Chapter 11 #2
“Excuse me?” My temper spiked at the insinuation.
Unfazed, he flopped onto Speck’s pallet, plucking a piece of straw from beneath the blanket and tucking it between his lips. “Spent a lot of time rolling in the hay, have you?”
Heat flooded my cheeks, and anger burned hot in my veins. This was exactly why I avoided telling him I was a slave. Already, he treated me like latrine scum. If he knew, I’d never hear the end of it.
I clenched my fists, jaw tightening. “Horse’s ass.” I stomped down the stairs.
“Swayback nag.” He hopped to his feet to follow.
Back on the lower level, he turned to face me, signs of humor gone. “Admit it. This sudden need for medicine? Total nerf-shit. You lied, coming here for some shady purpose. What was it? To rob the high ruler?”
“Do you always assume the worst in everyone?”
“When people stop fulfilling my lowest expectations, I’ll stop assuming.”
I stomped to the back wall, selected an amber bottle from the shelf and held it aloft. Before he could spit out another insult, I grabbed a grain satchel, stuffed it with the supplies, and slung it over my shoulder, shooting him a glare.
“This way. I know a hidden entrance into the keep.”
Once more, Thorne captured my wrist, sending a jolt of lightning up my arm. He turned me to face him, tension crackling between us.
At the lack of humor in his expression, I swallowed the objection forming on my lips.
“It may be daytime, but that doesn’t mean the interior of the manor is safe. There could be darkened areas where the creatures lurk. We need to take the quickest route. No detours to search through the underwear of missing friends.”
For once, I ignored his crass comment. “Agreed,” I said, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.
Together, we entered the remains of the manor, both falling silent for a time. Through several out-of-sight hallways, I guided Thorne along the paths only servants used.
Of course, the silence didn’t last. Even when our lives were at stake, Thorne couldn’t resist tormenting me. “You know much about the hidden corridors of this place. What was your role? That of healer?”
“Among other things.” Ha. He wasn’t the only one who was mysterious.
“Don’t the Puritans value their healers?”
“Usually. So long as their medicine is derived from natural means with no trace of magic. My mentor, Yaga, was well respected.”
“And you?”
My thoughts traveled back to the time I’d spent with Lady Penelope and the backhanded compliments she’d wielded like a sword. “Nobody makes my bedpan shine quite like you do, Serafina. It’s as though you were born for this.”
Rather than give him more information to taunt me with, I simply said, “My talents didn’t go unappreciated.”
After traveling through a series of narrow hallways unscathed, I guided Thorne into the servants’ quarters and to my room. At the entrance, I turned to him, blocking his path. “Wait here.” The last thing I wanted was for him to witness the squalor I lived in.
“And what if one of them is waiting?”
“Wendigos don’t close doors behind them, and this one remains sealed.
” Before he could object, I cracked the door open and slipped inside.
At the stale scent that wafted up my nostrils, I scrunched my nose.
After days of disuse, the space smelled even mustier than usual.
As I scanned the room, my breath caught.
On my pillow was a folded scrap of parchment. Speck!
I grabbed the note and unfolded it.
Should you survive and find this,
and I pray that you do,
I’ll meet you at Ironwood.
Rose.
I clutched it to my chest. If Rose had managed to escape to Ironwood, maybe—just maybe—Speck was there too.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I carefully tucked the paper into my satchel and knelt beside my cot.
From under the frame, I extracted a small wooden box.
Inside was my personal collection of herbs, along with a few precious coins.
Money I’d scraped together by selling tinctures, saving every coin for the day Speck and I would finally leave this wretched place.
The moment I found him, that was exactly what we would do, dragon be damned.
I secured the entire box in my satchel, making sure it was safely nestled inside.
Raspy breathing hit my ears, and I froze, prepared to scream—until a weak mew rang out.
“Sebastian?” Once more, I lowered to my knees, peering under my bed. Tucked within the shadow near the wall was an ebony ball of fur.
My heart seized. “Sebastian!” I lay on my stomach, reaching beneath the frame to slide the motionless cat across the floor and into my arms.
“Oh, you poor thing.” I stroked his silky ears, his lanky body chilly against my fingers. “What happened?”
My favorite stray entered my life during a particularly difficult time.
I’d just been abandoned by the only family I could remember, becoming an enslaved servant of Gravestone Manor.
Alone and bereft, I’d sat on this same cot when Sebastian had sauntered in with a demanding meow.
The stubborn feline had paced a path between me and the door until I finally had the courage to follow.
That was the day I’d met Yaga. Without Yaga’s guidance through my formative years, I don’t know how I would have survived.
And yet that same bright soul now lay gasping his last breath in my arms. Throughout my life, everyone and everything I dared to care about ended up leaving me in one manner or another.
Pain and frustration whirled like a vortex, twisting my insides. It sucked at the part of me that held my head up. Cracked the facade of bravery that kept me treading water.
It was all too much.
The wendigo’s attack. Mortis stabbing me. Becoming the dragon’s pet. Not knowing if the others were dead… Or worse.
Speck.
And now—Sebastian, dying in my lap.
My world was rubble, and the last thread I had left was slipping through my fingers.
I pressed my hands to his silky side, eyes burning as I whispered, “Don’t go, Sebastian. Not you too. Stay with me. Please…stay.” The chant barely held together, a broken plea spoken into his fur as my palms absorbed the chill of his body.
I sat there for untold minutes, stroking his coat. Warmth rose up from my center, a golden light appearing behind my eyelids. I paid no attention, lost in my moment of self-pity, until the ailing cat jerked against me. Against my leg, his twitching tail thumped, his rasping purr music in my ears.
“Sebastian?” I glanced down to find him peering up at me. Gracefully, he rose to his feet and arched his sleek back, stretching, then shoving his head beneath my hand.
“You’re okay?” He shoved harder in answer, and I belted out a laugh, my heart lurching from that inky darkness. “You’re okay!”
“What did you do?” said a harsh, accusing voice.
My head whipped up. Thorne filled the doorway, eyes burning with accusation.
“Wh–what do you mean?” I clutched Sebastian closer.
“I saw you. You healed that cat with only a touch. Your hand glowed, and then he was fine.”
I stiffened, my mind still reeling from the wild ride my emotions had taken. “You’re crazy.”
“Who are you?” He strode further into the room, his presence stifling in the small space.
The walls closed in around me, and I hugged Sebastian closer. “Nobody,” I said with a defiant thrust of my chin.
Thorne glanced about my chamber. From my threadbare blankets to the precarious stack of apple crates containing my meager belongings. At his sneer of disgust, I clamped my teeth together, waiting for his condemnation.
He didn’t disappoint. “This is where you live?”
I pushed to my feet, tucking Sebastian under my arm as I grabbed the satchel off my cot. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company.”
“This is not the room of a respected healer. Nor even that of a maid. These are the quarters of a slave.” He captured my chin, forcing my eyes to his. “Tell me why you lied.”
“I didn’t lie.” I jerked my chin free. “And what do you care anyway?”
“I care a great deal about those the dragon brings into his inner circle.”
“If you don’t want me around, then order your beast to release me.” I shoved past him, pushing through the door.
Thorne stormed into my path. “Admit it. Not only were you a slave, you’re no Puritan.”
Sebastian twisted in my arms, and I set him on the floor.
“You’re mad. I’ve lived here my whole life.” More or less. Not counting the seven years after my birth that I couldn’t recall.
“You have magic.”
“Do not,” I said, a familiar sense of panic pinching my lungs. Puritans were burned for such accusations.
“Liar!” Low growl rumbling from his throat, Thorn grabbed me and shoved me into the wall.
Behind me, the stones shook, dust raining down from the ceiling. Despite Thorne’s obvious rage, he hadn’t pushed me that hard. We both froze, eyes locked, our argument dissolving into shared alarm. The floor rumbled beneath our feet.
“It’s the wendigos. They’re coming.” Fear clawed down my spine, threatening to root me in place.
“We need to get out of here,” Thorne said. “Into the sun.”
“But the rest of the medicines are in the cellar, in Yaga’s workshop.”
“And that is the first place you will find one of these creatures. They’re tunneling up from the ground. Something must have alerted them to our presence.” He captured my hand, dragging me down the hallway. “Come.”
“But the herbs—”
“Forget them.” Thorne pulled me in his wake, his longer legs hard for my much shorter ones to keep up with.
“Why are you moving so slow?” he bellowed, his tone snapping with desperation. “Do you wish to die?”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Infuriating female.” His growled curse heated my ears.
Breath punched past my lips, his shoulder driving into my stomach. The world spun, and then I was over Thorne’s back, his pounding feet racing down the steps, threatening to expel my breakfast.
“Toe fungus,” I shouted.
“Harpy!”
A firm slap cracked against my butt cheek, and I bellowed a shriek of outrage. Oh, he was going to pay for that one.