Chapter 17
SISTERS
It was a faster journey with horses and roads than with Khal's band overland and on foot. I moved in a haze. I drank water when someone told me to. The pain from unaccustomed riding on their saddest horse, the burning ache in my thighs and back, couldn't shake me free.
I didn’t pay attention to the soup of voices around me, hushed speculation or crass mutterings, but sometimes I reached into that well inside of me and felt, again, the empty bottom of it, the slow trickle of power, so much slower than before.
Was it the land that sped or slowed this?
Was it Khal, being near him, being safe?
Or was it just me, being like a broken cup that couldn’t hold water?
We reached Belnor Keep after some days, and it was with uncanny disinterest that I noted the looks and whispers from the guards at the gate, the hush of the washerwomen in the courtyard, the sideways glances of servants in the passageways, till I was in the hall again where Khal had promised me his troth by human rites.
By our rites, so no one could argue and take me back.
That time felt like years ago, but it was, what? Months? Weeks?
As opposed to his choice on my wedding day, the baron of Belnor deigned to attend.
“Daughter.” My father stood awkwardly, opened his arms. I didn’t move, didn’t run to him, just stood, trying not to sway on my feet.
He lowered his arms, stiffly. “I was informed late of the agreement made with the orcs and what had occurred. Minister Narthalk has been chastised for keeping this from me.” He looked so uncomfortable, like he waited for me to thank him, to tell him this was fine, to cry, to break.
I gave him nothing.
What would be happening back at the encampment, near the stones? Would Khal’s grandmother be ladling out dinner? The rope burns on my wrists had healed by now. Would Khal’s cuts be healing, too? Would the traces of me be disappearing from his life?
No. We were burned into each other. We were changed past reckoning.
“Rowena!” A figure collided with me, blonde hair and a head on my shoulder. Thea clung to me, and I almost buckled. I think I almost felt something. “Thank the Goddess, you’re safe!”
Safe.
“Well,” the baron cleared his throat. “I’m sure my daughter could do with rest. I’ll call for you later. You can go with your sister. We will discuss at another time, how you can serve these lands”
I didn’t nod to him, didn’t bow. And once upon a time that would have gotten me struck, would have brought me so much fear.
Once upon a time, the man on that dais mattered to me.
But now no one mentioned my impudence. Everyone was ready to see me damaged, the captive scraped back, their orc bride returned.
They knew I was broken; they just thought I'd broke in the leaving, and not the coming back.
Back in Thea’s narrow room, I washed in cold water, let her help me into the clothes she gave me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear my sister’s periodic, hiccupping sobs, but I didn’t have the energy to reach out, to tell her not to cry for me.
In the cover of dark, in her bed, I listened to the wind whipping past the stonework, her fingers tangled through mine, the only other sound the occasional sniffle.
And it was odd that it was her crying, and not me.
Maybe someday I’d break, and I’d cry and cry, and people would think I was crazy.
Maybe that well of power wasn’t the only part of me that had been emptied so completely.
“I’m getting married,” she whispered, into the dark.
I was sluggish, too slow. “What?”
“He’s the count over Wencerlas. He’s not…he’s not even that old. Thirty-three winters. I’ve heard…only good things. He likes horses. That matters, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t really answer, just held her hand tight. Once it had felt like I had stolen her fate, like I’d taken the life she should have had with Khal. If she’d gone with Khal, there’d have been no powers to draw back Father’s interest, and they’d have been allowed to stay happy.
But if it hadn’t been me…if it hadn’t been me, there was no guarantee he’d be alive. I had played some good part in this story. I’d kept him alive.
And now the sister I’d tried sacrificing myself to save would be going away anyway, because of course she would.
“Rowena?” she whispered. Thea’s eyes, so round, so blue, stared into mine. “Was it really awful?”
I breathed. I breathed through the pain like glass in my chest. “No,” I said back.
“No. It was hard, at first, because we were strangers, but…Khal is kind, and gentle, and he’s good.
We made it right.” I was gripping her hand, probably too hard, but I didn’t want to fly into pieces, didn’t want to break.
Her eyes widened. “You loved him.” Her breath trembled. “But…you were rescued.”
"No one rescued me, Thea.” My chest was breaking, squeezed to bits, making the speaking hard. “They broke faith with the orcs. They went to my husband's home and they stole me. Because they found out I had their accursed power."
She lay quiet, here in this wretched fortress of men. Her other hand came to grip mine. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I let the tears slip down my face, silent, and I let her pray what I couldn’t, cry like I wished I could.
The moon rose, painting the room in dove gray, and we two stayed there, two tragedies that held hands for a breath before we were pulled away, like it was always going to be.
Thea broke the quiet. “I told myself you’d come back, that you’d escape,” she whispered. “I prayed every day that you’d be safe when you escaped, that you’d be okay. I didn’t know—"
“This wasn’t your prayers’ fault, Thea.” My throat ached from grief. “This was just me. This was always going to happen.”
“You said we were the only ones looking out for us,” she sounded choked. “But I couldn’t look out for you at all. I couldn’t…help at all.” She clung.
I breathed deep, in the quiet and dark. “I don’t think…
we’re the only ones looking out for us, anymore.
” And it hurt like breaking to remember their faces, to recall Piotr and Vrathgar, Gnarlak and Tyralk’s mother, these people that felt more real to me than anything I’d known in this keep.
It hurt, and I made myself hold onto it, because it would be so much worse when those faces started to fade.
Because Khal already felt like something I’d made up, like a dream I was trying to hold onto after waking, and I wanted to remember he was real.
I’d let my mind break if it meant keeping the memory of him.
“I met people, on the outside. Khal and…and his family, and a peasant woman who gave me a dress, and…I don’t think we’re as alone as we feel.
” I clutched her icy hands in mine. “Maybe we can’t save each other, now, but we save someone else someday.
” My throat constricted again. “...I saved him, I think. And other people. With fire.”
“The bloodline magic,” she murmured, her eyes refocusing again. “What did it feel like?”
I searched for something honest. “...like having power.”
She was so quiet that I thought she was asleep, until her small voice interrupted the darkness. “Rowena? Do you think he’ll come back for you? Since he loved you.”
Something icy tightened in my gut. “He shouldn’t.
” Terror bloomed inside of me. He had tried to throw himself at mounted soldiers with blood seeping from his leg.
Drazha wouldn’t hold him forever. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the image of him at these walls, at these gates, of arrows piercing through him.
“Will you go to him, then?”
I was frozen.
She whispered, “Since you love him too?”
Father would never let me go. He hadn’t let me escape when I was a useless street urchin growling and showing my teeth, just on the possibility that I might wield this family’s ancestral magic.
There wasn’t a chance. He would hunt me to the ends of the earth.
He would kill everyone I loved. “I…I can’t,” I choked out. “Father would…never let me. I can’t.”
Thea, sweet, precious Thea, shook her head, ferocity contorting her delicate face.
“You are the first person in our family to wield in nigh fifty years,” she hissed.
“And you didn’t get it here. He couldn’t help you learn it.
I couldn’t help you.” A shuddering breath, and she lifted her chin.
“If you can make him let you go, make him. If you want to leave, do it. You owe us nothing.” Her mouth trembled. “You make your own luck.”
I held tighter to her hands. “I’m empty inside, Thea,” I said. “I spilled it all out, and it takes…I don’t know how long it’ll take, to come back again.”
“But it will.” She winced, like it hurt. “You’ll figure it out, and it will. And they won’t be able to lock you up with me ever again.”
The words didn’t seem real. I had read minds and frozen a man in midair, I had thrown fire from my hands and this was what didn’t seem real, like when you open the cage and the bird doesn’t realize it can fly.
This was some kind of broken, some kind of foolishness I’d have to interrogate later, but for now I hung onto my sobbing sister’s words, and tried to let myself imagine them true.
“Did you really burn down the wall at Rowton?” she asked, still in a whisper.
I nodded. “Not on purpose. It just…came out.” I remembered the street toughs melting and burning, and tried to imagine that as Father’s ministers, as his guards, as Father. It felt…strange. But not as wrong as it probably should. Maybe I could do that. But Thea.
“What about you?” I murmured. “Do you want to come with me?”
She let out this little hitching laugh. “I don’t think I’m strong like you, Rowena.”
She’d been raised for this. This place hadn’t been a paradise for Thea, but it hadn’t been a hell. Going to people who spoke her language, who valued the talents she’d accrued for the role she’d prepared for, it made sense that she wanted that, instead of tents and Orcish and ways foreign to her.
I bowed my forehead to hers, warmth against mine. “I wish you every happiness.”
It took a moment for her voice to answer me, steady. “And I you.”