside down. I didn’t know what to do or what to think… So I ran.