Chapter 24 #2
In a quick, sharp movement, he reached out and grabbed her, his hand closing over her shoulder.
“Show yourself,” the Sylvan king commanded, fire igniting in his eyes.
Thea winced as he found her other shoulder, both of his massive hands weighing her down. The time to be silent was over. “I’m going, Father.”
“No.” His hands flexed, tightening. Thea sucked in a pained breath but didn’t cry out. She’d endured far worse from past injuries.
“I have a chance to save my mother,” she whispered.
His dark eyes reflected a torch on one wall, their flames indistinguishable from the flames that burned in his pupils. “She sacrificed herself to save you, and now you’ll throw that in her face?”
“Why did you let her go?” she shouted back. “Why not fight him? That’s your way with any other enemy. We fight! We don’t give up!”
“There is no fighting him in his own realm,” the king said. “Pacts and bargains were made long, long ago, and remain unbreakable.”
“Why did you keep it all a secret?” She heard the emotion in her voice, accusation mixed with pleading but found herself unable to hide it.
Suddenly, she felt like a child again, begging her father to go search for her mother, her hope painful, her future balanced on the edge of his decision.
“Why didn’t you reclaim his sacred spaces, rip his trees from the ground, fill his lakes and fountains, declare sovereignty over those parts of the forest?
Why let him take anyone at all, least of all your own wife? ”
Without seeming to realize it, her father had relaxed his grip on her shoulders, his head bowing so that his antlers loomed over her head.
His eyes were flat and blank as he stared, not quite into hers, reminding her that she was still invisible.
She could slip away now. She should. Run!
But another part of her needed answers, longed to hear the truths he was finally telling her.
He spoke slowly, his eyes unfocused. “There is an old magic at work in the place where the shadow lord resides. An ancient magic. Not even I—” His lips slammed shut, and Thea realized he had been about to admit having limitations.
Which he would never do. But she understood.
Even he was not strong enough to fight the shadow king’s magic.
“I have an ally,” she told him. “I only need a few more nights.” Her father’s grip tightened again. “Trust me, Father. Have I ever failed you?”
“Not until recently,” he said, his voice hardening to stone. “You have always held my highest trust. Until now.”
Every word was a sharpened jab at her heart. “You can still trust me.”
“Go back to your bedchamber where you’re safe.
” He released one shoulder, holding the other as if he wanted to propel her there himself.
“Throw whatever magic he sent you into the fire. Burn all memory of that place with it. Never speak of it, or your mother, again.” He ignored her shocked gasp.
“Then and only then will you regain my trust.”
Her mouth opened and closed. He wanted her to pretend she hadn’t found her mother, didn’t know of her suffering?
“No!” she shouted, the word pulled from somewhere deep in her heart. “If I don’t at least try to save her, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
“If you fail, you won’t live at all.” His voice rose to a rough gale scouring over rocks. “If you go back there, you will be encased in silver, your spirit alive but helpless in a place with only cruelty and darkness.”
So he knew what her mother was enduring. Thea’s heart slammed, her stomach churning with horror.
“If you go, you will be lost, too,” he said, his voice dropping to a thin wind after a rain.
“I will not lose a wife and a daughter. I will not lose another.” The flames in his pupils rose high as a terrible certainty came into his eyes.
His hand shifted on her shoulder, and as he took a breath, his jaw firming, his intentions became as clear to Thea as if the decision had happened in her own mind.
She knew the look he had before he pronounced punishment, before he sentenced someone to a week in a cell with only bread and water.
He meant to subdue her by any means necessary.
To haul her back bodily and lock her in her bedchamber until the threat had passed.
In a few nights, it would be too late to find another way out of all this.
Fast as thought, she knocked his hand from her shoulder and dodged as he swept toward her.
His legs were apart, braced for steadiness, and in that moment, her smaller size was her advantage.
Throwing herself forward feetfirst, she slid between his legs, using her hands to vault back to her feet.
She took two steps, thinking she was free before her hair was grabbed, her head yanked backward.
She cried out, but knowing this was her father did not dull her warrior’s instincts.
She went into battle mode. Her hand went to her thigh under the skirt and drew her knife.
But if she used a weapon on him, she might as well leave Scarhamm forever because she knew he would never forgive her.
It was not so long ago that he had banished another daughter for a lesser betrayal.
She threw her head back toward him, hitting his chest with her skull.
He didn’t let go, but she only needed that moment of surprise to slice off the hair he held, leaving him with a handful of dark brown strands, now visible.
He roared and came at her, blocking the door once more. “I forbid you to go, Theodora!” he said, his body as wide as he could make it, as if daring her to try to pass.
She feinted one way, knowing he must be listening for her movements, then feinted the other, knowing he would anticipate that, too. And when he was leaning left, she went right and skirted around him, making it all the way to the door.
Only to find it locked.
Her father’s arms wrapped around her from behind. Cutting off any chance of escape. Ruining her chance of saving her mother. It was all there in her heart in that moment. That this was over. And she had lost for both her mother and herself.
Her father dragged her along the floor of the entrance hall, one arm tight about her torso, careless of the pressure that kept her from drawing a full breath, that made her ribs feel like they would crack. Sharp pain tore through her left side, making her gasp.
And then her boots started to move. They danced and danced, even as Thea’s feet hardly touched the floor.
The jerky movements somehow pulled her straight from her father’s arms. She bolted for the door, which opened just as she reached it.
By what magic? Shadows swirled around the lock, making it clear what had helped her.
She had no time to be terrified that shadows had appeared inside the fortress. She was outside before her father’s footsteps pounded in pursuit. The Sylvan king called on his guard. “Close the gates!”
But the boots had the speed of magic, and soon the gates were behind her and she was in the forest.