CHAPTER FORTY-TWO TREW
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
TREW
The force of it slammed into the wall on my left, cracking stone and sending debris raining down around us.
We rushed after her.
The red-haired woman hit the stairs at full speed, her hand barely grazing the railing as she vaulted down, three steps at a time. Magic crackled in her wake, leaving scorch marks on the stone.
I poured everything into the chase, my boots slamming on the floor as I closed the distance. Behind me, Isi’s footsteps matched my rhythm. The others followed, their companions shrieking warnings that echoed through the corridors.
“Stop,” I shouted again, though I knew she wouldn’t.
She burst through a door leading to the servants’ wing. A maid carrying linens screamed and dropped her load as the woman shoved past. The sheets billowed across the floor.
I leaped over them, not breaking stride. Isi stayed with me, her breathing controlled despite the pace. My fierce Minx, matching me step for step even in pursuit of someone who could kill us both.
Our companions dove at her, raking claws down her spine. She shrieked and whipped magic their way, sending them reeling.
The woman rounded another corner. She looked back. She was older than I’d expected, her features angular and sharp. Definitely not anyone from my court. I knew every face in this palace, every servant and advisor and guard.
This was a stranger. An intruder who may have been able to get past my wards with some sort of magic. She could’ve heard everything we’d discussed.
Fury burned through me. This was my castle. And someone had walked through it freely, gathering intelligence to use against us.
Against Isi.
I pushed harder, my legs burning with the effort. The woman hit the exterior door with both hands, magic exploding outward to blow it off its hinges. Sunlight flooded the dim corridor as she sprinted into the courtyard.
We followed. Morning light made me squint after the torch-lit corridors. The woman was already halfway across the open space, heading for the back lawn and the forest beyond.
If she fled into those trees, it would be harder to follow her.
I reached for my magic, pulling it up from the well inside me. The power surged hot and ready, eager for release. I shaped it into a binding spell, something to slow her down without killing her.
I needed answers more than I needed her dead.
The spell shot from my hands, golden light streaking across the courtyard. It wrapped around her ankles as she reached the lawn.
She went down hard, rolling with the impact, followed by Pherin and Gavelle, who plucked at her clothing and tried to claw at her face.
Instead of staying down, the woman twisted and slammed her palms against the grass. Magic erupted from the earth itself, shattering my binding and sending our companions spiraling away.
What in all the fates?
She scrambled to her feet and kept running. Soil clung to her clothes, grass stains marking where she’d fallen. Streaks of blood from Gavelle and Pherin’s attacks drizzled across the fabric.
Isi pulled ahead of me, her legs pumping as she closed the distance.
The forest loomed closer.
Gavelle and Pherin shifted, galloping after her in firecat form.
“Isi, fall back,” I called. This woman could have more magic waiting. She could have traps set in those trees.
“Not a chance.” Isi didn’t even look back.
She was just as stubborn as I was protective.
The woman’s hand shot out again, fingers splayed. The air between us shimmered with gathering power.
I threw myself forward, tackling Isi around the waist. We hit the grass as power screamed overhead, close enough that the heat of it singed my hair.
Pherin and Gavelle leaped up, shifting mid-air into bird form, flying high enough to avoid impact.
I rolled us both, putting my body between her and the threat.
The woman had gained some distance. She was going to make it to the trees.
I pulled Isi to her feet, and we sprinted after her. My lungs burned. Sweat ran down my back beneath my tunic. But I didn’t stop.
This woman may know everything. I would cut out my own heart before I let her report what she may have heard to whoever she was working with.
She reached the tree line. For a moment, I thought we’d lost her. Then I saw movement between the trunks, a flash of red hair as she stumbled.
She was tiring. Finally.
We crashed into the forest. Branches whipped at my face. Roots tried to trip me. But I’d grown up running through these woods, and I knew every path and hollow.
Ahead, the woman’s breathing came in ragged gasps. She glanced back, fear flashing across her features.
I put on a final burst of speed, eating up the distance between us. My hand closed around her arm as she tried to dart between two close-growing oaks.
“Got you.” I yanked her back, spinning her to face me.
She fought like a cornered beast. Her hand came up, and she raked her nails toward my eyes. I blocked her with my forearm, then swept her legs out from under her.
We went down together. I pinned her wrists above her head, my weight holding her in place. A burst of my magic created bindings that pinned her four limbs to the forest floor.
Isi arrived a heartbeat later. Pherin landed on her shoulder, her feathers still bristled. If there was room, I sensed she’d shift into her firecat form again.
Gavelle swooped down to perch in the tree above us, his eyes fixed on the captive.
“Who are you?” I growled. “Who sent you?”
The woman’s mouth twisted into something that might’ve been a smile. Up close, I could see the lines around her eyes, silver threading through her red hair. Sixty, maybe older. But she’d run like someone half her age.
“You’re too late,” she said.
Her accent sounded strange. Not Syllavar. From one of the other courts, perhaps.
“Too late for what?” I shifted my grip, making sure she couldn’t break free. “Answer me.”
“The weave is already corrupted.” Her pale green eyes fixed on Isi. “She can’t stop what’s coming. Neither can you. They have a new anchor now.”
“New anchor?” Cold slid down my spine. “What do you know about the weave?”
“More than you’ll ever discover.” She tried to buck me off, but I held firm.
Footsteps crunched through the underbrush. Derren burst in first, Dare at his heels. Lexie and Kerralyn followed seconds later, both breathing hard from the chase.
“Is she—” Lexie started.
“Alive,” I said.
The woman’s smile widened. “Not for long.”
Foam appeared at the corners of her mouth. White and thick, it bubbled past her lips.
“No.” I grabbed her jaw, trying to force her mouth open. “No, you don’t get to—”
Her body convulsed, and she went still beneath me, her pale green eyes staring sightlessly at the canopy above.
“Fates.” Isi dropped to her knees beside us. “What did she take?”
I felt for a pulse, already knowing I wouldn’t find one. Her skin had gone cold too quickly, the life draining from her faster than should be possible.
I released her magical bindings. We didn’t need them now.
Nobody spoke.
We’d run the length of the palace. We’d chased her through the forest. I’d had my hand around her wrist. And she’d still won. Whatever she’d heard in that corridor, whatever she knew about our plans, our people, our next move, was gone with her.
The forest was very quiet.
“Poison,” Derren said grimly. He crouched down, studying her face. “Fast-acting. She probably had it under her tongue.”
“She chose death over capture.” Kerralyn’s voice shook. “Why?”
Because whatever she knew or whoever she worked for was more terrifying than dying in a forest.
I sat back on my heels, frustration warring with the dread spreading through my chest. We’d been close to getting answers.
“Trewyn!”
I looked up to find Coralee hurrying toward us, her ermine draped across the back of her neck. She slowed, picking her way over roots.
“I saw you from the window,” she said. “What happened?”
“Spy. She was outside my council chamber. She took poison before I could make her answer questions.”
Coralee studied the dead woman with the clinical detachment that had always unnerved me.
“Does anyone recognize her?” I asked, looking around the group.
Everyone shook their head
“She’s not from Syllavar,” Coralee said. She knelt beside the body, careful not to touch it. “Look at the mark on her wrist.”
I lifted the woman’s arm. A small symbol marked her inner wrist, barely visible against her skin. Circular, with intersecting lines that formed a pattern I recognized, very similar to the symbol from Velacross’s journal. The one I still had to search for in my father’s papers.
“What is it?” Isi asked, leaning closer.
“I’m not certain.” Coralee’s finger hovered over the mark without making contact. “But I’ve seen something like it before, in very old texts about—”
The woman’s body jerked.
I scrambled back, pulling Isi with me. The others retreated as well, forming a loose circle around the corpse.
The woman’s skin began to shrivel, as if all the moisture in her body was evaporating at once. Her cheeks hollowed. Her eyes sank into their sockets. Her fingers curled into claws.
“Fates,” Lexie whispered.
Smoke began to rise from the desiccated flesh. The sharp smell of bitter herbs and old magic tainted the air.
The body burst into flame, burning with a blue-white intensity that made my eyes water. The heat of it drove us back another step, our hands raised to shield our faces.
In seconds, nothing remained but white ash that drifted across the forest floor, leaving only a scorched patch of earth where the woman had lain.
Silence fell over the wood. Even the birds had gone quiet.
White ash drifted across the scorched earth. A woman had been lying there seconds ago. Now there was nothing. Not even the symbol on her wrist. Not even proof she’d existed.
Someone had planned for this. Had built her death into her like a failsafe.
Coralee shook her head, her face pale. “Bloodfire magic.”
“What?” I’d studied magic extensively, but I’d never heard of anything called bloodfire.