Chapter Thirty
Bridget Winslow
Price of Freedom
Pain.
That’s the first thing I register as consciousness creeps back.
Everything hurts—muscles, bones, soul. The hollow emptiness where Bast should be throbs like an open wound, a void so complete it makes breathing feel like swallowing broken glass.
My body remembers the Mathairs’ magick tearing through me, ripping away the bond that made me whole.
Each heartbeat echoes wrong, missing its other half.
Our last moments together flash through my mind—his warmth, his scent, the perfect safety of his arms. Now there’s just…nothing. A darkness so complete it makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds.
Screaming cuts through the fog in my head. Not mine, though. Multiple voices. Familiar voices.
“Get your hands off her!” Brianna’s chains rattle against stone. The sound draws me back a few years—her chains rattling in that cell, after they killed her mate. I was too afraid to help her then. Too loyal to their lies.
“Please, don’t—” Emma’s plea turns into a strangled cry.
I force my eyes open. The cell swims into focus, lit by torches that cast dancing shadows on damp stone walls.
Two guards in Court uniforms have Emma by the arms, trying to drag her out of the corner.
Her face is pale, one hand pressed protectively over her stomach.
Blood from earlier questioning has dried at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes burn with a fire I recognize—a mother’s desperate need to protect her child.
The baby. Meredith’s power. They can’t—
“Stop.” The word scrapes out of my raw throat, tasting of copper and despair.
Neither guard spares me a glance. They’re focused on getting the manacles off Emma’s wrists, already holding the smaller transport cuffs ready.
These aren’t the standard restraints—these are the ones designed for interrogation.
I remember their bite all too well from training.
Time slows. In the heartbeat between shackles and cuffs, something shifts in the air.
My skin prickles with recognition—magick—ancient, untamed and ancient.
It tastes like lightning on my tongue, nothing like the sterile precision of Court spells.
Power crackles through the cell, wild and hungry, as the torchlight flickers and burns green.
The guards convulse, their bodies jerking like puppets with cut strings, and the sound of their bones cracking against stone turns my stomach.
Emma’s eyes go wide with surprise, her hands still raised in instinctive defense.
They hit the floor hard. Neither moves. The green light fades, leaving only the normal orange flicker of torches.
Emma stands frozen, staring at her hands like they belong to someone else. “I didn’t… I didn’t cast anything.” The words catch in her throat as she sways between horror and wonder, her fingers trembling in the torchlight.
Brianna leans forward in her chains, squinting through her good eye. The other is swollen shut and purple-black. “Are they…?”
Emma drops to her knees, fingers pressing against throats. “Dead.” The word stumbles out between shuddering breaths. “Both dead. I killed them. But I didn’t mean to—I just wanted them to stop.” Her hand returns to her stomach, protective. Instinctive. Already a mother’s gesture.
“Meredith’s power.” The words taste like copper on my tongue. “She’s protecting you. Protecting the baby.”
Emma snatches the keys from one guard’s belt, hands steadier now.
Purpose replacing shock. Then she’s moving to me, cool metal clicking as my shackles fall away.
The Court’s magick-dampening spells lift, but it barely matters.
Everything inside me feels shattered, like someone took a hammer to my soul and scattered the pieces.
“We’re getting out of here.” Emma deftly unlocks Brianna’s cuffs. “All of us. Now.”
Brianna hurries to help me stand, pulling me into a fierce embrace.
Her familiar scent—cedar and sage, unchanged despite everything—brings tears to my eyes.
We cling to each other for one precious heartbeat before my legs shake, threatening to buckle.
The room spins in nauseating circles. But there’s no time for weakness.
No time to mourn what they took. My sister needs me. Emma needs me.
I won’t fail them. Not again.
The spiral staircase seems endless, each stone step worn smooth by centuries of use.
Every movement sends daggers of pain through my body, aftershocks from whatever the Mathairs did to break my bond.
Brianna’s arm around my waist is the only thing keeping me upright.
The empty space inside me screams for Bast, a void so complete it makes me want to claw out my own heart just to stop feeling its absence.
But I force the pain down. Lock it away with all the other hurts they’ve given me over the years. Focus on breathing. On moving. On surviving.
Emma leads the way, her bare feet silent on stone steps. The torchlight casts strange shadows, making the walls seem to writhe and dance. Or maybe that’s just my blurred vision. Blood drips from my nose—an aftereffect of their assault. I wipe it away with shaking hands.
A door creaks somewhere above us.
We freeze.
Footsteps echo down the stairwell, growing closer.
Each step sends ice through my veins as Court training kicks in—measuring pace, weight, weapon probability.
One person. Light-footed. My mind catalogs escape routes even as my battered body screams in protest. The guard is probably coming to check why her companions haven’t returned with Emma.
My fingers curl into fists, muscle memory taking over despite my weakness. Even broken, I remember every lesson. Every way to kill and fight. I was trained to be one of their best. The Mathairs made sure those lessons stuck, carving them into bone and blood until violence became reflex.
The guard appears around the curve of the stairs, the pewter buttons on her uniform catching torchlight. Her eyes go wide at the sight of us—three prisoners where there should be none. I recognize her from training sessions, one of the younger instructors who specializes in defensive magick.
Emma moves first. Raw power pulses from her, but this time she tries to direct it. The guard’s hands fly to her throat as she chokes on something invisible. Meredith’s magick responds to Emma’s intent now, less wild than before.
But the guard is already casting. A binding spell whips toward us like a striking snake, sickly yellow light promising pain. These aren’t practice bonds—these are meant to hurt.
I shove Brianna aside, letting instinct and training take command. My counterspell feels wrong, jagged where it used to flow smooth. Without Bast’s strength humming beneath my skin, my magick stutters like a broken engine. But it works. The binding shatters midair in a shower of golden sparks.
“Together,” I rasp out. Because that’s how we trained. That’s how we survive. How we should have fought all along, instead of letting their rules divide us.
Brianna’s spelled punch catches the guard’s jaw—a move I taught her in secret years ago. My blast of power hits her chest, weaker than it should be but enough.
The guard crumples, body bouncing down several steps before coming to rest.
“Dead?” Brianna asks, but Emma shakes her head.
“Just unconscious.” Her face falls as she stares at her hands. “The Mathairs are going to kill me for this, aren’t they?” The same fear I’ve heard in countless voices over the years. The terror of defying their perfect order. Fear I’m very familiar with.
“No.” The word comes out fierce, certain. “They’re never touching any of us again.”
We leave the guard sprawled on the stairs.
Keep climbing. My legs are steadier now, adrenaline burning away some of the weakness.
But each step reminds me of what’s missing—that vital piece of my soul they ripped away.
I wonder if Bast feels this same hollowness, this same screaming absence. The thought makes me stumble.
The top of the stairs looms ahead. Beyond that door lies the main hall of the castle. It’s a crossroads for the entire complex. Anyone could see us.
“We’ll never make it,” Emma whispers.
“We will.” I squeeze her hand, trying to project confidence I don’t feel. “Trust me.”
But she’s right. We won’t all make it. Not together. Not without a distraction. Without a sacrifice. The same choice Meredith made, giving her life so others could live free. The choice Brianna’s lover made, dying to give her a chance.
The choice crystallizes in my mind, sharp and clear as broken glass. They go. I fight. Maybe this time, I’ll finally do something worthy of the love I’ve been given.
The main hall stretches before us, vast and gleaming.
Afternoon sun streams through towering windows, painting everything in false warmth.
The same windows I stared through during endless lessons, dreaming of freedom while reciting death spells.
A half dozen women crisscross through the hall, their Court uniforms pristine, their movements precise.
Everything here is precise. Controlled. Perfect.
Just like they tried to make us.
“This way.” I guide both of them along the shadow of the wall, trying to stay hidden behind massive stone columns. My footsteps whisper silent across marble floors I once polished as punishment for showing weakness. “The gateway circle is across the courtyard in the lawn. Once you’re through—”
“What do you mean ‘you’?” Brianna’s grip on my arm tightens, her fingers digging into bruised flesh. The pain barely registers compared to the void in my chest. “We’re all going.”
“No.” The word comes out soft, broken. Like everything inside me. “Someone has to hold them back. Give you time to get through.” Just like Meredith did. Just like Brianna’s lover tried to do.
“No.” Tears spill down my sister’s bruised face, cutting clean tracks through dried blood.