Chapter Seventeen
Corvin awoke to a splitting headache. It took a minute for his brain to piece together the input of sound and make sense of it. Smoke’s distress call punctuated the bustle of a woman’s shrill voice and…shifting furniture?
“Shoo! You vile thing! You’re disturbing my other patients!”
Patients?
He cracked one eye open and realized he was in the healing ward. One of the healers was chasing Smoke around the room, climbing up on tables and chairs wagging a towel at him as he squawked at her continuously.
Why was he there? Had he hit his head? It felt like he’d done a high dive into a shallow pool. He pinched the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.
“Smoke, knock it off.”
Both of them paused in their chase to glance at him. The raven swept over the healer’s head to land on Corvin’s bedpost and butt against his head with a low gurgle.
“Oh, to hell with it,” the healer said with a final wave of her rag before disappearing through the only door in the room.
Corvin reached up to scratch Smoke’s neck and found even that small motion exhausting. He closed his eyes again, feeling like his brain was two sizes too large for his head.
“What happened?”
Smoke made the call that was associated with Audrey. His eyes snapped open. “Audrey? Is she okay?”
A low, angry growl answered him, or the raven version of it anyway.
He breathed slowly through the pain and racked his brain for the last thing he remembered.
Audrey’s eyes, sparkling in the afternoon sun…sweet, fruity kisses. No, wait…her eyes had closed in ecstasy as she’d come apart beneath him, and she’d tasted of whiskey.
Whiskey.
Like a lightning bolt rending the sky, the memory sliced through the haze. He’d taken a drink, and then he’d felt the potion. The look on her face…
Smoke growled again, and Corvin sank back to the pillows. “Is she gone?”
The raven hopped from the bed to the nearby chair and back. He bobbed his head nervously. Corvin sat up again. “What is it? Is she okay?”
Smoke gave the call for Roderic, and before he had processed the thought, Corvin was on his feet. “No. I don’t want her hurt.”
Smoke hopped to his shoulder as he staggered toward the door, using the walls to stay upright. The answering caw stated his best friend’s feelings on the matter.
“Perhaps she does deserve it,” he answered through gritted teeth, “but she’s my responsibility. I should determine the consequences.”
The only question was could he punish her for breaking the rules without punishing her for making a complete fool of him?
Roderic held the door to his mother’s office open for Corvin as he finally reached the third floor. From the expression on the guard’s face, Corvin looked worse than he felt. The sleeping draft Audrey had used on him was meant to last for several hours. He’d performed emergency surgeries with it. Even when given the antidote, some of the effects had to run their course. Not to mention that do not mix with alcohol was printed clearly on the bottle.
Smoke hopped from his shoulder to Roderic’s. Just that tiny movement nearly threw him off-balance, and the captain appeared to make a concerted effort not to help Corvin take the remaining ten steps to the sofa. He sat and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Audrey was sitting on the couch opposite him, but she may as well have been a ghost. She wouldn’t look at him, just stared into her lap as he took in the scrapes and abrasions on her arms and legs. One side of her face was swollen and bruised as well. He was glad he was too weak to channel her feelings, because the complete lack of regret he would find there would probably undo him.
Despite her betrayal, he still cared for her. Seeing her hurt still caused him pain. He found himself wishing that she would glance up, look him in the eyes. That he would see some sign in her hard, crystal gaze that it had not all been a lie. Not all. Not their day in the glen…not what happened after. Even now, he wanted to believe there was something special between them.
She didn’t make a fool of you—you are a fool.
“Corvin? Corvin.” His mother’s voice cut through the thick webbing of his thoughts. “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
Delicate, cool fingers feathered through his hair and lighted on his cheek. He gazed up to see his mother staring down at him with a rare and unguarded expression of worry. The creases of her frown lines deepened as a milky film covered her eyes.
He leaned away, afraid that with her Oracle powers she would see—beyond the obvious—the depths of his failure. That he was so pathetically lonely he’d let himself be played like a puppet.
She didn’t hover, just glided to the window where she stood for hours every day, gazing into an uncertain future and scheming how to turn it to her best advantage. She lit a cigarette, took a long, slow draw, and exhaled with a bone-deep sigh.
He frowned. He’d never seen the formidable Patricia Wright look so…tired. Her shoulders seemed slimmer and too sloped, her ivory skin thinner and more translucent. Despite everything between them, he was concerned about her. The truth was he’d never wanted to follow in her footsteps, because he knew she was miserable. His earliest memories of his mother had been full of worry, anxiety, and self-torture—until she’d learned of his powers. Since then, she’d kept her true feelings sealed behind solid, impenetrable shields.
“As I was saying. My inclination in a scenario like this one is outright banishment. We do not force the unwilling to be initiated, and Ms. Taylor clearly doesn’t want to be here. However, I’ve been informed by both her instructor and by Roderic that she shows an exceptional amount of skill and power, perhaps of the ninth or tenth degree. It would be a shame to waste so much magic.” She spoke in that faraway, musing tone she had when many things were weighing heavily on her mind. Doubt was not a good look on her. Her mission in life had always been to protect the Legacy, but Audrey had brought both her methods and philosophy into question, at least from his perspective. Audrey didn’t want to lose her powers or memories—one was her birthright, and the other she’d earned. But she clearly didn’t want to walk the Threefold Path.
And she clearly doesn’t want you either.
Not that he’d ever had much to offer. It had been silly of him to think he could win her heart. It was as unreachable as the moon.
She still wouldn’t look at him.
“Nothing to say? Either of you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I say—you’re going to decide for me,” Audrey answered in a low tone. “But I will fight you every step of the way. I would rather die.”
The words hit Corvin like a hoof to the chest.
His mother sighed again, stubbed out her cigarette, and paced toward them. “You would rather die than live in our world? A world you were born into? Where you belong?”
“No, I would rather die than be stripped of everything that makes me who I am. And I would rather die than be a slave.”
“A slave? Is that what you think? Have you been treated like a slave here, Audrey? We have fed you, clothed you, tended your wounds. We’ve trained you and offered you a life of meaning, the path of your destiny. Do you think all of those things should be provided without asking any commitment in return? That is not the way the world works.”
“I know how the world works. It doesn’t matter how nice people treat you. If they’re using you, they’re using you. I don’t like being used. And I hate being held prisoner.”
Silence descended. His mother paused in her pacing and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Clearly my son has not done a good job of explaining what the Synod expects from you.”
Audrey glared at her. “He’s told me enough.”
“Then it seems we are at an impasse.” The cold in his mother’s tone sent a chill of foreboding up his neck.
Audrey tensed, gripping the cushion beneath her in mottled fingers. Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds, and he saw that same panic that had first spoken to him—a wild thing caught between captivity and death. Or so she believed.
He had promised no harm would come to her. He spoke in a forceful, but calm tone. “That’s enough, Mother.”
Her eyes widened, but behind her, Roderic and Smoke bobbed their heads in unison.
“I take full responsibility for what happened tonight. You’re right—I’ve been remiss in my duties as a mentor. I have been using Audrey for manual labor when she should have been in classes. I knew she wasn’t ready for so much…latitude, but it made my life easier to not have to escort her everywhere. Give her until the end of the cycle to decide what she wants. There is no need to decide her fate tonight.”
His head was beginning to throb from staying upright so long. Audrey stared at him, stunned, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to worry about how to handle her yet. He stood, a little uneasy on his feet.
“It is not that simple, Corvin. There must be consequences.” His mother held up a hand to stave off any arguments. “Rules were broken. Trust violated. We cannot allow the other novices to think this sort of behavior is acceptable.”
“She is my novice. Her punishment should be my decision.”
“And we also cannot let anyone think that we are showing favoritism.”
The penetrating stare she fixed on him said she knew exactly what had gotten him into this position. He gritted his teeth, willing the room to stay level as he exhaled through his nose and unclenched his fists. “Very well. What have you decided on?”
“I have already sent a petition to use the Hall of Echoes.”
Roderic frowned but said nothing. Smoke gave a foreboding caw that spoke for both of them. Corvin swallowed the lump in his throat. “You can’t subject her to that—she hasn’t been initiated, and her shields are nowhere near strong enough. It’s too dangerous. I won’t allow it.”
Audrey opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to quiet her. She had no idea what they were talking about. Balls and bravado would not get her through the Hall of Echoes unscathed. She would see it as torture. He couldn’t bear to sit by and watch Audrey go through something like that. She would hate him.
“She is a ninth- or tenth-degree witch. She has shields and the instincts to use them. It is unorthodox in this stage of her training, but I believe the hall will provide just the perspective Audrey needs.”
He finally looked at Audrey, her glare bouncing back and forth between his mother and him. From the looks of it, some very vitriolic things were going through her head. Their eyes met, and as he waited for some unspoken spark of acknowledgement, he felt as if his heart had driven off a cliff and was suspended in that moment before free fall.
Is it real?
A hint of emotion swelled, making her crystal-blue eyes sparkle, and his chest ached as his heart gave a hard throb. His instincts didn’t care that she had used his feelings against him, they were screaming for him to protect her. He turned back to his mother. “I won’t allow it.”
“If you want a chance to redeem yourself for failing at the task I set forth for you, then you will not defy me in this. Unless you’re ready to give up your title and tower?”
He ground his teeth. Unfair choices. Audrey was right—that was all the Synod dealt in. Pushing back now would get him nowhere.
She gave him an I told you so look, and fire crawled up his neck in a prickly wave. It took the last dregs of his energy to keep his conflicting urges in check.
“Fine,” he growled. “How long do I have to prepare her?”
“We will conduct the ceremony tomorrow night at sunset. But you will report back to the healers and spend the rest of the night under their care. Audrey will remain in the dormitory tonight and spend tomorrow in meditation with Cian. First, I would like a word with you, Audrey. Alone.”
He bowed formally and shuffled to the door. He couldn’t look at Audrey. He had failed her. She had betrayed him. Perhaps they were even. Perhaps it didn’t matter. She had told him again and again she wanted to be left alone, and he’d trusted his own powers instead of taking her at her word. Perhaps it was time for him to listen.