29 #2
Idhri had brought a burlap sack to collect the turnips in.
When he judged they had dug enough of them, carefully scraping off the dirt that clung to the fat tubers and restoring it to the earth, they walked toward the east, where the cottages of the farmers and coopers and boatmen were.
Braithe admired the little community. “I have never walked here before,” she said.
“So different from the White City,” Idhri said.
“Just what I was thinking.”
Emma and Hugh’s little house was the last, at the very edge of the forest, easily identifiable by the upturned hulls of boats under repair in their yard.
“I left her out here,” Idhri said, peering around the garden. “She must have gone inside.”
“Working on your dinner, no doubt,” Braithe said.
She followed Idhri through the little piles of wood and lidded buckets of tar. When they reached the door, he went in without knocking, but before Braithe could step in after him, she heard Idhri exclaim, “What are you doing here? Let her go!”
The alarm in Idhri’s voice made Braithe’s blood race. She hurried over the doorstep, and froze. “Faolin!”
The fae man had his arm around the neck of a plump, pink-cheeked woman of middle age.
Her graying hair had been tied up in a kerchief, which was now falling to her shoulders.
Her blue eyes were wide with fear, and a short knife was at her throat.
Blood welled from her cheek and dripped toward her chin.
She had seized Faolin’s long arm with both her hands, but she was clearly too terrified to pull at it lest he cut her again.
“Ah, at last,” Faolin said, in a tone that attempted but failed to be light. “My revenge is at hand.”
“Emma, are you all right?” Idhri cried.
Faolin answered, “She’s fine. She may be leaking a bit, but it’s not serious.”
Emma, in a high, shaking voice, said, “Idhri, don’t come any closer. This man—”
“Faolin, why are you frightening this poor woman?” Braithe demanded. A surge of fury made her voice so strident she hardly recognized it in her own ears. “Are you not done hurting people?”
“Let her go!” Idhri repeated. “She’s done nothing to you!”
“Nor have you, half-blood,” Faolin sneered. He pulled his arm tighter around poor Emma’s neck, so that the flat of the blade pressed into her soft flesh, threatening to turn and bring more blood. “It’s the other one I want, and I thank you for bringing her to me.”
“You mean me, I gather,” Braithe said. “You want your revenge on me.”
“I do, and I mean to take it now.” He squeezed and shook Emma, who cried out. Braithe winced at the sight of that knife pushing deeper into Emma’s skin. Faolin said, “I will—I swear I will—start taking pieces out of this stupid human until you take her place.”
“Release her, and I will go with you,” Braithe said.
She wasn’t afraid, not for herself. She was afraid for this woman she had not even properly met, and she feared for Idhri, who was poised to leap into harm’s way to protect his foster mother.
His emotions felt to Braithe like those of a fighting dog ready to pounce, and that might be the most dangerous thing he could do.
She slipped past him before he could prevent her.
She stopped just beyond the reach of Faolin’s arm.
“I am here.” She drew a deep, focusing breath and furrowed her brow as Morgana did when she was about to wield magic.
Braithe meant to do the same, if she could.
It could be she had not enough magic, but if there had ever been a moment to find out, this was it. “Release the woman.”
Faolin eyed her warily, but she saw his grip on Emma loosen a little.
Emma gasped for breath. Her face was red, and Braithe’s own throat ached with the poor thing’s fear.
None of this had anything to do with her, nor even with Idhri, except by association with Braithe.
She repeated, “Release the woman, Faolin.”
Little by little, he eased his grip on Emma but kept his eyes on Braithe.
When he finally lowered his hand, and with it the knife, Emma stumbled forward into Idhri’s arms. She gave a little sob of relief, which Braithe barely heard.
She was watching Faolin, her body tense with awareness of her peril.
Faolin lifted his hand again to point the knife at Braithe. “Don’t move.”
“I will not,” she said. “Nor will you.” Then, quickly but clearly, she pronounced the cantrip.
It was his own. It was the cantrip from his house, the one he had used to protect his workroom and all of his doors. The one she had learned from Gwen, who had no magic with which to employ it.
But Braithe had used it. She had escaped Faolin by speaking it.
Their roles, hers and his, were now fully reversed.
Faolin had a sharp knife and a long arm, but his magic was gone, wrested from him by the Royal Council.
Braithe’s arms were short, and she was unarmed except for the magic that was now hers.
She had no way of knowing if it would work here, in this humble boatman’s cottage instead of the fine house in the White City, but she tried.
She made just one important change:
Skin and bone and belly and blood
Belly and blood and skin and bone
The spell reversed is the master’s own.
A shimmer appeared instantly in the air.
It divided the narrow space between Faolin and herself in half, creating a bright wall of power that made the fae’s eyes widen in shock.
His knife wavered as he realized what had happened.
Belatedly he comprehended what she had done.
The knowledge dawned slowly in his eyes, black pupils swelling to drown any trace of yellow.
Faolin was imprisoned by his own block. Braithe spoke urgently, her gaze never leaving her prisoner. “Idhri, run to the castle. Tell the swordmaster Priestess Braithe needs a sword. He will send someone. Hurry! I don’t know how long I can hold this.”
Idhri was out the door of the cottage almost before she finished speaking, his foster mother at his heels.
Braithe stood very still, her brow creased and her lips pursed as she focused on the barrier she had raised.
She feared that if she lost her concentration, even for an instant, it would collapse.
Faolin’s shock gave way to visible frustration, then to anger. Braithe watched his expression change, and it was like watching a pot come to the boil.
She understood. He had possessed so much power, more power than any being should hold over another, and it had been torn away from him.
The loss had been his own fault, but he would never acknowledge that.
It didn’t surprise her that he craved revenge.
The surprise lay in him witnessing his own creation turned against him.
She would celebrate that when she could, but for now she had to concentrate to hold this block in place.
Her muscles trembled with the effort. Perspiration broke out on her neck and her breast.
When Faolin began to whisper foul things to her, she knew he was trying to distract her.
He thought if he could shake her confidence, her new, untested magic might fail.
He might even believe it was flawed, which could be true.
He spoke louder and louder, his voice as abrasive as rocks tumbling together.
He described obscenities to match the hideous sculptures in his house.
He used her name, involving her in scenes meant to disgust her.
There was nothing too vile or shameful for him to say, and she heard everything, because her energy was spent on maintaining the block.
It was all that kept him and his knife away from her until help could come.