Chapter Eight
My treatment as Seth’s prisoner isn’t at all what I expected. True to his word, he sends in servants to bathe me and dress me in clean clothing. But I was expecting no more than a cold bath to get the blood off me, a token of goodwill to make me more likely to cooperate.
Instead, they remove my shackles—I’m too spent, magically and physically, to even consider trying to overpower them and make a break for it—and take their time combing the blood and dirt from my hair and scrubbing my skin with rough sponges and cloths until it’s soft and smooth.
Then they check my wounds, treating my split lip and the bruise forming on my chin where the brute slapped me with an elixir that dulls the pain and speeds the healing process.
They even place pads of soft cloth beneath my shackles when they replace them to keep them from rubbing a blister.
“Why are you doing all of this?” I ask them. Surely their services are needed elsewhere for the war effort.
“You are a Verran,” one of them, a thin-bodied young woman with delicate features says to me simply.
“Our master prizes cleanliness and comfort,” says another, an older wind-born man who dries and styles my hair. “He takes this care with all of his prisoners.”
My stomach turns a bit at how casually he says it and at the thought that Seth has had many prisoners before me. Gods, what does he do to them all?
What is he going to do to me when he realizes I can’t show him any special powers?
After the servants have finished their work, they help me into a cot that has been brought in to let me sleep. The older servant shows me the chamber pot and asks me if I’d like something to eat now or when I wake up.
I am hungry, having not eaten since…gods, the Festival of Night. The servant brings me a bowl of hot stew and a large chunk of bread on a tray, along with a glass of Nithyrian red to wash it down. He gives me a spoon but no other utensils, so they’re not complete fools.
I eat and drink without giving a single thought about poison. If Seth wanted to kill me, he could’ve done it before he left. And as soon as the stew hits my tongue—salty and familiar, one of my mother’s favorites—I know I’ll drink the whole bowl even if it kills me.
I fall asleep quickly after the servants finally leave and don’t wake until Seth returns some unknown amount of time later.
“Wake up, dear sister, I have some bad news for you.”
Seth charges into the tent looking exactly the same as when he left it. There’s not one hair out of place, no blood or even dirt on his armor, though his boots are filled with sand, judging by the way he rushes back out to shake them clean before returning.
I jolt upright in the cot, my chains clinking. “Is it Ronan?”
His lips set into a thin line. “No ‘how was your day?’ No ‘thank you for the team of servants waiting on me hand and foot; it was so generous of you?’”
“Th-thank you,” I say quickly, watching Seth’s hand reach for the knife at his side. Gods, something is wrong with this family. “But what’s the bad news, then?”
“We’re moving,” he says, taking a seat dramatically in the chair by his desk.
“And when we’d just finally gotten settled here.
Our sister insists that these legions are needed if we’re going to take the city.
I told her I don’t see what the rush is.
It’s not like they’re going anywhere. But I suppose the sooner we break down their walls, the sooner we can all go home. She asked about you, by the way.”
I look at the tent flap behind him in fear. Did he bring her with him? “What did you tell her?”
He laughs. “She did a number on you, didn’t she?
You’re more terrified of her than me. I can’t decide whether to be flattered or offended by that.
” He stands and removes the weapons from his belt, setting them on his desk.
Then he withdraws a whetstone and cloth and begins to sharpen them as we speak.
This, in spite of the fact that he clearly has not used them today.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell her that you’re here. ”
I raise an eyebrow at him in surprise. “Why not?”
“Would you like me to? I can go back and let her know—” He stands abruptly.
“No! Wait,” I say, but he just laughs.
“Her camp is hours away. I’m not going back there, not today.
We’ll all be heading that way tomorrow though.
But with a camp this size, I’d say you have three, maybe four days before we’re close enough that she finds out you’re here.
Maybe longer if she assumes I’ve taken a different sort of prisoner. ”
I look at the chains on my wrists and the pads beneath them in horror. “You don’t mean—you can’t—”
“Gods, alright, I’ve decided that I am offended by what you think of me. I didn’t say I take that sort of prisoner, just that she might think that I would. Believe it or not, I do just fine for myself without chaining anyone up. Not that it’s any of your business, or hers, for that matter.”
“Why didn’t you tell her that I’m here? She’s going to be furious when she finds out.”
“We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t find out then, won’t we?
I didn’t tell her because she’d insist I bring you to her, and then she’d torture you or kill you or whatever it is she wants to do to get her revenge against you, and then we won’t get to see what that power of yours can do.
Speaking of which, did you give any thought to my offer?
You look refreshed. No claiming that your magic is low—I’m certain that’s not the case. ”
Having just woken up, I haven’t thought of what to tell Seth about the secret power he thinks I have. On the one hand, he could find out from Adria if they could trust each other long enough to share that kind of information, so maybe I should just tell him and get it over with.
But Adria also doesn’t know how it works or that it depends on my proximity to Ronan, and no matter how I feel about Seth, I don’t want her finding out.
Seth might keep that a secret from her if I tell him out of spite or whatever other reason he has to move against her, but he also could tell her the first time he sees her. I really have no idea what he’ll do.
But if I don’t give him something, he’ll just take me to her anyway because I’ll be of no value to him. “I do have a power,” I tell him. “It’s my shadows—they take form.”
He comes and sits next to me on the cot, coming close enough that I could reach out and choke him with the chains if I wanted to like I did to Larus. He has no weapon on him—they’re all on his desk. Is this a test? “Take form how? What does it look like? Can you show me?”
I shake my head and look away so he can’t tell that I’m lying.
“I don’t know how to control them. They burst from my chest like…
I don’t know. Swirls of smoke? That’s the closest thing I can think of.
Like dark tendrils of smoke. I can control them, grasp things with them. Catch things, snuff flame.”
“Snuff flame? I don’t remember you being able to snuff flame with your ordinary shadows.”
“I can now. I’ve had to do a lot of lying over the past few months.”
“True enough. I’ve never known a shadow-born to have that gift. Few can snuff flame, even. Well, few can snuff my flame at least. Let’s see if you can.”
Then he lights my fucking cot on fire.
“What the fuck?!” I scream, jumping to my feet and tripping over my chains before the fire can catch on my clothes. I lower as dark a shadow as I can as quickly as I can, and it does manage to put out the fire, but it leaves my sheets smoldering.
“Impressive,” says Seth, as if I were a child who just laced my boots for the first time, not someone who extinguished the bed full of flames we’d both just been sitting on. “I was hoping it might draw out the shadows with form, but I suppose we’ll just have to keep trying.”
I recoil from him as I realize what he’s saying. “Keep trying?”
“Yes, and we’d better be quick about it. If Adria realizes where you are, I’m going to have no choice but to give you over to her. I told you, I won’t let her think of me as her enemy.”
Oh, gods. I never should have told him anything. He intends to make me use my shadows, but he has no idea that nothing he does will make it happen.
But that won’t stop him from trying. And knowing him, lighting my bed on fire with me on it is the gentlest thing he’ll do.
I’ve made a huge fucking mistake.
Seth promises me he’ll come up with more tests to bring out my magic, but first, after a hard day of doing…practically nothing, from what I can tell, he needs to let off some steam.
He leaves the tent abruptly, and a few minutes later, the servants return to change the sheets and offer me a nightgown. It looks like it belonged to our grandmother, judging by the ancient floral fabric and dated lace cuffs, but it’s free from scorch marks, so I take it.
The young female servant removes my shackles to allow me to undress, but she doesn’t replace my leg shackles once I’ve changed. For a moment, I think she’s helping me, but then she explains. “We have a long way to walk tomorrow through the desert. Master Verran says you’ll be too slow with these.”
She places the chains neatly into a trunk next to Seth’s desk. Then she tucks the key that unlocks all of the shackles—including the two that remain around my wrists—back into her apron.
I could overpower her, probably. Trick her into coming back over here and choke her with my chains. I could take the key from her apron, and I could free myself and run before Seth could find me.
Seth knows this, so he also must know I won’t do it.
And he’s right. Not just because I could never bring myself to hurt this girl who has done nothing to me, but because even if I did, where would I go?
There’s nowhere for me to run. I have no boat to take the river, and the entirety of our army lies between us and Faros.
I recognize my best chance of escape isn’t in violence, and it likely won’t come on the road tomorrow, although I’ll keep my eyes open for the opportunity if it arises.
No, my best chance is in Seth himself.
He stumbles back into the tent hours later, swaying on his feet. Then he tosses a half-drunk bottle of wine onto my bed. “Don’t wait up,” he says. Someone giggles outside the tent.
And then he turns and leaves me once more.
In many ways, Seth is exactly as I remembered. He’s brash and sometimes cruel, impulsive to a fault, and prone to wild swings of anger that are as unpredictable as they are deadly. He seems to have almost no care or concern for me or for anyone but himself.
But he does have lines he won’t cross and lines he won’t tolerate others crossing. He values cleanliness and neatness and likes to keep his things meticulously arranged. There’s an order to his madness, as difficult as it may be to discern at times.
And he’s capable of scheming and deception in a way I hadn’t expected. I do remember him being close to Mother, now that I think of it, but I always thought he was more like Father. I’m seeing now that it may have been Adria’s influence all along like he suggested.
I don’t think I can reason with him, and I’m not sure if I’m capable of deceiving him, but I know what he wants—freedom from Adria. If I can find a way to convince him that he has a better chance of getting it with me, maybe he’ll abandon her cause.
There would be worse allies to have than Seth. For all his bluster and buffoonery, I know he’s a capable military commander. Maybe he won’t be at the front lines, but I’m willing to bet he’s a talented strategist when he needs to be. He’s far too focused on his own survival to be any other way.
But how do I convince him his chances are better with me? I can’t show him my magic. So what can I do to make him see what I’m capable of?
The answer occurs to me as I look at the box of chains under the desk.
All I need to do to win his respect is to escape.