Chapter 10
I’ve done it. I’ve shared the secret that could kill me. A secret that no one knows beyond those from whom I couldn’t keep it hidden.
Now I just have to pray that I made the right decision.
That Dinah will not choose to throw her Goddess’s gifted to the king’s dire wolves.
My eyes scan her face for any sign of movement, but she doesn’t react the way I expected. She does not rear back. There is no shock. No denial. Only a long, searching look, as though she is measuring the safest possible response.
She knows something.
I’m sure of it.
I hold my silence and pray that she will fill it with the answers I desperately need.
‘Then we must speak of your mother,’ she says at last.
I frown. ‘What? Why?’ My heart thunders in my chest. What has my mother got to do with the Issen powers I possess?
It makes no sense.
Dinah’s gaze flicks away, her magic brushing the courtyard like a careful hand smoothing water. She is laying further wards around us. Despite her earlier reassurances, she does not think the existing protections in place are sufficient.
When she speaks again, her voice is barely more than a breath. ‘Because, my child, some legacies do not sleep as deeply as we hope.’
Legacies? My frown intensifies. ‘I don’t understand.’
Mother’s magic was green. Always. She dealt with healing, with flow and growing. Not once did I ever see the slightest hint of ice.
‘You raised her,’ I began. ‘Did you see—’
‘We must not speak of it baldly,’ Dinah warns me. ‘Even here, within this warding, there are those who can hear.’
I think of poor Loch’s power and nod grimly. Riddles and half-truths it is, then. The national speech of Wrohelm.
‘She never spoke of it,’ I begin, hurt to think she might have kept something like this from me.
‘She would not,’ Dinah interrupts gently. ‘And not because she wished to deceive you, but because she was unable to.’
With a slight sigh, she presses a hand to her temples and clearly tries to work out what is safe to say. ‘Your mother was brought to the temple as a child.’
‘Yes, as a baby,’ I say, reminding her that I already knew this.
She shakes her head. ‘No, not as a baby. She was a child. Old enough to speak. Old enough to remember a little.’
A chill creeps into my spine. ‘Remember what?’
Dinah’s mouth tightens. ‘Enough to be afraid.’
My throat dries instantly as questions form in my mind. Questions I’m not certain I want answers to.
‘Afraid of what?’ I whisper.
‘Of being seen too clearly.’ Dinah presses her lips together, disapproval in every line of her face as she whispers the next confession. ‘Your mother … she took gladden root.’
My jaw drops open.
My mother made herself forget? What could be so heinous from her past that she wanted to wipe it from her own mind?
‘More than once,’ Dinah continues. ‘Not because she was in pain, or ill, but because remembering frightened her more than forgetting.’
My chest is so tight that each breath is an effort against the cage of my ribs. ‘You’re saying she erased her own memories.’
‘Yes.’ Dinah’s voice softens. ‘And each time, when I told her again what she had decided to forget – because I thought it was safer if she knew – she chose to forget it all over again.’
My stomach churns. ‘Why would she do that?’
I brace for the answer.
Dinah meets my eyes at last. ‘Because some truths attract attention.’ She moves closer, her lips almost touching my earlobe as she whispers, ‘And some powers are not forgiven when noticed.’
Silence stretches between us.
The only powers in Wrohelm that are not forgiven …
‘My ice,’ I say slowly. ‘It didn’t come from the spirits of Follen Lake, did it?’
A cold nausea coils low in my stomach, as if my body has understood something my mind is still resisting.
Dinah does not answer immediately. When she does, she chooses her words with care. ‘What surfaced in you was never given, Rose. It was uncovered. And once such things wake, they do not respond well to being pushed back down.’
A prickle skates along my arms, as though my magic agrees with her assessment.
‘Then what am I meant to do?’ I ask in rising panic. If the ice powers cannot be put back in the box whence they came, then what options do I have?
In my mind’s eye, I see Jonas, bleeding from cuts caused by my shards of ice. I see him clutching his throat, choking.
‘Dinah, I nearly killed someone,’ I confess in a panic. ‘I can’t control it. I have to learn. You have to help me.’
Dinah’s expression tightens with regret. ‘The temple cannot teach you control of this. I cannot teach you control of this.’
My stomach drops, hope draining out of me. I was so sure Dinah would have the answers, but if she can’t help me, then what am I to do?
I cannot let these powers run rife, or my life will be forfeit. And not only mine.
‘Who?’ I ask desperately. ‘Who can help me?’
She hesitates. ‘There are those who understand forces borne of cold,’ she says finally. ‘Not the lake’s spirits,’ she says pointedly, ‘but the people who wield such power.’
My pulse stutters. The Issen. I do not say their name aloud, but I mouth the word at her.
She nods once. ‘If anyone can help you learn restraint – control, rather than mere suppression – it will be them.’
‘I’d take suppression,’ I admit.
The priestess shakes her head. ‘I do not believe that is an option for you any longer,’ she says grimly. ‘If it is as strong as you say, then it will not be fettered now. You must learn to control it. They are the only ones who can show you how.’
Fear floods me. She’s serious. She truly believes that seeking out the Issen is my only chance of survival. My voice is a near sob when I speak. ‘Dinah, they will surely kill me before I can even ask for help.’
‘Perhaps,’ she says with brutal honesty I would prefer not to hear right now. ‘Or perhaps they will recognise something of their own within you.’
I let out a shaky breath. ‘Perhaps is not much comfort.’
‘No,’ she agrees. ‘But it is the truth. And that is what you are asking of me.’
I swallow hard. ‘Why tell me this now?’
Dinah’s gaze drops to my side – to the dagger.
‘This should always have been yours. Your inheritance. It was your mother’s once.
’ She reaches out a hand and touches it carefully before instantly whipping her fingers back.
A small smile of satisfaction appears on her lips.
‘No other may wield this blade now. That is good.’ A single inhale and exhale completes her pause before she continues.
‘This blade was not singular, but one of three. I believe you have seen one of the others. Mila now wields its power.’
I wonder if the omission of the High Priestess’s title speaks of familiarity … or disdain.
‘And the third?’ I question.
‘Has been in its current location for centuries now. I do not believe the one who received it ever learned of its true power. Or true origin.’
Origin? It feels like she’s telling me it’s an Issen blade, but before I have a chance to confirm that with a question, she continues.
‘You and your people are bonded by this item, and such things have a way of opening doors that words cannot. Remember that.’
I try to keep my indignation hidden. It sounds like she’s basically telling me to go and find the Issen, wave a tiny blade at them, and hope that’s enough to stop them from firing ice through my heart the moment they see me.
I close my eyes, trying to quell the myriad thoughts that threaten to consume me.
‘If you go,’ Dinah continues, ‘go seeking understanding, not answers. Be wary and be sparing with the truth.’
That’s it? That’s all she’s giving me? Some loose, riddlesome words?
I open my eyes and look at her. ‘And my mother? Her powers … that is all you can tell me of them?’
Dinah’s expression softens. ‘She chose silence so that you might live freely. Whatever you decide now, make sure it is your choice – not one borne of fear.’
Choice? I think bitterly. I have no choice. None. I must learn to control the magic within me. If I do not, Korvane will kill me for it, or I will kill someone else by accident.
I rise slowly, my legs unsteady. ‘My siblings … sibling.’ I catch myself. ‘Kay? She will carry this within her too? Or is it just me? Just the eldest?’
The priestess draws a slow breath. ‘She is of your blood. Of your mother’s blood.’
It’s as though I’ve been wounded by a physical blade.
Yes. That is Dinah’s answer.
Yes, my siblings carry this same curse in their blood.
Trying to draw back the fear that claws through me, I look at the priestess. ‘Thank you. For telling me what you could.’
She stands with me and pulls me into a brief, fierce embrace. ‘I only ever wanted to keep you safe,’ she murmurs, stroking my hair in such a loving, maternal gesture that I feel my eyes sting.
I let myself be held by her for longer than usual. Here, in her arms, I can believe I am safe for a moment. That, like a parent, she will protect me from the world.
But she is not, and she cannot.
I withdraw reluctantly and we walk in silence to the edge of the courtyard where we say farewell with a squeeze of hands.
A lump blocks my throat as I wonder if this will be the last time I see her, and I cannot help but wonder if she has the same thought.
As I step outside of the garden, truth settles cold and heavy in my chest.
There are no options for me here. No alternative means by which I can find tutelage for this power that grows stronger without restraint.
I have to go to them. To the Issen.
The clear sky – a sign of Kyor’s waning pain? – barely registers through the fog of my mind as I stumble forward, searching for a carriage to take me back to the High Hold. To my siblings.
They need to know what we are.
Oh Gods, poor William. The emotions that must be roiling through him today. What if they’re too much for him to handle? What if they erupt from him in a power he shouldn’t possess? Just like mine did with Oke.
William ripped the window from the wall with his cyclone powers when he was eavesdropping. What if the next time anger possesses him, it is not that magic that tears from him?
As my panic surges, I break into a sprint, but barely fifty feet from the temple, I find my route blocked. It is a carriage of sorts, but it is not the type I am after. It is whitewashed wood, pulled not by horses but by priestesses wearing the same clothes as Dinah.
I want to push past, but it’s not possible. Not with people crowding around it, paying their respects.
I wait, desperately willing it to move faster, and use the time to mutter a weak-willed prayer for whatever soul it is carrying to the temple, for it is a carriage with one purpose: to transport a body – one ready to take their last breath – to the temple of Etta.
When I am level with the carriage bed, a gasp leaves my lungs.
Because it is not just anybody within. It’s someone I know.
Noleen sits propped up by a priestess. Her skin is pallid, and her eyes are vacant. Though her chest still swells and falls, I suspect it will not do so for long.
As a fresh fissure forms in my already fractured heart, the sight that I see next is enough to break it entirely: Ruben walking behind the carriage as they roll his mother to her death.
Goddess, no.
‘Ruben.’ I rush across to him.
His eyes are red and glassy with shock as he looks at me. ‘Rose? Rose …’
I go to embrace him, only for his full weight to fall on me, as though he no longer has the strength to hold his own body upright. Thankfully, I’m a lot stronger than I was back in the slums, and I hastily shift my footing so that he can rest his head on my shoulder as tremors rattle through him.
‘They said there’s nothing they can do,’ he says, his voice catching. ‘They said it was best that they take her now so she can take her last breath with the Goddess.’
‘Ruben, I’m so sorry.’
‘I should’ve acted sooner,’ he mutters. ‘I should’ve found a way to get her out of those slums.’
‘You did all you could. You know you did all you could.’
I see my words aren’t getting through to him though. His guilt drowns out all else.
I stroke his hair back in a gesture that mirrors Dinah’s earlier comforting. ‘Come. Come with me, Ruben. Come back to the High Hold.’
‘I can’t. I need … I need …’
I step back, forcing him to stand upright. As his eyes meet mine, I hold his gaze. ‘Ruben, there’s nothing you can do right now. The cloaks won’t let you stay with her in the temple, you know that. I don’t want you to be alone. Come with me. Please.’
Finally, he dips his chin in agreement. ‘Okay. Just for a little while. But can we just…?’
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence.
We stand together, watching as the carriage draws to a stop and Noleen’s feeble body is gently lifted out and laid upon a pall-covered bier.
Ruben’s breath trembles as he curls his fingers into my sleeve, gripping the fabric as if it might hold him together. Sadly, I know from experience that it won’t.
This will be his last memory of his mother – Noleen somewhere in the ether between life and death, too weak to even recognise him standing there.
Fuck.
Tears prick my eyes, but hastily I wipe them away. She deserves so much more. I should have done more to help her.
Silently, we stand as the wailers and spectators move on. This moment is just a brushstroke in the painting of their lives. Not for us though. Not for Ruben.
We remain there, watching until the temple doors creak closed and the carriage is drawn away.
Only then does Ruben break down into tears.