Chapter 20
after outwitting the hunters and their grindlewolves, Brielle leads her coven to a safehouse in a village near the Leicenan border.
They hide until the following day, waiting for the cover of darkness to continue onwards, ditching the coach and securing a smaller, sleeker carriage as they reach a town just over the border.
Three days and nights of relentless travel is enough to bind Inesh and Dreska into constant companions and fast friends.
But for Brielle every mile is torture. Her friends, captured, taken and the possibility of those hunters finding them again at the very forefront of her mind.
She taps her fingers restlessly against her leg, watching out of the carriage window as the blur of Leicenan vineyards race past outside.
She should have been there, should have protected them, not left so swiftly, believing everything would be fine on the isles in her absence.
She should have factored in the ruling council’s relentless drive for power and the strong possibility of retaliation.
‘Driver!’ She raps sharply on the roof of the carriage, not for the first time. ‘Faster, get us there faster!’
No ship will sail to the Fortunate Isles from the northern port town of Normé, despite flashing her purse, full of coin. So she books a passage for the three of them aboard a ship to Port Trenn and stands on deck the entire trip as Nova stays by her side, watching the sea consume the land.
There is nothing you can do.
‘The first Trial, no, the first two Trials, will be over and done with,’ she says. ‘I should have been there. I could have got Mira out, Kell too.’ She doesn’t mention the unthinkable: what if they’re already dead? What if, even now, the ruling council is surrounding the islands with their ships …
Hunter, focus on the next move. Caden will know more when we arrive. There is no use fretting. Think like the hunter you are. Think like the Tresillian witch you have been forged into.
‘Ever the pragmatist.’
As are you usually, Brielle. This crisis is the first true test of your character. Do not fall short.
Brielle stifles an indignant snort, annoyed that Nova is right.
At Coven Septern, she was never tested in this way, not since she went rogue and stalked her mother’s killers.
But, since Lowri’s defection, and then her own, and now this …
this crisis, as Nova calls it, she is indeed being tested.
Her only hope is that Eli and Lowri have returned from Eli’s father’s world between Caden sending the message, and now.
But, somehow, she doesn’t think so. She cannot feel the presence of her sister in this world.
There is still a silence, a space unfilled, which troubles her more each day.
The lack of stability, of grounding, leaves her shaken, wobbling to find her equilibrium.
The world is changing, but she must stay steadfast. If not for herself, then for her young charges. For Lowri and for her friends.
‘We were gone too long. Foolish of me. Foolish.’ She swears, gripping the railing, and steadies her breath. ‘What has it been? Two weeks now? Longer?’
Nova says nothing, merely swishing her tail.
The moment she sets foot on Ennor, she knows things are very, very wrong. And when Caden greets her, gaunt and tall, her brother cannot meet her gaze. Not fully.
‘Tell me,’ she says, gripping his shoulder.
He swallows. ‘Mira and Agnes are still in the hands of the ruling council. Alive for now, that’s all we know.
Mira is representing Arnhem in the Trials.
Penscalo has been recaptured by the watch.
’ He blinks. ‘There are more people fleeing other islands, finding their way here. We are the last stand now against the watch and ruling council. They have been swift, brutal—’
‘And what of Lowri? Eli?’ Brielle asks desperately, trying to find some good, some hope.
‘That is the worst news of all, Bri,’ Caden says quietly, eyes finally meeting hers. ‘They have not returned.’
Drake cry haunts the city of Highborn. As Brielle and Pearl slink through the shadowed back alleyways in the gathering twilight, Brielle realises what the cry means. The creature is in mourning.
‘Unusual for drakes to travel this far south, isn’t it?’ Pearl asks quietly. ‘Especially to somewhere so populated by humans.’
‘It is,’ Brielle agrees. She doesn’t want to admit it, but that ethereal cry is known as an ill omen in the Spines, where the majority of drakes reside. ‘Best get off the streets and to an inn.’
‘Why an inn?’ Pearl asks, tilting her chin.
Brielle smiles. ‘Best place to hear the gossip. And, usually, the food’s better than in those fancy places. I’m hungry.’
Pearl mirrors Brielle’s smile, sharp tiny teeth on display, and Brielle wonders, not for the first time, how deadly her companion truly is for Caden to insist that she accompanies Brielle.
As soon as Caden had filled her in, Brielle made a quick plan with him, Kai and Merryam, trying to contain her guilt over not being there aboard Phantom the day they were taken.
Leaving her newly formed coven under the watchful eye of Amma and Tanith, she repacked straight away, replenished her purse and set sail for the mainland of Arnhem with Pearl.
‘Mira’s always been brave,’ Pearl says quietly. ‘Aboard Renshaw’s ship, when we were captured, she held her own. Never gave in, never faltered, even when Renshaw … well. She’s a monster.’
‘So this is personal for you?’ Brielle asks, weaving round a group of revellers. The streets are packed with people from all over the continent descending on Highborn to witness the Trials unfold.
Pearl glances at Brielle. ‘My family are Mer, Eli and the others. My home is Ennor.’ A carriage trundles past and Pearl swerves to avoid one of the horses as it tosses its head. ‘Mira is one of us now and that’s why Caden sent me. We never leave one of our own behind.’
She’s loyal, then, Brielle realises, regarding this slight girl quietly.
They call her little ghost, and she has heard rumours of her talents, how she slips in and out, how she employs the use of poisons rather effectively.
Loyalty is the vein that runs through the heart of Ennor, but that’s not why Pearl specifically was chosen by Caden for this mission. She’s sure of it.
She worries most for Kell, a seething rage burning slowly inside her at the thought of the watch ripping him from Helene and taking him to be used as a pawn in these Trials.
Mira, she knows, is a fighter. She has a heart of iron, a will that cannot so easily be broken.
But Kell has been hidden and protected for so long.
She’s not sure he will know how to survive the Trials.
And then there’s Agnes. Brielle has no knowledge of where she could be.
She hopes that Pearl is also very useful as a spy, that little ghost has more than one meaning.
‘Lead the way, Hunter,’ Pearl says as they enter the merchant’s quarter of the city in the south-east.
Far from the coven strongholds in the north of Highborn, where the most established houses line leafy streets, the merchant’s quarter is more ramshackle in nature, and far more populated.
As such, it’s a melting pot of poor and rich, a place to make your fortune, or die in the attempt.
The inns and pubs are the best grounds to hunt for information in the city, and Brielle glances down a cobbled street still packed with revellers and street hawkers, the scent of their wares wafting over her in heady waves: baked goods, cheap bottles of lemonade and ale, pickled eels curling in pots.
She looks both ways, checking they haven’t been followed, before heading through the old wooden door of the Wanderer’s Rest.
Inside, the air is so smoky and thick you could chew on it, the atmosphere rowdy and the beer flowing free and fast. Brielle and Pearl find a small table that wobbles near the bar, and Brielle has to duck her head as a tray of frothing drinks is scooped up and carried above her by one of the barmen.
‘Watch your pockets in here,’ she says to Pearl. ‘And I’ll order for—’
‘You do know where I grew up, don’t you?’ Pearl interjects, placing her forearms on the table. ‘If there’s a better pickpocket than me in this place, I’ll shake their hand and give them my coin.’
Brielle eyes her. ‘Where did you grow up?’
‘Finnikin’s Way,’ she says with a wink, neatly hooking two glasses off a tray as a barmaid is distracted, and passing one to Brielle. She sniffs it, shrugs, then takes a tiny sip of the pale green wine before looking back at Brielle. ‘Caden didn’t send you here with someone you’d need to coddle.’
Brielle shrugs as well, realising she may have underestimated this girl. She clinks her glass against Pearl’s. ‘Fair enough. I heard that community disappeared. Just upped and left without a trace. Do you miss any of them?’
Pearl laughs quietly. ‘In a word, no. The day Eli rescued me from that place was the day I was born anew. Doesn’t mean I don’t wonder where they’ve hunkered down, though.
They’re smart – it’s how they’ve survived so long.
The ruling council and their watch would have a job catching them.
’ She glances around. ‘So, who are you hoping to see here?’
Brielle takes a long sip, her gaze lingering on a group walking inside. ‘The watch.’
Pearl splutters, wiping her chin. ‘Have you lost it? The watch?’
‘They’re going to sit down at the next table, so act natural,’ Brielle mutters, flagging down a passing barmaid to order some food.
Pearl’s version of acting natural is to shrink further into her chair, glancing crossly at the men barging through the crowd to take seats round the table next to them.
The four men are all off duty, but Brielle can tell a man of the watch from a mile away.
Entitled, superior and rough round the edges.
One of them grabs the arm of a barman, clicking his fingers as he orders drinks ‘on the house’.
As Brielle and Pearl’s food arrives, they eat their slices of pie and greens quietly, senses attuned to the men and every jewel of information they begin dropping unknowingly into their laps.
‘That drake needs putting down. What a noise,’ one man says, scratching at a lump on his ear.
‘Along with that girl they’re keeping in the tower room.’
‘Weren’t you minding her?’
‘The redhead? No, that’s Fred. Did you hear he’s in the infirmary, though? The girl bit him. Bit him! Those islanders are feral.’
They all guffaw and Brielle bends her fork into a curve.
The arrogance, the sheer nerve of them. But good on Agnes for fighting back.
And at least now Brielle can find her. There are only three towers at court and all she needs is a set of keys.
There are witch wards everywhere; they’ll have to break in without witchcraft.
She looks up to signal to Pearl that it’s time to go, but the girl’s meal is almost untouched.
That’s when she notices Pearl’s gone.
Brielle glances left and right, being careful not to appear like she’s searching, then spies Pearl’s halo of blonde hair bobbing up behind one of the men at the next table.
They keep talking – discussing the ‘other island girl’ in the Trials, and how she’s lucky to still be alive after the last Trial – as Pearl places small glasses next to each of them, which they pick up and drink without even noticing where they came from.
She’s back in her seat a few heartbeats later, innocently chewing a mouthful of pie.
‘Delicious rabbit,’ she comments, chopping up a piece of carrot.
Brielle says nothing, narrowing her gaze on Pearl, who merely smiles innocently at her, then continues chewing.
The men of the watch carry on talking, and Brielle gleans that Mira is alive, so is Kell, and Agnes is causing a lot of trouble for the watch drafted in to guard her.
She also learns who is leading the Trials, and when the next one will take place.
In just two days’ time. She polishes off her drink just as one of the men blows out a big breath.
‘Feeling a bit … hot in here, isn’t it?’ he says, fanning his face.
‘Now that you mention it …’ the man across from him says.
Their eyes all turn bulbous, and they clamp their hands over their mouths as they leap up, dashing for the bathroom. When they’re gone, Pearl sniggers quietly and stands up. ‘Time to move on?’
Outside, Brielle rounds on Pearl, mindful of the revellers surrounding them. ‘What was in those drinks?’
‘Bitter root,’ she says with a shrug. ‘Only a little bit. It won’t kill them, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Brielle shakes her head, oddly impressed. ‘Remind me not to piss you off.’
‘Don’t side with my enemies, Hunter, and you never will.’
Brielle chuckles, turning to move on, when she spies someone across the street.
‘Helene?’ It couldn’t be her here, could it?
Surely she hasn’t left Egan. Surely she wouldn’t have followed Kell here.
Brielle frowns, moving with swift steps towards the slight woman with the old-fashioned Leicenan hairstyle, pushing past a steady stream of revellers and hawkers.
But when she reaches the spot where the woman was standing she finds Helene has shifted into an alleyway.
‘Brielle, no—’ Pearl says, tugging on her sleeve, but Brielle shakes her off, stalking forward.
It’s not until footsteps sound behind her, until a whisper of wind snakes past her nose smelling of copper and something else, something distinctly witch, that she realises Helene is not here alone.
Helene steps forward, worry etching her features. ‘I’m sorry, Brielle. They gave me no choice.’
Brielle whirls, finding two hunters blocking her path, then another, emerging from the alley behind Helene. Not the hunters that tracked her across the continent, though. No, these are hunters she knows all too well, the hunters of Coven Septern.
‘Hira, Shayle. What a delight to see you both. Completely by chance, I assume?’ Brielle says carefully, sizing them up. ‘I’m surprised you’re not at Leicenan court on assignment or keeping some merchant happy in a mine in Valstra.’
Shayle scrunches her nose. ‘You always were mouthy when cornered.’
‘You’re not an easy witch to track down,’ Hira adds, folding her arms across her chest. Then she throws out a hand, catching Pearl by the wrist. ‘No, no, little ghost. Don’t try anything.’
‘You’re coming with us,’ Shayle adds, at her side. ‘Both of you.’