CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ISI
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ISI
“No one’s here,” Trew said, reaching down to help me into the tower room.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I froze before gripping his forearm, using it to pull myself up and through the opening. A glance out the window told me the storm was still some distance away.
Pherin shot past us, her tiny wings a blur as she circled the space.
I stood on the stone flooring, my eyes adjusting to the dim light.
The circular room stretched wider than I remembered, flanked with tall windows on two sides.
A chilly breeze swept through the openings, making papers flutter on the tables.
Scraps of wood smoldered in the fireplace, suggesting someone had been here recently.
Stone half-walls divided the space into separate areas. That was new since I’d come here long ago with Addie to play. An eerie blue glow pulsed from one of the areas on the left.
Trew moved ahead of me, checking behind the partitions, a blade in each hand. If someone tried to attack, he’d gut them before they’d take one step. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight, ready for violence.
I grunted. “Search. We need to be fast.”
“Take the left side. I’ll take the right.”
Pherin continued her aerial reconnaissance, perching on high points to watch the hole in the wall and the door to the tower stairs not far to its right.
The first alcove I searched held shelves lined with jars. Hundreds of them, each carefully labeled in precise script. I moved closer, reading the names on the top shelf with growing horror.
Asphodel. Bloodbane. Monkshood. Belladonna. Hemlock. Nightshade variants I recognized from my childhood tutoring.
My hands shook as I reached for one jar, not touching it but reading the label again to make sure I hadn’t misread.
The elegant script remained unchanged, each letter forming words that made my stomach clench with recognition. I’d watched people drink these ingredients. Had stood on that platform wearing a bone-white mask while citizens of my own kingdom consumed death steeped in blood-red wine.
I remembered one young woman from a recent ceremony, her knees buckling as the ashwine hit, crumpling to the ground with a final, choked gasp.
The memory of her face, terrified and pleading, crashed over me.
One jar. Then another. Row after row of the carefully labeled jars, each offering the same death.
My breathing came in short gasps. This wasn’t just storage. This was for production. Someone had been creating ashwine here, in this tower, while I lived in ignorant comfort a few floors below.
How many people had died because of the contents of these jars? How many futures had been stolen, drop by carefully measured drop?
Whoever worked in this tower had access to everything needed for the executions.
My stomach turned. I grabbed a jar of embershade and dumped its contents into the smoldering fire, watching the powder hiss and blacken. Featherwort followed.
Behind the next partition, Trew’s sharp intake of breath made me turn.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Come see.”
I returned the jars to the shelf and rounded the stone half-wall, stepping into a large area. My blood curdled.
Reinforced walls held scorch marks and deep gouges, as if something with massive claws had torn at the stone. Multiple containers lined a workbench, each filled with ashes.
“Skathe remains,” Trew said. “Someone’s been killing them.” He gestured to stacks of papers on a nearby table covered with drawings. “Studying them.”
“How did they get them here without being seen?” I actually didn’t need to ask. The woman who’d pushed my mother down the stairs could’ve traveled through one of the gaps in space my mother had created, like the red-haired woman must’ve done at the top of the stairs. If she’d had a Skathe in tow…
I moved to the next alcove, circling to the partition, needing to understand what was going on.
Maps covered a long table, held down at the corners by stones. My breath snagged in my throat when I recognized the layout of my dormitory room at Syllavar. The hallway outside the door. Routes marked in red ink from my third-floor quarters to the training halls. The dining area. The library.
Guard rotation schedules for Syllavar Castle had been written on the edge of the map. A timeline showing when I’d arrived, where I’d gone, and who I’d spoken with.
Sketches of people I knew covered another section of the table. Trew, his features captured in remarkable detail. Nia. Malcolm Reid. Grayson and Coralee. Others I recognized from my classes. Even Kira.
I reached out with trembling fingers to touch Trew’s sketch, my heart racing.
Scratchy handwriting filled the spaces between the drawings, notes about routines, weaknesses, and opportunities. The script looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My father’s perhaps? I’d seen his handwriting many times, but I couldn’t be certain.
Maybe I wasn’t sure because I didn’t want it to be him. Despite how cruel he could be, a part of me still cared when I shouldn’t. If only I could shove the last of my feelings aside.
A separate paper described the assassin who’d attacked me in the hallway. Every detail matched, down to what he’d worn and the blade he’d used. Payment records showed the transaction, dated the day before the person attacked me in the hall.
“Trew.” My voice came out strangled.
He rounded the wall and was with me in a few strides, his eyes scanning the table. Fury and dismay warred on his features as he took in the intelligence gathered on his castle and his people.
On me specifically.
His jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth ground together. He took my hand, his grip reassuring.
“Whoever did this will pay.” The words growled out of him. “I promise you that.”
I wanted to take time to process this, but we couldn’t remain here long.
A gust of wind scattered papers on the table, breaking the silence.
We found notes about how they drained magic from victims, plus the stages of corruption that followed on the land after they’d passed.
Weaknesses were documented in clinical detail.
Remove the head and they die. They needed someone to control them, or they weren’t nearly as vicious.
Without a leader, they’d scatter and slip back through the veil.
But the most disturbing notes made my vision blur.
“Harvesting from the Skathes” was followed by “Harvesting after the Day of Mercy”.
Tools I suspected had been designed for torture lay on a nearby bench. I recognized some of them from the Day of Mercy ceremonies, instruments I’d seen carried away as the bodies were removed from the village square.
“If someone is being tortured…” I couldn’t quite believe what I was thinking. “Does torture make it easier to…harvest their magic?”
“Fuck,” Trew said.
The words blurred as my vision tunneled. I gripped the edge of the table, my knees threatening to buckle as the full horror sank in. They weren’t only killing people for their magic. They were farming them. Every Day of Mercy I’d witnessed flashed through my mind in agonizing detail.
The mothers clutching their children one last time before taking a cup and drinking.
The young men and women who’d begged for one more day.
This hadn’t been mercy. It had been a fucking feast.
Pherin landed on my shoulder, her small body trembling. Evil place.
I needed to think about this, rage about it, but there was still more to see. Rounding another partition, I found a long table with restraints at the four corners.
I approached the table like it might bite me, each step requiring conscious effort. The metal restraints weren’t just functional. They had been designed for prolonged use, padded in places to prevent chafing during extended sessions.
My fingers hovered over the leather straps, and I could almost hear the echoes of screams that must’ve filled this space. Could almost see the terror in victims’ eyes as they realized what was happening to them.
Someone had lain here. Multiple people, judging by the wear patterns on the restraints.
They’d struggled. They’d begged. They’d endured whatever horrors my father—
I couldn’t think of him as my father anymore. Not after this. They’d endured whatever horrors the monster who’d raised me had inflicted in his quest for power.
Dark strands of hair had been caught in the metal and a few lay on the stone floor beneath.
Oh, no. Please, please, no…
Dried blood darkened the metal restraints. Trew’s hand hovered over them, not quite touching, his expression going distant.
“Fenmark,” he said, his voice rough. “I can feel his magical signature in the blood.”
Two throwing knives lay on the floor beneath the table. Trew stooped and picked them up, his jaw clenching. “I gave these to him for his last birthday. He had them with him when he and Addie left on their mission.”
My knees hit the floor hard enough to send pain shooting up my thighs, but the physical hurt was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my chest.
The strands were unmistakably hers, that particular shade of dark brown that caught sunlight like spun copper. I’d braided this hair countless times while growing up, had watched her twist it into fancy arrangements for formal occasions, had seen it wild and tangled after our midnight adventures.
Now it was here in this place of horror.
Bile burned my throat as I struggled to breathe through it. Drawing a dagger, I gripped its hilt until my knuckles ached.
I gathered the strands with shaking fingers, pocketing them as evidence. They boiled like an accusation in my grip. While I’d been stabbing a king and swearing vengeance, my sister had been chained to this table.
“I should’ve felt it somehow,” I whispered. “She’s my sister, and I felt nothing while she suffered.”
Guilt pressed down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Why hadn’t I sensed her pain? How could I have been so blind to the evil happening within the place I’d once called home?