Chapter 37
S trong arms held her from behind. Kestrel forced Aelrie towards the mistress.
She screamed, struggling against the assassin, but she was stronger than any female she’d known before.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” she screamed.
“Calm yourself, child. Soon you will be one of us.” Mistress Valeria grabbed one of Aelrie’s hands that was held down by Kestrel. Sharp pain came from her palm. The mistress then gathered some of her blood into an obsidian chalice.
Aelrie struggled some more, but Kestrel pinned her back even harder now.
Mistress Valeria took the chalice to a basin at the altar and dipped it into a silver liquid that shimmered like quicksilver. But when she poured the liquid back into the basin, it flowed like blood.
This must be … blood magic.
All she knew of blood magic was that it was evil. Blood magic bound blood oaths, and one should never take those lightly.
Mistress Valeria walked back over to her, holding the chalice full of blood in her hand. She dipped a finger into the crimson liquid and used it to draw a line down Aelrie’s forehead with it, speaking esoteric words she had never heard on Yggdrasil before.
“Eniugnas sutagil sire suvres suem.”
Mistress Valeria stepped back and nodded to Kestrel, and the assassin released her iron grip on Aelrie.
Fresh blood oozed from the wound on her palm.
“Heal yourself. I know you can.” The voice came from Mistress Valeria.
Without thinking, Aelrie’s other hand covered her injured one, healing it with her magic. When she withdrew her hand, the blood, even the scar, was gone.
But she wasn’t the one who made her hand move, or her healing magic work for that matter. The mistress “commanded” her to, and her body acted on its own.
She tried to speak, but nothing came, just a hoarse, broken cough. Dread rose up her dry throat. She couldn’t speak because … the mistress hadn’t willed her to.
“Bring him in.” Mistress Valeria nodded to someone behind Aelrie.
Kite, Falco’s twin, whom she saw briefly in the cave, walked in, bringing the Wood Elf Aelrie met in the dungeon.
He had his arms bound behind him. Kite pushed him to the ground to kneel before Mistress Valeria.
Kite had also taken the liberty of roughing him up a bit beforehand.
He had cuts and bruises forming on his lip and right eye.
Then that meant she was a coward just like her brother.
“Take the blade.” Mistress Valeria’s command shot through her like an arrow.
She tried to fight the demand, but to no avail, and took the dagger from the mistress’s hand.
“Slit his throat with the dagger.”
No!
Fight it.
Her mouth twitched slightly, but that was the only free movement she was allowed. Her body acted upon command and turned to the Wood Elf now facing her.
She could see his guardian tree reflected in his green eyes. No matter how long he’d been trapped in the Evergloom, his home never left him. His only crime was finding love in the wrong place.
Tears weren’t allowed, no matter how much she wanted them to fall. Her hand moved on its own, the blade of the dagger faced forward.
She struggled against the spell, to speak, to act. When her voice came out, it was with great effort and flew from her lips with a rasp. “I can’t …stop it!”
His emerald green eyes found her bluish gray ones. “Do it. I go back home, to the forest,” he whispered with eyes now closed, just seconds before her blade sliced his throat open.
His body slumped forward, but she couldn’t see him anymore.
The only thing she could see was the color red.
It stained her hands, her clothes. It dripped down her face.
She cried out loud and dropped the dagger.
Blood was running all down her hands, coating the floor beneath her.
Blood was on her. She clawed at her arms, her face.
Get it off. Get it off me!
“Snap out of it.”
The command drew her back. There was no blood on her hands or her body, just a small pool of it beneath the Wood Elf slumped on the floor. The innocent elf she just killed.
“You did well, child.”
She looked over with eyes wild at Mistress Valeria.
Hysterics blurted from her mouth. The spell’s power was waning.
Fury swelled within her, fury she couldn’t express in her near-paralyzed state.
But she fought hard against its pull …the dagger gripped tighter in her hand and edged ever so slightly toward the mistress.
Mistress Valeria took a quick look at the dagger at Aelrie’s side, with its tip pointed at her. “Quiet your voice. Quiet your thoughts. Let go of your dagger.”
Aelrie’s mouth immediately shut at the command, and she stood passive. The dagger fell from her hand, clanking on the stone floor.
“From this day forth, you will leave the name ‘Aelrie Everstar’ behind and be known as ‘Sparrowhawk,’ and you will be mine.”
Mistress Valeria took two steps closer to her. “Kneel before me.”
She knelt on one knee with her hands folded on the other knee and her head down.
“You have completed the mark. You will be given payment for your duty. Never will you stray from my instruction, lest you be hunted down and killed without mercy. Do you understand my command? Answer yes, Sparrowhawk.”
“Yes, Mistress Valeria.”
“Stand and return to your quarters. I shall contact you when I have need of you. ”
Aelrie stood and exited the chamber. Only once she was walking down the corridor did control over her own body return to her.
“Keep walking.”
She turned around to see Kite standing behind her with a nasty scowl on her face. “All the way back to your room. And don’t even think about running. I would love an excuse to put a dagger in your back.”
Running was the last thing on her mind. Her anger had returned, no longer under the sway of the manipulation magic.
Her eyes flicked quickly to the dagger Kite held in her hand. Kite looked down at her dagger for just a moment, but that was all she needed. Her closed fist met with Kite’s lower jaw, knocking her head back.
Kite went to stab her with the dagger, but she was too slow and disoriented from the blow. Aelrie grabbed the dagger from her and made an upward slice, cutting Kite across her cheek.
Kite screamed and held her hands up to her face to stop the bleeding.
Aelrie crouched into an opportune position to deliver a killing blow. Her vision tunneled on Kite’s chest. The dagger struck, but her arm was caught mid-air before it landed.
Her eyes shot up.
Kestrel.
Kite fell back, still screaming. “Bitch! You cut me!”
Kestrel’s grip was powerful, but Aelrie was a cornered wild animal, and wrenched herself free, slicing Kestrel, giving her a defensive wound on her arm .
Kestrel grunted as her blood spilled, but did not scream as Kite was still doing.
Aelrie went for another strike at Kestrel, but it wasn’t a good one, too blinded by her rage. Kestrel dodged the attack and punched her in the stomach, making her take a sharp breath in.
She tried to hold it in, the pain, she tried to continue the fight, but was feeling a little lightheaded.
She was then lifted and thrown down the corridor, landing on her shoulder on the outer edge of the dais in the chamber.
Mistress Valeria walked up to her, a smile formed on her porcelain face.
“There is still fight left in this child. I can respect your tenacity. But there are ways to tame unruly children into submission. Sleep for now.”
Her eyelids closed, and she fell into darkness.
When she awoke, she was back in her room, lying on the bed. She was still dressed in her black leathers, but someone had taken her boots off and left them by the door. Food was also left on a dish sitting on top of the dresser, something she couldn’t stomach right now.
Kestrel must have brought her here from the chamber.
She gathered her knees into her chest, resting her head upon them.
Madam Zaya didn’t matter. She was evil. Her death brought no agony, even though she’d been her first kill. But the Wood Elf. Damn her, she never even learned his name.
She rocked back and forth on the bed .
“I can’t live anymore. I can’t keep living with this shame, this pain.”
She wished for a dagger to end her suffering.
She didn’t deserve happiness.
“Fyn, where are you?” Her voice was small in the darkness.
“I need you.”
No.
“You’re strong, that’s why you’ve made it this far.”
Fyn had said this to her.
No evil mistress could convince her that she was a slave.
Never give up, especially when there is still hope. The sun always rises, no matter the night. There was someone who also needed her.
He was still out there, fighting for her, and she had the strength left in her to do the same.
Find Fyn.
If anything, they were stronger together.