CHAPTER SEVEN #2
She smiled kindly and shrugged, like it was me who’d had the outburst. A small child, too young for court, and not an adult male whose true age was as mysterious as his real name.
“Forgive our friend,” she said. “Five years away from court, and he is eager to share news. I see there is an urgent matter I must attend to. You are dismissed.” She waved her hand.
“Petitions will reopen tomorrow at noon. Please return then, and I shall hear your concerns, I promise.” She pinned her eyes to the Hermit.
“My friend,” she said, barely masking the annoyance in her voice. “We shall speak in private.”
And with a single look at my nursemaid, I was sent to my room.
I never did learn what he told her that day.
Nor could I forget the way she looked when she came to see me after.
There was something in her eyes, something different, like what he had said somehow was about me.
She promised that was not the case. But it was the only time I could recall when I didn’t believe her.
The cold spring wind blew in my face, trussing through my hair.
I shivered, wishing desperately I had some magic left.
I could use it to shift into a warmer coat, or, what I should have done the moment the Hermit pulled up the weeds–shifted my body into something larger and stronger, breaking through the binds.
But I was empty. And it was starting to become painful.
The Azete inside me was angry, and sharp stomach pains were its way of letting me know.
It knew it had been close to feeding, feeding in a way I hadn’t allowed it to in years.
Brennan had given me so much, but if things had gone my way, he might have given me everything.
And now, the Azete had not only been deprived of its meal, but all the magic and energy I had so carefully collected and stored for it.
If I didn’t feed soon, it would become even more agitated, more desperate. And if I wasn’t careful. I would lose control of myself.
I turned to the Hermit without thinking, wondering if I could even feed from him.
I didn’t always know I was stealing energy when I was younger.
It took until I was a teenager to feel the difference between others’ emotions and my own.
To recognize the feel of energy from one witch versus another.
But I was positive I’d never taken any from him. Just like I never could from Geoffrey.
Was the Hermit even mortal? Or just gifted with the long lifespans we once held before the Doom? Before our magic weakened. I was positive only another Azete was safe from me…
The Hermit shook his head. His lips curled into a feline smirk. “Don’t even think about it.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I see the hunger in your eyes. You’ll get nothing from me. I feel nothing toward you. And I plan to continue feeling nothing.”
“Nothing?” I asked. There was a taunt in my voice that I knew was the Azete speaking.
My voice sounded deeper, huskier. It was slight, but it was there, and it meant that the Azete was in charge.
“What about pride?” My voice dropped even lower.
“Are you not even a little bit proud that you were the one who finally found me? That it was you after all these years?”
He laughed. “You think you were so hard to find, don’t you, Princess? Well, you weren’t. Tell the Azete to simmer down. There’s no need for me to be proud of completing such a simple task.” He leaned forward, patting Erys’s head again. “It certainly didn’t take me seven years to find you.”
“Yes, it did,” I balked, my voice suddenly higher, more vulnerable. More mine. “You said so yourself. My aunt’s been looking for me for seven years.” Since my mother died, since I left…
“I said that’s how long your aunt’s been looking for you.” He smirked. “It has not been seven years since I began to look.”
I frowned. “And when was that?”
He chuckled. “I began tonight.” He pressed a fist to his heart. “Oh, the pride I feel. Pride.” He said the word like it was the most preposterous thing in the world.
I turned away, my cheeks heating. “You knew where I was.”
“You think I stumbled upon you by accident in the middle of Kalder on a random spring night? My timing at the lake tonight was perfect. Of course, I knew.”
Nausea burned low in my belly. “What is she going to do with me?” I asked. My voice was shaking again. What punishment could she offer to me that I didn’t already feel inside myself? That I hadn’t tortured myself with when I was alone at night.
We didn’t have boxings in Azeal. But I’d heard of far worse punishments—the kind that left your mind ruined but your body intact, all so you could continue to endure the torture for years and years to come.
“She wants to talk to you,” he said, sounding almost nonchalant.
“Right, sure. She sent you to find me after all this time—just to talk to me.” I practically spat, but it was all I could do to keep from panicking, to keep myself distracted from the rapid racing of my heart.
I wanted to ask him more. But I knew I’d get no answers. He always spoke like this, infuriating, in riddles. Yet he drew the edge of his cloak over my shoulders, offering to share some of his warmth.
I didn’t want it. Not from the Hermit.
But I was cold–so cold, and drained. I said nothing, but I welcomed the warmth, keeping my body as close to his as I dared.
After that, we flew in silence, passing over endless swaths of trees. When the sky lightened on the horizon, just enough to suggest sunrise was approaching, I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t stop my mind from spinning.
“How much further?” I asked. Beyond losing my magic, beyond the twisting in my gut from the starving Azete, I was simply exhausted. I’d run for miles, swam to the bottom of a lake, and battled two chimera without rest.
“Not far. We’re here,” he said. “Look.”
Erys cleared the edge of Kalder Forest, taking us over the expanse of the wilds. The lands that lay before our border. It was where the chimera roamed free. Once, the fields had been lush and fertile. But now they’d been overrun with beasts and failing crops.
Tall stone walls, over twenty feet high, had been erected around the country to protect the witches from such threats.
They were still being built when I was a girl, when the danger of the chimera was growing, only just beginning to reach our doors.
The stonework had completed, sealing the country within its walls, just before I left.
I could make out a glimpse of the rooftops beyond, and atop the hill in the country’s center, my home.
The castle. The seat of House Zakros, the royal house of the witches.
Small flags carrying the sigil waved in the breeze.
Witchmoth wings surrounding a full moon.
It was exactly as I remembered it. And yet, I felt like a stranger coming upon a foreign land.
Several witches guarding the wall came into view, little more than shadowy silhouettes in the dark, each one holding a stave with a faintly glowing moonstone at the top.
I sucked in a breath, expecting Erys to fly lower, for the Hermit to announce himself to the guards, to reveal me. Announce me as his prisoner. The killer of the last queen.