So … Theo was a mind mage and a magic wielder, for that was certainly a sword imbued with spirit; it practically sang to her.
“You should see her on the field, Rhea. Like Rowen reborn. So strong and agile, with natural invulnerability and healing factors. She is a magnificent warrior.”
“Rowen died wielding that sword, and you give it to my daughter?”
“You got what you wanted from our little sister’s death, didn’t you? Sitting here secure in the castle and the position her slaughter cemented.”
“I would never have asked for such a sacrifice.”
“I believe it was freely given, just as I, too, fought by your side, just as I believed in your truth. Just as Theodora’s father also believed and sacrificed. I have no doubt you will use Theodora in the same way.”
“This isn’t the time for a history lesson, Dougal, or for a religious debate. You’ve brought an army to my gates.”
“For Theodora.”
“Who is my daughter.”
“But not your prisoner. Nor does it give you ownership of her, Rhea. And you cannot even protect her. How many days was she here before the Preacher found her?”
“Stop it!” Theo yelled, surprised at the edge of terror in her voice. It was too much information, delivered too disjointedly, to access and process all at once. Her hand had instinctively sought and found the hilt of the sword while her mother and Dougal were fighting, and she lifted it from the velvet wrapping.
Her mind whirled as it attempted to piece together all the information being inadequately discussed by people in the know. Rowen’s sword … her dead aunt, her mother and uncle’s triplet, which was information plucked from her mother’s unshielded thoughts … Rowen’s death a rift between the siblings … each blamed the other. Dougal’s inference that she’d chosen to go with him that afternoon in the ballroom, and the sinking feeling that her own mother could have helped her access her missing ten years at any time. And through all that, there was Ren …
She spun the sword in her hand, just slightly lifted … it seemed she was left-handed. Holding the sword felt a little like coming home with its power in complete harmony with her own.
“It’s too much all at once,” she heard her mother whisper, and she realized she’d closed her eyes.
“Theodora, I gave you the choice, and you chose to come, you chose to become a Warrior of Spirit rather than —”
“But the mind mage powers, the ones that could have killed me coming back, as you mentioned. You took those away, didn’t you?”
“You had to train. Those powers were a hindrance, even useless.”
“They were me!” she screamed, and her mother and uncle actually stumbled back as if she’d pushed them. The sword was singing to her again. It wanted to express her anger, wanted to soothe it —
“She is more powerful than I thought,” Dougal murmured to her smug mother. He was surprised Theo had made him stumble with mere words.
“I could have told you. We could have had a conversation.”
“We talked. You refused my requests to train her. You had her betrothed at sixteen!”
“At birth actually, but that was Spirit’s choice, not mine.”
“Betrothed at birth?” Ren croaked. It seemed Dougal was not the only one who was startled by this extra piece of information.
Everyone continued to ignore Theo … their voices rose higher and higher, each talking about her instead of answering her questions, instead of helping her.
“Did I agree, Uncle? To have you block the mind mage powers?” The hand-carved glass vase on her mother’s desk cracked, and the water and flowers tumbled to the floor. That got the attention back on her.
“Your mother had been repressing the wielder parts of your spirit.”
“Did I agree?”
“No.”
“So what else did you take?”
Her uncle looked to her mother, worried for the first time since Theo had entered the room, but her mother refused to help him. Ren was frozen with his hand on his head, as if he’d been running it through his hair and forgotten it there.
“What else did you have to take to block the mind mage powers? All of it? All of me?”
“Yes, but I —”
“What?” Ren roared. “What are you saying?”
“He’s saying, Ren, to make me the warrior he wanted me to be, he took my powers, took my childhood, and what? Rebuilt me? Who did I think I was?”
“You, still you. My niece. Just with an alternate past. I did it for your protection. You are a skilled warrior. I’ve only ever seen you matched by Ren.”
“And you, Uncle? Am I your match?”
The sword in her hand quivered in anticipation. Its singing escalated, though she was fairly certain no one could hear it but her.
“No,” her uncle laughed. “I am unmatched.”
“Theodora!” her mother called in warning, but it was too late; Theo’s sword was already arcing toward her uncle’s midriff.
Steel met her steel, but it wasn’t her uncle who raised his sword in his own defense. Ren stood between her and her target.
Ren didn’t wait for her next move. His sword, a broad, double-edged, unadorned blade except for the “R” carved into the pommel, was already twisting out and toward her.
She moved and met him. They danced back to where there was more room to turn and lunge. She met him blow for blow. Her sword swung as if it knew what to do. Even hampered by skirts, she could feel her body react like it was articulating some well-worn, well-loved pattern. Her body had been missing this swordplay, even though her mind had no idea she was capable of it.
Ren was grinning again, as if it was all a game to him. She realized he wasn’t even really trying to beat her, though she felt pushed to the edge.
She swung wildly for his head, and he slid sideways and tapped — just tapped — her on her waist with the flat shoulder of his blade, just above the cross-guard.
Then he laughed.
She stumbled backward at the sound of pure joy emanating from him. She’d heard that sound before; she’d delighted in that sound, in making him laugh, once upon a time.
Pain lanced though her skull.
She stumbled, again.
Ren cried out and reached for her, but she shied away from him, suddenly, insanely afraid of his touch.
The sword felt too heavy hanging off her arm, but she didn’t release it, even as another pulse of pain blasted her brain.
She recalled Ren’s laugh. She traced it back to the dark, vast, missing space in her mind.
Pain ricocheted through her again, and, this time, her entire body spasmed with it.
When the room came back into focus, she realized she’d fallen to her knees. Ren knelt before her.
Her mother — her composed, perfect mother — was screaming as Dougal held her back from racing across the room.
“Look, Rhea! Look what you’ve done to your daughter. Her eyes are bleeding.”
Rhea struggled against Dougal and managed to twist out of his arms. But then he simply caught her wrist. Rhea fell to her knees with one arm twisted behind her.
Her mother didn’t kneel to anyone.
The sword was out of her hand even before she’d known she’d thrown it. It blurred by Ren’s left cheek and arched upwards toward her uncle’s chest.
Time slowed.
Ren saw the sword, but too late to block it.
Rhea saw the sword, and, inexplicably, seemed to actually lunge toward it, but she missed.
But Dougal, who was still yelling something at his sister on the ground before him, didn’t seem to see it as it sped toward his chest.
Theo exhaled.
Then Dougal straightened, and, at the very last second, or so it seemed to Theo, he slammed the palms of his hands together and stopped the sword an inch from his heart.
The room seemed to sigh in disappointment or maybe it was reli
ef, Theo couldn’t tell.
Dougal calmly set the sword back on its velvet cloth.
Rhea was sobbing.
“You’ve got to give it back to her, Rhea. I was wrong. You were wrong. Give it all back to her and let everything take its proper course. She’ll just end up tearing herself apart if you don’t.”
Her mother slumped, and then, with tears streaming silently down her cheeks, she met Theo’s eyes. “Theodora.” Her whisper carried easily across the room. “Remember that I love you.” Then she felt her mother in her head. At first, she fought against the invasion, but her mother was soothing, cooing to her as Chelsey had done to her babe, and Theo let go.
Her mother wrapped her in arms that had never been tender, and then, pressing impossibly cold lips to Theo’s forehead, showed her the way through the darkness. She gave her the key to the block in her mind. No one would be able to trap her there ever again.
The spell holding her memories snapped, and, for a moment, her brimming brain felt broken in two.
She screamed.
And screamed.
The memories flooded back.
Ten years in a split second.
The pain.
The frustration.
The loneliness.
Lost, unless she had her sword in hand. So lost with no memories of the childhood Dougal had constructed.
So lost.
Until she’d met Ren.
Ah, Ren.
She saw him. Saw him so serious, so strong. She saw him laughing, spinning her around in firelight and with music … they’d danced, they’d kissed, they’d —
Pain burnt up her right forearm, and she gasped with the sting of it. The scald of it returned her awareness to the room.
Rhea and Dougal, with Ren between them, all knelt before her, as she was still on her own knees.
She clutched at her forearm.
Ren unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve. He wore a mark on his arm. A promise mark. A mark seared into his skin by magic, and it must have been by willful choice because he’d seemed impervious to magic before.
A mark that she also bore on her own forearm, though hers was, rather painfully, fading in and out as if it was struggling to hold.
“You allowed her to take his mark?” Her mother’s anger was quick to surface.
“She chose him.” her uncle responded.
“She was in no position to do so. She, from your own admission, didn’t even know herself.”
“I know.” Her uncle seemed all but defeated.
“It stinks of blood magic, Dougal,” Rhea accused.
“It was the only way to tie him to her. I had to see her safe, you understand?”
Pain burnt through her arm again as if the mark, as if Ren’s mark, was trying to claim her.
Claim her spirit.
Claim her promise to him.
Her promise to Ren.
“Don’t fight it, Theo,” Ren pleaded. “You don’t always have to fight.” Ren reached for her, disillusionment and defeat evident in his voice, even as his body tried to close the space between them. Dougal held him back and she saw that her uncle was a little uncertain, unsure of this shattered niece that kneeled before him.
“Wait for her magic to settle. You can’t feel it, but it’s practically flooding off her.” Dougal didn’t want her touching Ren. Theo could read her uncle now, just a bit, but more than before; the wielder powers strengthened the mind mage. Ren still didn’t register beyond what her blurry eyes could see.
“No,” she whispered to the memories warring within her brain, threatening to overwhelm. She pushed back, refusing to lose this battle; it was her own brain, it would not better her.
Her mother’s massive wooden desk was hovering off the ground, and Theo wondered if she was the one holding it up.
She had to get out of the room. She had to get to a safe place where she could let go. She wasn’t going to collapse in front of the very people who had done this to her, but she couldn’t seem to operate her legs, as though her brain couldn’t currently function on multiple levels. She tried to cast her mind toward Hugh’s brightness; she could still see him nearby, but she couldn’t manage to call to him, to move beyond the onslaught of memories.
“No,” she shouted. Ren slumped back, utter sorrow etched on his face, and she understood he thought she was rejecting him, rather than fighting her own battle.
“I love you,” he said. A statement of fact, devoid of joy or sorrow.
“I remember,” she managed to answer, and she did remember. She remembered burning for him as his mark now burnt her arm. “I remember.” The mark settled on her skin, half-faded, like maybe it was waiting.
The door slammed open behind her, and she could feel Hugh, in all his bright anger, storm into the room. A part of her, a part that had been barely holding on, released.
The hovering desk smashed to the floor with a definitive crack.
This didn’t even give Hugh pause. He, despite the raised voices at his entrance, and the threatening hands on swords, swept like a cool wave toward her.
Angry voices once again filled the room, but Theo didn’t bother with actual words. She allowed her beleaguered brain to rest as Hugh lifted her off the floor. His touch solidified her a little, as if maybe she would win the war waging in her brain.
She looked for Ren. He stood between the fury that was her mother and uncle. She should reach out and smooth away the devastation that marred his face, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t have that choice taken away from her; not when so many other things had already been taken.
“Hugh!” Her mother’s demand articulated itself through the chaos of her brain. “How dare you. You will unhand the princess.”
“I called him,” she murmured, and silenced the protests of her mother and uncle.
Hugh turned to carry her through the door.
“Ren,” she called, and Hugh stopped, but didn’t turn back. Ren stepped beside them, and, again, she stopped her hand in mid reach from touching him. “I’m sorry.”
“I shall not falter,” he declared.
“It has to be my choice,” she insisted, even as her strength faded away.
“I know. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
∞
Numbness flooded through her body as they left the library, and she succumbed to unconsciousness for a few moments.
She became vaguely aware that Hugh was shouting orders, and that other people were gathered, but no one hindered their passage.
“We’re leaving,” Hugh informed her.
“As you wish,” she answered, though she wasn’t certain she did so out loud. Her arm fell into place around Hugh’s neck as he carried her out into the open air.
∞
They were mounted on Hugh’s horse, the Beast. She could feel its powerful energy underneath her. She’d lost more time.
“They won’t open the gate,” Hugh spat in frustration, and the Beast danced in the packed dirt of the courtyard between the castle’s entrance and wall.
She felt the moment her mother realized that Hugh was trying to take her from the castle; perhaps it was that energy that had woken her again.
“They’re coming,” she whispered to Hugh, and she felt him reach for his sword. He was going to fight, and if he didn’t first die at her uncle’s hand, her mother would rip his mind asunder. All because he was obligated to protect her. All because, right or utterly wrong, she’d asked for his help.
Theo gathered the pieces of power that were scattered throughout the chaos of her mind. She cobbled this energy into a pulsing ball of light. Then, with the last bit of will she had, she threw this energy at the gates.
The gates shattered. She’d broken them into hundreds of millions of slivers of wood and steel that blasted into the gathered crowd, who flung their arms up to shield their faces. She fleetingly hoped she hadn’t hurt anyone.
Hugh didn’t even bothe
r to question that she could shatter gates meant to withstand armies with her mind. The Beast surged forward beyond the gates in what seemed to be a single leap. She felt the magic then, the magic of Hugh’s horse, and understood that no one, not Dougal and his army, and not even her mother and her machinations, could catch them while they rode this magical animal masquerading as a common stallion.
And that was fine with her. So, when the darkness engulfed her a third time, she welcomed it, like she would welcome a soft blanket, or a hot bath, or hot chocolate. This was not the time to worry and think. She was sure Hugh was doing enough of that for both of them … so she succumbed.
And slept.
CHAPTER TEN
At first Theo slept, dreamlessly, unaware of both her surroundings and the overwhelmed pathways and connections of her traumatized mind.
Later, she became aware of images flashing by within the darkness in which she floated.
Eventually, frustrated by the passivity, she reached out and snagged the next image as it floated by: a green lake. The image gained depth, and then seemed to encase her, as if she had stepped through it into a memory.
So she remembered …
∞
A trip to the lake, which was glacier formed and fed. The green water sparkled as the sun hit the circles of ripples she made as she swam toward shore. Weeds brushed her legs, but this was comforting rather than disconcerting. It was simple, this moment, not laden with future expectations or disappointments. The water did most of the work, it buoyed her, and when her toes found rock and sand, these too held her upright as she dashed from the water toward a picnic lunch awaiting her on the beach.
The woman waiting for her there — her hair almost painfully red in the sunshine — turned to hand her a glass of lemonade. It was her mother. No one else was around to intrude on their specially scheduled day. The lemonade, a rare treat when they spent summers in the NorthWest, was tart against her tongue but sweet going down her throat. Her mother’s eyes were green, almost a match to the lake water, and she could feel the love, the utter love, threatening to burst through her chest when her mother, who had rarely touched her since her magic had begun to manifest, brushed a piece of hair off her cheek and offered her a sugar cookie cut into the shape of a tree.
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