Chapter 16
Pain tore me out of unconsciousness, and I sat up gasping.
Brigid was beside me, her face drawn and white.
Her hand was on my left arm; she’d just shaken me awake.
I lay on a cot, and beyond Brigid stood the walls of the Rosewarren infirmary.
We were alone, with only Freyda for company.
She paced from side to side along the perch in the corner of the room, all her feathers flattened against her body as if to make herself look smaller.
“Gemma?” I croaked. “Farrin, Gareth—where are they?”
“They’re fine, but your sisters couldn’t stay. They took the key south to Fairhaven to keep it out of reach of the fae. The Warden was not happy that all three of the anchors you’ve found so far will now be at Fairhaven, but I think she was too distracted to stop them.”
This news punched the air out of me. “They’re gone?”
“They left notes for you.” Brigid touched her jacket pocket. “I’ll give them to you later. But they’re all right. Ryder and Talan too. My squadron brought you home from Gothyn maybe two hours ago. The Warden came with us.”
“And Gareth?” Only moments ago I’d been in his arms, felt his breath on my skin. His sudden absence left me cold. “Where is he?”
“In a room down the hall, recovering.” Brigid looked as if she were steeling herself for something terrible. “Mara, listen—”
Before she could say more, I glanced down and saw my left hand. A bandage hid the damage from view, but it might as well have not been there. In my mind’s eye I was suddenly back beneath the tree, trying not to stare at the blistered yellow welts that encased my hand like a glove.
A wave of fresh pain coursed through my body, and I lurched over the side of the mattress and retched.
Brigid was ready with a pail and a rag. As I huddled over the pail, shivering and aching, she said quietly, “I’m sorry to do this.
You look like shit and probably feel like it too.
But you need to come with me at once. The Warden is punishing Posey, and she won’t listen to me. She won’t listen to anyone.”
The dread that dropped through me was like ice.
Of course. I should have expected this. Why had I not thought of this?
Posey’s intelligence had brought us to Gothyn, to a fae queen loyal to Kilraith and a hunt that could have killed us all.
Posey had assured us that the Cirrinoc clan would never bow to him, but Posey had been wrong.
And the Warden had allowed her to stay at Rosewarren in the first place only because I’d convinced her to do so.
She can be useful, I had told her. A boon to our intelligence efforts.
I looked up at Brigid. “Did we all come back safely?”
Brigid hesitated before answering. “Bette and Tressa are dead. We burn their bodies tomorrow.”
I turned away, squeezing my eyes shut. I wasn’t unused to death, but right then I didn’t have the strength to protect myself from the grief that came on its heels.
Bette, dead. Tressa, dead. On a mission I’d led based on assurances from a fae I’d enlisted to help us.
I’d long suspected the Warden was eager for a reason—any reason—to dispatch Posey.
It wouldn’t matter to her that Posey hadn’t been the one to suggest the fae hunt.
Roses had died, and in the Warden’s eyes, Posey had led them to their deaths.
“It isn’t your fault,” Brigid began.
“Of course it is.” I pushed myself to my feet, a dozen terrible images flashing before my eyes. When Brigid offered her arm, I brushed past her and started up the stairs. Freyda followed me, chirping quietly in distress.
“Are they in the Stillhouse?” I asked.
“The central training yard,” Brigid replied, just behind me. “I think the Warden wants everyone to see it happen.”
I gritted my teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, forcing my shaky legs to carry me upstairs. The main hallways on the first floor were eerily quiet—until a distant scream pierced the air. I stopped short to lean against a wall and catch my breath.
“She has never tortured someone in public before,” I said quietly. “Not even prisoners of war.”
“The Warden is not herself.”
I glanced up at Brigid. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve never seen her so close to losing control—not like this, not with so many of us watching.
” Brigid stared down the hallway toward the wooden double doors that opened to the training yards.
“It’s almost as if she’s fighting herself, like part of her wants to spare Posey and the other part, the stronger part, is too angry to see reason and feels not even a flicker of mercy.
She won’t listen to any of us. She even struck Lorna when she tried to intervene. And she won’t stop.”
Another scream, much closer now, barreled down the corridor. I blew out a sharp breath and strode toward the doors. “She’ll listen to me.”
“Mara, I’m serious.” Brigid caught me by the arm. Her lips were pressed thin, her brow furrowed. Freyda alighted on her shoulder, letting out soft, shrill chirps of agreement. “Something isn’t right. She isn’t right. And if she hurts you—”
“She won’t.” I pulled free of Brigid, a tingle of warning tapping at my throat, and pushed open the doors.
“Please, Madam, please!” Posey’s shredded voice echoed through the training yards. “I swear to you, I didn’t know, I didn’t know!”
A sickening crack rang out. My stomach dropped. I knew that sound. It was the smack of wood against bone. And it happened again, and again, and again.
I ran out of the shadowed colonnade surrounding the central training yard, noticing little details with automatic precision.
Four dozen Roses had gathered to watch, hovering at the edges of the yard with their familiars.
The gray sky, swirling with clouds and Mist, was spitting snow.
The Warden stood in the center of the yard, the sleeves of her black gown rolled up to her elbows and a practice staff in hand, ready to strike.
Posey was huddled on the ground in front of her, covered in her own green blood—face swollen, teeth missing, her left arm bent at a grotesque angle.
I threw myself between them and caught the Warden’s staff as it swung through the air. It hit my unhurt palm with such a hard smack that the Warden lost her balance and nearly fell.
“Let go, Mara,” she said, very low. “You can’t stop this.”
The Warden’s skin looked sallow. Strands of sweaty hair had come loose from her normally neat bun and clung to her cheeks. The hard light in her eyes reminded me of Freyda when she was itching to hunt.
“Madam, this is a mistake,” I told her, standing firm. “Posey deserves no punishment.”
“She led you right into a trap.”
“A risk we all take every time we pursue a piece of intelligence.” I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “Look at what you’re doing. This is the behavior you wish to model for us?”
The Warden glanced to the right, her fierce expression wavering at the sight of two littles hiding their faces in Cira’s tunic.
I took a chance and pushed a little. “This isn’t you, Madam. You are not yourself. Posey is one of us now and has been for months. She is not our enemy.”
Behind me, Posey let out a gurgling cough. “Mara, tell her I didn’t know about Kilraith. Tell her!”
The sound of Posey’s voice snapped the Warden out of her reverie. With a surprising burst of strength, she pushed me aside, ripped the staff from my hand, and brought it down hard on Posey’s broken arm.
Posey howled in pain, her screams wreathed in sobs. I raced to the weapons rack against the wall, grabbed a staff, and made it back to the Warden before she could deal another blow.
Our staffs crashed together and locked in place. I heard Freyda shriek from somewhere behind me and prayed Brigid would manage to restrain her.
“Madam, stop this,” I spat out. “Look at me and remember yourself.”
But she wouldn’t look at me. She pushed hard against my staff, but I was ready and met her with a shove of my own. She stumbled backward, and I kept after her, dealing blow after blow against her staff while she threw up sloppy defenses. Only when I’d cornered her against the wall did I relent.
I backed away slowly, holding my staff across my body and keeping my eyes trained on the Warden’s even though looking at her made me feel queasy.
Cowering against the wall like that, she looked so much smaller than usual and stared at me in a dazed sort of shock.
I had never defied her like this, not even when she’d tortured the harpy, Nerys, for those long weeks.
I would not condemn Posey to the same fate.
“Posey, can you get up?” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could.
Her breathing was ragged. She could only grunt a garbled assent.
“Get up slowly,” I told her, “and walk away. Cira and Brigid will help you to the infirmary.”
“No,” said the Warden. Her voice was faint, but then she sucked in a breath and said it again: “No.”
This time the word had teeth. It grabbed on to the binding magic that had lived inside me since my trials—the magic that bound me to the Mist and the Warden and compelled me to obey her—and it bit down hard.
Don’t move. The compulsion was irresistible and rang through my head in the Warden’s voice. Don’t stop me.
I had never been compelled like this before.
The Warden had never needed to use that power on me.
I was a good little Rose, always had been.
Rebellion was not in my nature. She seldom used this trick of the binding magic on anyone, even willful Roses like Danesh.
She preferred that our eager obedience come naturally.
Nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that swept over me.
Cold fire scorched my veins and turned my vision white.
I dropped the staff and crashed to my knees, my body frozen in agony, and then I watched, helpless, as the Warden strode toward Posey and withdrew from her pocket a slender glass syringe.
Inside it was a single drop of dull purple liquid.