Chapter 36
Iopen my eyes to the sound of cawing crows and jerk like I’m falling. At first, I think I’m still draped over the back of the horse that carried me from the ravine and through the forest, but perhaps I’m still dreaming. Only my dream was of Alexus, me lying in his arms in the cave.
That is not where I am now.
I’m in a tent, on my side. The air is bitterly cold, freezing my breath in soft plumes, the light gloomy yet bright to my eyes. I turn my ear, listening to the crows and the tent canvas whipping sharply in the wind.
“Ah. I thought you’d never wake, lovely.”
That voice sends a hard shiver through my bones. It isn’t the voice I long to hear, but it’s familiar, nonetheless.
“Make her face me.”
Suddenly, Rhonin looms above me. My instinct is to punch him right in his perfectly angular nose, but my wrists are tied in front of me, restrained even further by a rope that connects my hands to my feet.
With one hand, he grabs the knotted mass at my wrists and hauls me up, making me gasp around the pain settled deep in my shoulders and injured arm. Without a second glance, he returns to his station.
At the Prince of the East’s left hand.
“Welcome to Winter Road, Raina Bloodgood,” the prince says. His face appears gaunt under the faint illumination of a nearby oil lamp, and even in the weak light, his crimson shadows are visible, a twitching and squirming halo.
He sits two feet away on a tall, thick piece of chopped tree trunk, elbows on his knees.
He wears the bronze leathers of his men, stained with so much blood they’re nearly the color of the Eastlander flag leaning in the corner behind him.
His long hands are covered with cuts, like he punched through glass, and his fingertips and ears are black with frostbite.
At his right side stands General Vexx, hands behind his back, looking too pleased with himself as he stares down at me with a smug expression I want to rip from his face.
They’re all here. The three men I want to end. So very different from the men I thought I’d have killed by now when all of this began.
The prince stands then squats in front of me, close enough that I note the scent of ash, and the spicy aroma of ground yarrow root, packed into the gash that travels across his face. Black hair stubbles his chin and jawline, but the skin around the wound looks corrupt and fevered.
Inwardly, I laugh. It looks like misery.
I hope it is.
The prince’s eyes are soft and roving like he knows me. It dawns on me that he knows me far better than I wish.
He reaches to touch my cheek, but I jerk away. Surprisingly, he lets his hand fall as a wicked grin curves the undamaged corner of his mouth. “You should get very comfortable with me, Raina,” he says. “We’re going to become the closest of friends.”
Like our first go around, I spit at him. This time I hit my mark, right on his face.
Nostrils flaring, he takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, tempering the anger burning in his eyes. Without breaking the stare that pulses between us, he holds his hand out at his side. Vexx hands him a kerchief, and the prince carefully wipes away my disrespect.
“I’d planned to kill you,” he says. “Painfully. But now you have use.” Again, he moves to take my chin, and again, I draw back.
But this time, he doesn’t let me. He ensnares my jaw and—with fingertips digging painfully—yanks me within an inch of his rotting mouth.
“The reality you need to understand, Miss Bloodgood, is that you are mine now. Keeper. Healer. I’m sure there are more mysteries to discover behind that beautiful face and all those pretty witch’s marks.
You can reveal your skills willingly, or I will find ways to unearth them myself.
I can be kind, or I can be your worst nightmare. Your choice.”
He shoves me away and flicks his hand at his shoulder. Vexx moves to the edge of the tent and draws back the flap, stepping outside where daylight fades from the sky.
How long was I out? I don’t recall anything after…
I close my eyes and swallow back tears. Gods, I wish the memory of the ravine wasn’t part of me, but it’s branded on my spirit, along with so many other awful images that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
At the thought, two tiny flutters at the back of my chest make my heart skip a beat—two tiny darknesses. Though Hel and Alexus are gone, part of them will always be with me.
When I open my eyes, my tears roll free, and my breath rushes from my lungs like I’ve been kicked in the gut.
I might as well have been.
Recently, I dreamt of Nephele. I saw her screaming, surrounded by flames. She was clinging to Mother, who stood wide-eyed and pale, a spear’s tip protruding from her chest. They reached for me. Crying. Pleading with me to help them.
My mother looked forlorn and lost, but Nephele was angry, her eyes filled with accusation.
It was so real that, even now, just the thought of it makes my skin tingle from the memory of fire and sends my heart lurching against my ribs, a reminder of everything I felt the moment I watched Mother’s life leave her body.
I’ve feared what might await me when and if I saw my sister again, when I’d have to tell her that I let our mother die.
That time is here.
Across the tent stands a woman, tall and slender, dressed in sealskin trousers and a blood-stained crimson coat.
Her hands are bound behind her back, her mouth gagged.
An array of witch’s marks, far more colorful and numerous than mine, covers the winter white skin of her hands and neck, even the sides of her face, curling at her temples.
Nephele.
I struggle to get my legs under me, my mind screaming her name.
Rhonin grabs my good arm, and for the first time, actually helps me. He lifts me, setting me firmly on my feet. But when I move toward Nephele and her to me, the Prince of the East comes between us, holding his hands up to stop us.
“Oh, come now. Do you really think I’d let you two have a special bonding moment without anything in return?” He tips his head toward me. “How long has it been for you two sisters, eh? I do see the resemblance, though you’re a bit like night and day, yes?”
I can’t stop looking at her. She’s so lovely. Long, pale curls, fallen from a loose braid, hang around her fair face. A few lines crinkle her delicate forehead, and she looks beyond exhausted, with purplish bruises shadowing the thin skin beneath her bloodshot eyes.
But she is otherwise unchanged. Her eyes are still like Father’s, light as a spring sky and so wide that as she looks at me, I swear I see to the bottom of her heart.
My sister. Here. A handful of feet away, yet there might as well be eight more years separating us—thanks to the Prince of the East.
It strikes me then. He shouldn’t know that Nephele is anyone to me, certainly not my kin. We favor, but she’s Father where I’m Mother. My features are darker, and my body has more curves and muscle from working, whereas Nephele has always been more lithe and willowy.
How could the prince know?
He yanks the gag from Nephele’s mouth, but Vexx is there immediately, pressing the tip of a dagger deep into her cheek. “One utterance of Old Elikesh. That’s all it will take for me to cut out your tongue, witch. You’re to speak only when the prince tells you.”
I have a feeling that Alexus has taught her well, and that she doesn’t need her voice to sing magick into existence anymore. But I fear Nephele’s skills won’t see us out of this. If they could, we wouldn’t be here right now.
She’s drained from holding the construct in place for so long. I see the exhaustion all over her.
The prince repeats his question to Nephele. “How long?”
“Eight years.” Her voice is gravelly and ragged from singing magick, her eyes hard as steel as she holds his gaze.
The prince paces a short path between us and slides those insidious eyes at me.
“I brought your sister here so I can make you an offer, Raina. Several of my men died thanks to you and your ilk, and several more are severely wounded. We’ve a long journey to the coast. I need as many men at my back as possible should there be surprises along the way.
If you want time with your sister, I will allow it”—he glances at Vexx and Rhonin—“with proper supervision. But only if you agree to heal my men and show me what you’re made of.
” He gestures to his face. “And there’s me, of course.
It’s only right that you clean up after yourself, yes? ”
I try to lift my hands, to tell him to crawl into a hole and die, but the rope tying my wrists and ankles together doesn’t have enough slack.
“You have to free her hands, you cretin,” Nephele says.
Vexx digs his blade into her face, and she winces as a shiny drop of blood slips down her cheek.
I move toward her, but Rhonin yanks me back by the laces of my bodice.
The prince stops pacing and faces me. “A simple nod will suffice. Do you agree to my terms?”
I flash a glance at Nephele, who gives me an almost imperceptible nod.
I don’t want to be the reason the prince’s wounds heal, and I don’t want to be the reason he and his men live to ride across the Northlands and kill another day.
But I need my sister. At least long enough to figure out what in gods’ death we can do to get out of this.
Finally, I nod. Once.
Vexx stuffs the gag back into Nephele’s mouth, and with a look from the prince, Rhonin drags me from the tent.