Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Fractured Decisions
“We need to leave.” Eberon paced the common space of our quarters, which really didn’t have enough room to be pacing in. Schula had to lift her feet each time he made a pass near the cushion where she was sitting with her feet tucked to one side.
“You need to calm down,” Schula soothed. “Panic will do no good now; what we need is your clear head.”
“A clear head?” Eberon sputtered. “A clear head? This is one hell of a thing to reveal to me now! You knew the whole time. I’m just coming to terms with it. And even Thain found out before we left for Spring! Thain knew, and he didn’t—”
“Thain found out under difficult circumstances,” Schula said. “He’s probably still figuring out his own feelings about it. He learned less than a day before he was sent away on Baeleon’s task, remember?”
“Still,” Eberon murmured. “He could have said something to me.”
Schula sighed. “I know Thain isn’t here, but we can handle this. You’re supposed to be our compass, I know you can find the right move.”
Eberon paused, blinking at the empty space before him. “Right, you’re right.”
Schula sighed again, turning to my corner of the room. “Wren, you’re sure he knew Puko from somewhere?”
“Yes, or he was suspicious of him. He asked me questions about my magic, then Puko came down and interrupted everything. Which may have made things worse, I don’t know.”
“You see? We need to get Wren out of here before there’s an incident. Baeleon will filet us alive if he finds out we were harboring witch magic! Our business in Dwellonmar is done anyway.” Eberon resumed pacing.
“Are we allowed to just leave?” I asked.
“We aren’t prisoners,” Eberon scoffed. “Though, we might be. You know, if they find witchcraft carved into the flesh of the youngling!”
“It’s not.” Schula pinched the bridge of her nose. “Nothing is carved into anyone’s flesh, Eberon. The markings are sealing her magic; it was probably done to keep her safe.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine then!” Eberon threw his hands up. The golden fae looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack. “And you’d know because you knew about this the whole time and didn’t find it important enough to, I don’t know, tell your triquetram?”
“We don’t even know if anyone would care!” Schula countered. “As long as it’s removed and any magic in her is settled, nothing will have changed. Wren will still be part of the Wyldes, and the courts can fight for her favor all the same.”
“We don’t know if anyone would . . .” Eberon sputtered. “Baeleon himself was in the last battle before the witches were cast out! DuVarick was there! The Spring Court king of the time died in that battle. Why would they not care?”
“Because Wren wasn’t there!” Schula said, getting heated. “That’s the entire point, the marks on her back don’t define her. She didn’t create them, she didn’t ask for them, and she wasn’t even born when the witches were cast out!”
“This isn’t Schula’s fault.” The pair of them stopped to look my way.
My heart was racing, the argument building too high, too fast, and threatening to spiral out of control.
“I begged her not to tell anyone. I thought I could handle it on my own. If anyone is going to be in trouble for the marks on my back, it should be me.”
Schula’s shoulders sank, the tension leaving. Eberon’s mouth was a grim line, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth.
“It’s not as though she’s bringing witches into the Wyldes or performing their magic,” Schula said.
“Wren is expected to spend time at all the courts and make an important decision. She has a year to do it. We can’t just have a two-day visit and call it done.
Yes, this has been kept secret. Yes, I should have told you at some point.
But we’re here now, and our current problem is Diamid, not one another. ”
Eberon faced Schula. “If Diamid is feeling out any powers she may have, he likely suspects those same powers to be the reason she survived the plague. For all we know, he’s right. That kind of power in your court is too tempting, and everyone is going to be after her if they suspect the same.”
Numbness fell over me. “I’m not powerful, I’m an accident waiting to happen. There was a fire last time, Eberon. It was out of control.”
Eberon slumped down onto the nearest cushion.
“Fire I can deal with.” He lifted a hand, flicking his fingers upward in a casual display ending in a brief flame that was extinguished a heartbeat after it was called.
“My king gutting me because our triquetram hid something like this from him, I cannot.”
Schula pursed her lips.
“It wasn’t you, though, it was me,” I protested.
Eberon huffed out a laugh. “But it wasn’t just you, little bird. Schula knew, and that means all of us should have known. Baeleon will not care. A triquetram is an inseparable unit where the actions of one affect all.”
Eberon sighed after he said it, then with the smallest jerk of his head, he moved his attention to Schula as if he’d just realized something about what he’d said.
“But I’m not one of you, am I?” Schula stood.
“Schula—” Eberon started.
“No, not this time, Eb.” She made for the front door, pausing to turn around long enough to look at him. “I can’t replace her. I never wanted to. But this, what Wren went through and what she’s hidden, neither you nor Thain are going to understand it the way I do.”
The door closed behind her with a solid thud, and Eberon closed his eyes. Quiet engulfed the room, not a sound between us as footsteps faded away into the palace.
“I know I messed up. I should have gotten these marks off me sooner,” I said. Realization sank into me like the chill of winter into my bones. Avoiding the problem was no longer an option, because the consequences were no longer my own. “If I removed them now somehow, would that help?”
“No,” Eberon said, so softly I nearly didn’t hear him. “In this moment, the fault was mine.” He sighed, running a hand down his face.
From my corner seat, I leaned back and rested my head against the wall. The secret had felt so small before. Such a little thing, and I had planned to deal with it soon anyway. Hadn’t I?
Had I?
Nightmares about that day when I was ten had chased me for years.
The sensation of everything around me burning was so rooted into my memories I could still smell the burning herbs that had been drying over Mila’s window.
The pops and crackles of damp wood, because it had just rained that morning.
The look on Mila’s face . . . I had never in my life seen her caught by surprise before.
The terror of the moment had kept the markings on my back for so many years since, because I never wanted to deal with what could be let out again.
Shifting from the other side of the room, Eberon stood. “I need to go find her.”
“What can I do to help?” I asked, scrambling to my feet.
Eberon shook his head, not looking at me as he opened the door. “This is for me to handle. Wait here. It will be okay.”
I wished he’d sounded more sure of himself as the door closed behind him.
There was nothing else to do but hope he was right.
Neither of them came back before a pair of attendants arrived to lay out food on our shared table.
I wanted to wait for them, but leaving the room and searching the palace blindly seemed like a bad idea considering this place was designed to confuse and disorient.
Picking at a few items, I finally gave up and ate a roll stuffed with cabbage and other vegetables I didn’t recognize.
When the rest of the food grew cold, I could no longer sit idle and waiting.
Slipping out of our quarters, I made my way down to the lion fountain.
The baths were one way, the main hall the other.
There were a few people walking in any given direction, but none that gave me an idea of where Schula or Eberon might have gone.
With no other ideas, I walked in the direction of the baths and skipped the turn I should have taken to get to them.
I moved to each intersecting corridor, pausing only long enough to decide if I wanted to explore them or not.
Deeper and deeper into the palace I went, and no one looked my way, seemingly absorbed in their own business, which was fine by me.
It wasn’t until I finally crossed paths with a dryad smelling of sweat that I had the thought that Schula might have chosen to run through her training routine to expel some of her distress.
The dryad had come from a long hall with many doors. I looked for any significant markings in this crossing, landing on a peculiar red flower in a vase to become my marker for finding my way back, then made my way down the hall.
Most doors were closed, but through the few left open, I saw more scholarly pursuits than physical.
A room of books, a room of fae scrawling notes at desks, a room of maps.
Occasionally, my curiosity would be rewarded with someone lifting their head from their work, but no one spoke to me, they simply turned back to their tasks.
The corridor intersected many more times before I found a turn that ended in a single doorway.
This one gave me pause. The wooden doors, painted blue and carved with decorations, were as large as the ones in the main hall where all the festivities had been held so far.
One lone fae wandered out of the room, passing me with no more than a nod, a stack of books in her arms. Turning in to the short hall, I pushed open the doors and went inside.
A library. I should have guessed from the rest of the rooms in this part of the palace. The walls were lined with books, tables scattered in the middle space offered work surfaces, and a young boy was moving from lantern to lantern refilling the oil.
“Miss Wren, what a pleasant surprise,” Master Draedon said, coming up to me with a book tucked under one arm. “Are you perhaps in search of something?”