Chapter
6

Aodren

GODS, NOT AGAIN.

Neither my arms nor my legs can move.

My head is leaden. My mouth is dry. My eyelids are immobile.

The last time I felt this weighted, sluggish, and disoriented was a month ago. I learned then that waking from the influence of magic was grim business. I’d been bound by a Spiriter and then freed by another—all of which was explained by Captain Omar. Had I not the scar on my neck and the word of the only man I trust, I might not have believed the full extent of Lord Jamis’s deception. Though, to be honest, I should’ve expected as much from the former regent. It wasn’t the first time I’d been betrayed.

I’ll be damned if it isn’t the last.

I rack my brain for a last memory before my current suffocating, sluggish state.

Nothing comes except an image of her.

The wisp of a girl with the backbone of iron. Britta Flannery, Saul’s daughter.

I think of the fight she wears in a scowl and try to hone the same angry strength, because the urge to dip into a deeper sleep is strong. Wake up.

The horse smell, achiness registering all over my body, and an oddly scratchy pillow keep me alert enough. Above those distractions, the drone of a voice breaks through my mental haze.

“Britta, you are my daughter,” a woman says, her voice all coarse edges and shards of granite. Something familiar about it raises the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

My attempt at talking shapes into a groan.

In response, warm pressure lands on my back. Is that someone’s hand? My eyelids crack open, finally. It’s work to blink away the grit, but after a dozen tries, my vision clears enough to make out horse hooves and squashed shrubs dusted with frost.

Hooves? I squint and try to turn my head, only there’s no moving. My head feels heavier than the ostentatious throne my father commissioned while he was alive. Something hard digs into my stomach and chest, cutting my ability to breathe. And it feels like two bony knees are shoved against my ribs.

I flex my fists, willing my arms to move, but they’re secured to my sides in a way that feels different from the sluggish effect of magic. Have I been bound? I want to yell like an Akarian warrior, but all I can manage is a grunt.

“I could end your life with the release of my arrow.” The words are clear and spoken by a voice I recognize. Britta Flannery. It comes from above me. She must be the one touching my back. I relax a bit under her hand.

“You could, but you won’t. You know by now I’m not here to cause you harm.” The terrible voice rings with disquieting familiarity. “If I wanted that, you’d be dead already.”

“Like them?”

No response.

“What about him?”

“He’s my way of getting you here. You look like you don’t approve. I left him alive, for now.”

“You’re not going to kill him.” The pressure on my shoulder blade increases.

The blood rushing to my head is dizzying. I try again to lift my chin, move my legs, anything to change positions and see how I’ve come to be face-down over a horse.

“Wouldn’t his death be to your benefit?” the woman says, and I instantly find it imperative to break free of whatever’s holding me in place. “The bond you have with him must’ve been an adjustment for you. Such a taxing price for giving away your energy. Don’t you want to be free of him?”

“You don’t know me.” Britta’s words are sharper then the dagger she carries. I imagine her face is pulled into the same menacing scowl she’s thrown my way many times. “Don’t speak as though you do.”

“I wanted to meet you. See for myself the girl who broke my bind. Did Enat tell you how at eighteen you fully come into your ability? Merry birthday, my child.”

A scoff or a gasp and then the hand on my back leaves, taking its warmth. I stretch my neck, but all I can make out is the broken brush around the horse’s legs. My position makes it too difficult to take in anything beyond the ground beneath me.

“No farther.” Britta’s command has me momentarily pausing my struggle to loosen the ties on my wrist.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious? No one in all of Malam is like you. No one but me. I brought you here today to join me. It’s my gift to you. You can come with me, to be with other Channelers.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You don’t want to be on the losing side, Britta. Why stay loyal to a man who hunts our kind? He’s weak. Look how easily his men fell before him. Aodren doesn’t deserve your allegiance any more than he deserves to rule this country. Come with me and I’ll teach you. I’ll give you your independence from him. I’ll show you how strong Channelers truly are. Don’t you want to know all you’re capable of?”

Silence.

Flashes of memory break through—

A maid in my bedchamber, saying she’d come to collect a chamber pot and seeming startled because she hadn’t expected me.

The same woman standing over my bed beside Jamis. Her voice in my head. Her words coming out of my mouth.

A veiled woman on the path today, seeking help, claiming her carriage had overturned just around the bend.

Her face, showing through the veil as she stepped closer. Recognition slamming into me.

Britta’s talking with the Spiriter!

I groan and fight harder against the restraints. She said she was Britta’s mother. But that cannot be. I’ve known Britta’s father—and by extension, Britta—her whole life. Her mother died when she was born. The woman is either manipulating Britta or she’s returned from the dead. Either way, I wonder if Britta knows the Spiriter isn’t alone. I remember that much now.

I wiggle some more.

Whoever tied me up did a bloody good job.

Phelia was backed by a group of at least six young women, none of whom were armed. I didn’t think them a threat when my men dismounted their horses. It wasn’t until Phelia touched the girl closest to her and an unnatural blast of wind, like a swift jab to the jaw, knocked me off my horse. Britta’s tough, but can she take on a half-dozen Channelers?

Compelled to protect her, needed strength surges through me. “No,” I manage.

“Shhh.” The warmth of her touch returns to my back.

“No,” I try again. She needs to know we have to get out of here. “Uhng . . . trap. A t-trap.”

Britta curses. A ffffffp sounds just above my head, like an arrow has been shot. A gasp. Then an oomph. Have we been shot? I rock right and left over the blasted horse trying to speak her name. All that comes out is “Brrrrit.”

My arms are being tugged and yanked. A knife grinds across the rope binding my wrists. Then my arms are free, and she rolls my body until I can feel the point of her knees in my back. I feel the movement of a horse beneath us. I see the treetops, the gray sky, and her face. She’s a messy painting in shades of pearl and the barest hint of gold, scattered with freckles. I fight to stop my head from lolling.

“Can you sit up?”

I stare at her, a blur of pale skin and blue, blue eyes.

“Sit up.” Her expression could frighten the barbarians from the south. Who am I to argue with this girl?

“I-I’m trying.” It’s an embarrassing, wobbly struggle, trees and shrubs spinning past my vision, but with her tugging at my coat, I manage an upright position on her horse. She thrusts the reins in my hand and commands me to ride.

But where are my guards? Have they already escaped? “My men?”

An arrow scrapes my shoulder, zipping on to a tree, but not before slicing my shirt. My shoulder burns. Britta curses like a royal guard.

“Faster,” she shouts, and turns, her elbow digging into my back, as she raises her bow and shoots an arrow.

“Where are my men?” My dry throat turns each word into a bark that barely carries over the horse’s gallop.

The warmth of her breath returns to my cheek. Her voice is in my ear. “I-I’m sorry. They didn’t make it.”

Shock snaps through me. They’re dead? Nicolas and Einer are dead?

Gods.

I grip the leather straps as best I can and—heart thundering in my chest, shoulder stinging—command the horse to flee the glade. My focus, thin as commoner threads, barely manages the trees blurring past, the shouts echoing from pursuers, and the guilt knotting my stomach.

As king, the death toll in my name never ends.

It never ends.