20. Chapter 20
twenty
Somewhere along the way, since shedding Morella, I’d become a receptacle—a vault—for secrets instead.
More for the secrets of others than my own.
So much already hung in the balance with Oz devolving into another war and the realm’s leaders scattered.
At least a few allies had gathered here under the roof of Morella’s old castle, ironically a central stronghold of the enemy during the previous war. But…Rye, Nick, Dorothy, and Pae each only remained upright and functional because no one knew what I did.
That Dorothy unknowingly held some status and perhaps even sway with the demons of Oz. That, despite their feud, Rye and Pae weren’t so dissimilar from one another, especially since they had each suffered similar abuse under one of the two wicked sisters—East and West.
In addition to those secrets, I also held within me the knowledge that Rye, Nick’s closest friend and confidant, had also been Nick’s killer—the person who, perhaps acting of his own free will and perhaps not, had sentenced Nick to that metal body.
These dark things. If any one of them came to light with the wrong person, the information could send the tentative unification we’d at last regained toppling into chaos.
We couldn’t afford that. Oz couldn’t afford that.
Another thing that could not be sacrificed at this stage was anything that counted as a strength.
Iwanted to be one of those strengths. And perhaps I could be.
Without these blasted bracers.
Pae’s words about my powers had startled me, yes, but they’d also shaken me.
They haunted my fitful dreams that night and, the next morning, galvanized me to seek out the one person who could do anything about the bindings that held those powers, held me—the me I was meant to be—captive.
After an hour of searching, I found Rye standing in the ankle-deep drifts left by yesterday’s snowstorm. Alone at the edge of the cliff overlooking the barracks and Nick’s amassing soldiers—Rye’s soldiers, too—the King of Oz peered down on some happening I could not yet see.
Straight-figured once more and clad all in black, a silver crown again on his head, he did not turn or glance my way as I made my approach. No doubt my crunching steps gave me away. And he had to know I would be the one who would come out here, into this blistering cold, to find him.
I had spent that evening and all that morning in the hope that he would find me, but he hadn’t. Which meant he could have been with Dorothy.
I wanted to talk to him about her too. But…one thing at a time.
Without saying anything, I drifted to stand in his periphery. Rye didn’t acknowledge me, he only glowered down on the formations of the hundreds of Winkie soldiers in their austere black armor and helms, their feet pounding in time against the snowy turf as they marched, following the unintelligible orders of a barking sergeant.
“Nick told you about Morella,” I said. I made it a statement because it had to be true.
For a long time, Rye held his silence. His cloak snapped and fluttered in the frigid wind that stirred my own cloak and hair. I’d again donned my cold-weather breeches, boots, and tunic.
“I don’t want to send them to war, Tip,” he said, his voice quiet. Uncharacteristically fearful.
I glanced up at him to find his eyes fraught with uncertainty and underscored with more hollowness than usual. As if this scarecrow body of his had finally learned how to be tired.
“This morning,” he said, “I met with the families of the soldiers killed at The Silver Spring. Laertes’ father wept openly. His sister, just a child, couldn’t understand. She tried to console their father all the same. Castel’s mother told me she was proud of her son. Proud, Tip. That his actions had led to my revival.”
Those haunted eyes found me. “I tried so desperately to avoid this.”
The ice that had crystallized around my heart on my walk here—because I had expected an argument—at once shattered. Because Rye spoke true. He had tried. And no one knew better than me just how hard he had tried. I had tried alongside him.
We both had failed.
“Dorothy left Oz a peaceful realm,” he said. “She returns to another war. Because I couldn’t stop this.”
“You think she could have?” I challenged.
“I promised her I would take care of Oz,” he said. “Safeguard it. And now, because of my failure, more soldiers are going to die. Those men and women down there.” He pointed. “A portion of them, perhaps even half or more, are going to die.”
“You don’t know tha—”
He turned to face me, eyes boring into mine, brimming with darkness and buried pain. “I do know.”
“Let me help you,” I said. “The people—they think I’m the queen anyway. It’s not a secret to them that I’m a witch. Morella’s gone now. I know Nick told you what Pae did, that he extracted her. Which means I’m free.”“I’m not taking the bracers off.”
His words crashed over me, more shocking to the system than a headfirst plunge into icy waters.
“But…I can help stop this,” I argued. “You know I can. You’ve seen what I can do, you—”
“I’m trading you to Langwidere.”
My mouth fell open. I tried to form words, but no sound came out. Once again, Rye had gutted me.
“She can’t use you if you have the bracers on,” he said, and every word out of his mouth pierced me like a blade. He kept on stabbing too. And he wouldn’t stop. “She’ll release Cahal. Then the three of us, the three remaining true rulers of Oz, can discuss dividing the territory with Langwidere.”
Negotiate?He was going to negotiate with her?
I shook my head at him. Dorothy was right. Something was horribly wrong with Rye.
The Silver Spring. What had it done to him?
“There’s no denying that you are Ozma,” he said, “even if the riddle surrounding your age remains. But still, you have no claim to my throne. Royal blood can’t save a country. Fairy blood can’t either.”
“And dividing it can?” I snapped.
“I don’t have another choice.”
“You do!” I thrust my wrists out to him. “Take them off.”
“Never.”
His coldness backhanded me into the arena of anger.
“You’re not making any sense,” I said. “Turn me over to Langwidere and she will use me against you. Like she has Glinda. My powers might be sealed, but I still saved you with them, didn’t I?”
“I suppose you regret that now.”
“Regret it?” I placed a hand on his chest, fingers curling into the ebony fabric of his coat. “There hasn’t been a day, an hour, a second that I haven’t thought of you since you brought me to this castle. Since the poison took you under—away from me. I meant what I said to you the night you put these bracers on me. And my feelings… They haven’t changed.”
“Witch.” Forcing me back from him, he drew his sword in the same motion, the cold scrape of steel a sharp shriek above the continuous and far-away tromping of boots.
Tears sprang to my eyes, but I held them back.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, taking several retreating steps in the crunching snow.
“I meant what I said that night, too.” He lifted that sword and I backpedaled to put distance between us as he leveled its blade at me, the tip aimed at my throat. “And it comes to this.”
This?What…what did he mean? What was he talking about?
“Morella is gone,” he said. “That leaves just you. And you? You, I know I can defeat.”
I scuttled backward again, knowing better than to take my eyes off him—not even to search for any sign of help, which I wouldn’t find. Not out here. “I’m not going to fight you.”
“Oz is mine.”
“Oz belongs to the people,” I reminded him. “Your people.”
“Oz,” he said, “what remains of it when this conflict ends, needs a new kind of ruler. I can’t be who I was before. And this realm, it can’t depend on witches any longer, either. No more than it can suffer under the rule of one. No matter who she is. Or rather…was.”
My stomach clutched. My hands, stinging from the cold, curled into fists.
The wind whipped between us, icy fractals stinging my cheeks.
“Rye,” I pleaded, “are you hearing yourself?”
“No more words.” He took a warning swipe, blade whistling through frozen air, the tip of his sword missing my midsection by inches.
I gasped, retreating yet again, my boots crushing more snow. I gaped at him openly, reminded instantly of that vision I’d had of him. The dream that mirrored this one too closely. In my dream, though, his eyes had been white and soulless like they had been in The Silver Spring when he’d first awakened. They were his own in this moment, though. And this? Whatever was happening now, it wasn’t a dream.
The wind tugged at his stiff hair and pulled at his cloak.
And those eyes—the way they stared into me, skewered my being—they alone could kill me if I let them. I couldn’t allow their reproval to beat me into submission, into cowardice. If I went down, no matter by who’s hand, Oz would fall too.
It wasn’t that I thought I could save Oz on my own.
But I must be here for a reason. I was the last witch Oz had left.
“Rye—”
He shouted at my utterance of his name—a battle cry.
And then, weapon raised, cloak flying, cold eyes blazing—he charged.