Chapter 30
Poison filled Tal’s mind. It reached into her, gripping her fury with dagger-like claws, and squeezed. She suffocated on it, trapped inside her paralyzed body as her fury writhed within her. It wrung her dry until she was nothing but a husk.
She opened her mouth in a silent scream and freed her power.
It exploded outward in a white light, clinging to everything.
All around, agonized wails pierced her eardrums. An entire forest crackled under the flames.
Tal gasped, and it wrenched the magic back toward her.
Everything within its grasp was sucked into her as the flames disappeared.
Everyone around her was gone. She'd killed them.
She should be frightened. She should feel sorrow.
But she only felt hollow. Her fury exploded outward again—this time without her bidding.
It burned the sky until Tal was left in darkness.
When the magic died, Tal collapsed. She lay prone and empty without her magic.
The poison ate through her body, melding with every part of her until she didn’t know where she ended and death began.
“Tal? Tal, wake up. You’re safe. Wake up.”
Faron brushed the hair from her face. She blinked, and he came into focus. Her heart raced. A weight sat on her chest that made it difficult to breathe.
“You’re okay. You’re safe,” he repeated.
Her eyes swept the room, and she sucked in a deep breath.
“It’s alright. You’re safe,” he repeated.
She nodded because she didn’t trust her voice to hide the truth. The dream, the sense of impending doom, felt so real. What did it mean?
She sighed at the familiar thrashing energy within her chest. Her fury calmed when she acknowledged it, as if the magic had been trying to wake her from the nightmare.
Tal clung to Faron, counting the beats as her heart pounded.
She stared at a spot on the blanket, worried about what she would see if she closed her eyes.
“I brought you breakfast,” Faron said softly when her racing heart had calmed.
On the table in the corner of the room sat a plate full of breads, jellies, meats, fruits, and all manner of foods Tal had only tasted a handful of times in her life.
He moved slowly, eyeing her reaction, and brought the plate to the bed.
Tal ate slowly, not quite tasting anything, but feeling her belly fill and energy return to her sleep-filled limbs.
Faron combed his hands through her long hair, humming one of his usual tunes.
When she hadn’t taken a bite in ten minutes, he moved the plate to the end of the bed. “We can save the rest for later.”
Tal nodded. “I’d like to see Septimus today.”
The old man seemed to be waiting for them when the two arrived, though he didn’t say anything to indicate it. He greeted them delightedly, his usual air of elderly impatience absent.
Tal relayed her capture and, as expected, Septimus appeared to have already known. “He cast a spell that rendered me immobile and stuck to the spot. Can you create something that would burn through the spell without injuring the victim?”
The alchemist nodded for a moment while lost in thought. “Give me three days,” he spoke in his smooth voice.
“Are you not going to ask how she escaped the spell?” Faron eyed the alchemist with poorly concealed suspicion.
Septimus had a glint in his eye. “Your majesty,” he began, at which Faron had a coughing fit, “you’ll find there isn’t much in this kingdom that I do not know, including a fairly dangerous secret that our fire-haired friend here holds closely.
I do not feel the need to have her air it out unnecessarily for all to hear.
” He leaned across his counter to the couple and whispered, “There are unwanted eyes and ears everywhere.” He straightened and continued in his normal tone, “You would do well to remember that.”
Faron’s eyes widened at Tal who shrugged.
“Am I the last person to find out who he is?” Tal’s attention switched back and forth between the two men. Faron had the mind not to make eye contact.
“There’s much about this kingdom you don’t know, child. If you ventured further out of your tunnels more often, you’d see.” Septimus gave her a curious grin.
She exchanged glances with Faron briefly before turning back to Septimus as a thought occurred to her. “Do you know anyone I can speak to about my… craft? Someone who can provide guidance?”
Septimus shook his head. “There is no one who would help you that knows how.”
She considered his choice of words. Did that mean there were others with fire fury? Why wouldn’t they help her? Perhaps she might be able to convince them.
Faron was a bit less inclined to drop the conversation.
He later told Tal that he would ask the palace alchemist for a similar elixir to destroy a paralyzing spell.
Tal teased that he didn’t trust Septimus, and he didn’t deny it.
“He has kept my fury a secret for gods knows how long. I have no reason not to trust him.”
“Has he though? Do we know that he isn’t also providing information to the mages behind our backs?
” They walked through the town away from the tunnels.
They still hadn’t discussed the matter between them, but Tal could feel the urge to say something bubbling at the surface, a feeling much like when her fury demanded to be let loose.
“Sybil said we can trust him, and Rain has tracked him closely to ensure he’s not a threat. The man is as innocent as the baker. I trust him.”
“There’s something about him that seems off.”
She nudged him with her hip. “You’re just upset that he saw right through your lame disguise.”
“I’m surprised that you didn’t.” His gentle smile fell the moment he said it.
“Well, maybe I didn’t want to.”
“Hello! Hello! Please! Stop!”
Tal turned in time to see a head full of blonde hair run around a cart and straight for them. The girl seemed out of place in her fine clothes and clean hair. She beamed at Faron, hands behind her back.
“Clara! You should have left for the mountains days ago.” Faron leaned down to speak at her level.
Something clicked, and Tal recognized the happy teen as the same frightened girl at the brothel that she insisted on going back for.
Faron had said he paid for the girl’s freedom that same night, not knowing Tal had been taken.
She should have been on a wagon to the mountains with a sweet older couple and a chest full of necessities.
“I asked them to wait so I could thank you!” Clara bounced on her feet.
Faron chuckled. “Well, don’t thank me. It was Talwyn over here,” he pulled Tal over by the hand, “who insisted we get you out of there.”
The girl’s eyes widened in recognition. “You were there! I saw you!”
Tal smiled awkwardly. “I was.”
“You helped free me?”
“Uh, well, I told him to.” Tal gestured to Faron.
“‘Demanded’ is more like it.” Faron nudged her.
The air rushed out of Tal when Clara slammed into her with a crushing hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered into Tal.
She hesitated but found her arms reaching around the girl as if by their own accord, and Faron’s cheeks dimpled. Slowly, Tal smiled back.
Faron refused to reveal their destination. They walked through the docks, then the slums, then fields of wheat grass and wildflowers, and finally, rolling hills. At the top of the biggest hill stood the enormous white willow tree.
Tal placed her hand on the rough bark. Her fingers easily found the grooves of her and Carrick’s initials carved into the trunk long ago.
Hello, old friend. I pray you’ve been well.
It had been many years since she last sat beneath the tree.
While so much in Tal’s life had changed, the willow kept its many branches and grew the same leaves every spring.
A light breeze blew its draping branches in an elegant dance that she couldn’t peel her gaze from. They sat underneath and listened to the leaves as they swayed in the wind.
Sweat dripped down Tal’s brow and off her lip. Faron took off his shirt and enjoyed the cooler air. The summer sun glistened along the sweat dripping down the muscles of his back. He caught Tal admiring his bare skin and winked at her. She shoved him and laughed.
The faint sounds of life at the bottom of the large hill carried on the wind to their spot beneath the tree.
Seagulls screeched at sailors. She always hated the sound.
It pierced her eardrums. But at this distance, it was almost beautiful.
People went about their lives below, entering shops, scrambling about, unaware of the danger that walked among them a few nights ago.
How peaceful it must be, she thought, to live a life free from such violence.
Tal didn’t have that luxury. She had chosen violence as her profession, or rather, it had chosen her.
But sitting up here under this willow, she could almost imagine what that kind of life must be like.
“I come up here to think,” he said to the wind. “No one can interrupt my thoughts or demand a decision I don’t want to make.”
“It must be lonely.”
“You have no idea.”
His gaze remained on the town. Things had quieted between them.
Tal could feel it in her heart. The tumultuous waves of excitement and near-anxiety of those first weeks had dissipated.
The poisonous betrayal of his secret and what his identity might mean for them remained absent. Right then, she only felt peace.
“What’s it like?” she mused. “Having all that power?”
“Nothing like you would think.” He paused.
“I’m not allowed to make many decisions on my own.
I can’t even eat breakfast without someone approving.
Can’t have their precious king do anything that could put him in danger.
And you think the king has power? I likely have barely more power than you do.
” Bitterness crept into his voice. “The council has to approve of anything I do, and they most often do not.”
“Then what’s the point of you being king?”