by Megg Jensen
“Not out loud. What did you hear?”
“Um...” I wasn’t sure I wanted to repeat what I thought I’d heard. It must have been my imagination. “Nothing.”
Nemison clapped Mark’s shoulder and laughed. “The bond is taking effect. You should be able to hear each other’s most intense thoughts.”
“Will Reychel hear me while she’s...” Mark paused. I knew he almost said dead.
Nemison shook his head, his white hair flopping over his forehead. “No, but once she wakes up, the connection will come back to life. You should both feel it immediately. In fact, you should practice now, before Reychel has Johna’s tea.”
I looked into Mark’s eyes. Can you hear me?
He nodded. I’m scared for you. If anything happens...
It won’t. I gave him a determined looked, but by the laughter it invoked, I guessed my determination looked more like a pouty girl.
She’s so sexy.
My eyes widened and a blush raced across my face.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Mark said. Moments from the night before flashed through my head and my blush only deepened. It wasn’t bad enough that I could feel the heat spread, but I knew Nemison and Johna could see it on me too.
Nemison coughed, relieving the tension. “The link only becomes stronger after your bond is, uh, consummated. It appears you were successful with that last night.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Nemison held his hand up.
“It works, that’s all we need to know. I didn’t bring it up earlier just in case things hadn’t progressed, but it appears the two of you were quite successful.”
Everyone stared at each other, not willing to utter one word. My door burst open and Krissin stormed into the room. For the first time, I was grateful she barged in without knocking.
“What?” She eyed each of us. “What’s going on in here? You all looked like Reychel was walking around naked or something.” She pointed at Mark. “Though if that were the case, I’d expect to see something other than horror on your face.”
“Nothing is going on,” Johna said, saving the day. “We’re preparing for Reychel’s, um, change. Where have you been?”
Krissin glared at all of us. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she’d just missed something. Luckily she hadn’t been there. I would be even more mortified if I had to face her. What Mark and I shared was special. She’d probably spoil it, or, even worse, try to tell us something intimate about her relationship with Ace that none of us wanted to know.
“I have been making funeral preparations. In about a quarter of an hour, I’m going to call an assembly of the people,” she said. “Within a few hours, everyone will know Reychel’s dead. We’ll bring out her body for everyone to see and then we’ll get ready for war. It’ll be epic.”
I flinched. Hearing that about myself wasn’t comforting. Johna patted my arm and tossed me a smile. It didn’t help. My stomach churned at what I was about to do. My body would be carried out for everyone to see, but I wouldn’t be dead. Asleep so deep, even I wouldn’t know what was happening until I woke up.
Then I’d be alone until the war was over, until people had forgotten what I looked like. Johna would help me change my hair, but I’d be damned if I ever cut it again. We would turn my dark hair into spun gold with the help of herbal rinses. Maybe someday I would let it go back to its normal brown, but only if my story became legend. No one would ever be looking for a dead girl. They wouldn’t want to.
If anyone found me alive, it would shatter everything. The illusion would be gone and their fear could return. I wouldn’t have it. If I had to hide out forever, I would do it. Peace was more important than my freedom. I’d lived most of my life in confinement, but with Mark by my side I knew that any life would be worth living. I only had to die first to achieve it.
And come back to life. That was the trickiest part.
I glanced over at Johna, who’d returned to her work at the table. Her arm moved back and forth as she worked the pestle over the herbs she’d scattered in the mortar. The tiny crunch of broken herbs echoed through the silent room. To each of us, this potion meant something different.
To Nemison and Krissin it meant the culmination of everything they’d been working for. Their war, their intrigue, their way. The potion would allow them to use me in a way no one else had ever done. Sure, my father had used my gift as he’d seen fit, but he’d used it for his own personal gain. Now Nemison and Krissin would take my life away from me and use it to further their war ambitions. I had to remind myself that their plans were for the greater good of the Serenian people, not just for their own gain.
Krissin’s eyes bored into mine and a cat-like smile crept across her face. She’d always wanted to put me in my place since I’d arrived. She wanted to exert her full control over me and now she finally had the means to do it. Dead, I was forever her pawn. She could use my image and my name in any way she wanted for the rest of her life, knowing I would never fight back against it. In her mind, she was winning.
But I knew I was the winner. After Johna woke me up, I would finally have my own life.
I glanced back at Johna’s elbows. They had stopped grinding and switched to mixing. Instead of the up-and-down motion, they waved back-and-forth as she stirred the herbs into a cup of warm water.
I gulped, my throat tight as I swallowed. Only a few more minutes and my fate would be sealed. I met Mark’s eyes and he walked to my side. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me to him and enfolded me in his arms. He bent over and his lips touched my ear.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered and then nibbled my earlobe. “We’re bound to each other. Nothing can come between us except death. Real death. This is just a cup of tea.”
I buried my face into his shoulder, wiping my tears on his shirt. They could reassure me all they wanted, but I was the one making the decision, the one taking all the risk. I pulled back from Mark’s embrace and held my hand out to Johna.
“I’m ready.”
She nodded and picked up the teacup. “It’s ready for you too.”
I detected a slight tremor in the teacup as she walked to my side. She stood still in front of me and yet the tea inside the cup still moved like tiny waves. Johna was nervous. She should be. She’d admitted she’d never tried this before, but I trusted her.
It would work.
It had to work.
“I love you,” I said to Mark. Then I grabbed the teacup, brought it to my lips, and drank every last drop.
The room spun and the teacup slipped from my hand. Sharp pain rushed through my body, stabbing at my heart. My throat tightened, swelling and constricting. I reached out for Mark, but my arms wouldn’t obey. Instead my legs turned to jelly and I slipped to the floor.
I will come for you.
Mark’s voice echoed in my head as I died.
Chapter Nine
My eyelids fluttered open and darkness thwarted my vision. I couldn’t see anything, only a sliver of light peeked through the draped window. A chill ran over my body, leaving goose bumps in its wake.
I shivered. I hadn’t been this cold since last winter. But winter didn’t come to the Southern Kingdom - it was warm all year long, unlike my childhood home which slept in winter’s grasp for most of the year.
Cool and delicate fingers rested on my arm. I wondered briefly whose fingers they were, but I was surprised to find I didn’t care.
A calm I hadn’t felt in years replaced the pain in my head. I wondered what happened to Mark and Johna, but didn’t care as much as I thought I should. I knew they were close by. Johna had promised she would be here when I woke up.
The person next to me stirred in the near dark. I turned my head and faced her. I was sure it was another woman based on the touch of her fingers. The strangest warmth radiated up my arms. It was something I’d never felt before, but I was sure that I was feeling someone’s gift being used on me. An instinct deep inside awakened, and I could feel, for the first tim
e in my life, my gift radiating through my body too.
Her bald head hung down, and even though my eyes were adjusting to the low light in the room, I couldn’t see if she had a brand on the back of her head. The angle was wrong. Maybe it was Manda, but I thought she was letting her hair grow out now. I squinted, trying to figure out if I recognized her. Maybe Johna needed a break and asked someone else to sit with me until she could come back.
I peeled my lips apart, as if they’d been shut for months. I gasped for air and coughed. It felt like someone had dragged sharp fingernails down my throat. How long had I been out?
The girl’s head rose and her eyes met mine. I wanted to jerk back, but I couldn’t, I was still too weak. Her blue eyes shone, her spark igniting when she saw I was awake. Her fingers, still on my arm, radiated a now-familiar heat.
“No,” I croaked. My voice broke into a thousand pieces. “Don’t touch me. Get your hands off of me.”
“Reychel, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. You have to trust me. Just listen to what I have to say before they come in here and find out you’re awake. Please. Do you know who I am?”
I wanted to shake her fingers off my arm, but I was too weak. The warmth spread across my body and I relaxed my back into the firm mattress. “No,” I whimpered. I knew exactly who she was, but I wanted her to stop. It was too late, Ivy’s soothing had already spread throughout me. I couldn’t fight her. I didn’t have the strength or the will.
“It’s okay. I promise.” Her eyes darted back and forth, from me to the door over her shoulder. It remained closed. “I’m here to help you.”
I snorted, in place of the laughter that bubbled inside me. Ivy? Help me? What a joke. She’d nearly destroyed me with her plot to marry my father and gain her own power and prestige. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been dragged off to the dungeon in her wedding gown. My father had said he would deal with her. Obviously his way of dealing was to set her free.
“Where am I?” I couldn’t believe Johna was on the other side of that door. She’d never let Ivy near me. Not in a million years. Something had happened, something horrible. I expected fear to grip my heart, but Ivy’s soothing left me calm. Not uncaring, but immune to panic.
“You were captured,” she said. “Alia’s gifted army swooped in during the funeral procession. They meant to steal your body and thwart the resistance, but one of her gifted detected your life force almost immediately. They whisked you away and set a watch upon you. I volunteered. I wanted to be here for you Reychel, just like when we were kids.”
My mind swam. Her words were all lies, they had to be. She’d admitted she hated me, that she wanted to destroy me. I glanced back at her blue eyes and then her fingers on my arm. “Take them off. Prove to me that you mean it.”
“I can’t,” she said. Tears streamed down her face. She grasped her wrist with her other hand, her delicate fingers encircling and tightening. She tugged, but her fingers rested on my arm, unmoving. Sweat dripped down her face and her cheeks turned bright red. The effort revealed itself in the muscles of her free arm.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Who did this to you?”
Her eyes drooped and her arm went slack. “I can’t say. Just whatever you do, pretend like you don’t have your memory or they might kill you.”
“What?” I licked my lips, the wetness of my tongue drenching the broken valleys of my chapped lips. I didn’t attempt to sit up yet. My head still spun and my stomach felt empty.
“It’s—” Her voice faltered and her free hand flew up to her throat. She gagged and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Ivy slid off her chair and still her fingers remained on my arm. I wanted to get up and help her, but I felt calm, too calm. Her soothing left me uninterested.
The door flew open and Ivy’s fingers slid off of my arm and onto the floor with the rest of her. A tall woman, imposing in both height and weight, strode across the room toward me. Panic returned, now that I was free from the effects of Ivy’s gift. I scooted backward and my head hit a hard backboard. I pulled my legs up, wrapping my arms around them.
The strength I’d lost while dead was replaced by pure adrenaline. My heart raced; my throat constricted. She stopped at the side of my bed, glancing down to the floor at Ivy. “Get out,” she hissed.
Ivy’s only response was a moan.
“Get out now!”
A scratching noise along the floor grated at my ears as Ivy scraped and pulled herself toward the door.
“Faster!” the woman screamed at Ivy. She lifted her palm, pointed it at Ivy, and closed her eyes. Ivy’s body floated up off the floor, drifting toward the open door. A wail fell from her mouth. The woman flicked her hand and Ivy’s body was flung through the doorway and onto the floor outside my room. The woman flicked her hand back, and the door slammed, muffling Ivy’s screams.
The woman turned to me with a feral smile. Her teeth glinted in the candlelight, like fangs of the tiger’s head Krissin kept hung up in the great hall. Pointed. Dangerous. Evil. My back scraped against the headboard as I inched even further away.
“You’re awake, Reychel. Finally. We’ve been waiting for weeks.”
Weeks? Johna had said the potion would only take a few days before I’d wake up. It wasn’t possible for me to have been asleep for weeks. She had to be lying.
“I’m sure you feel terrible. Your legs are weak.”
I wanted to flex my calves, but found I could move them only very little. If it truly had been weeks, the muscles would have atrophied. No wonder I wasn’t tied down and left alone with Ivy. I couldn’t have overpowered her if I’d wanted to. I refused to meet her gaze, afraid my eyes would give me away. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.
“How many weeks?” My voice creaked, even though I’d tried to hold it steady. I needed water, badly.
“Nearly sixteen.”
I gasped. The reaction was totally involuntary. Sixteen weeks. Four months since I’d drank the tea, leading to my death. Krissin and Nemison’s war could be over by now. If the enemy had me, did that mean they’d won? My heart ached. If everything had been in vain, then I’d left my life behind for no reason. I’d given up everything for this plan. Everything. Was it all for nothing?
“What are you going to do with me now that I’m awake?” I didn’t expect an answer, at least not a truthful one. She eyed me, her dark eyes searching my face. The severe bun on the top of her head looked as if she’d pulled even the skin on her face to stretch her hair tightly up. It only added to the austerity of her black gown, covering her from neck to toe.
The cinnamon smell of the wax candle wafted through the room, crawling inside my nose. I resisted the urge to scratch my nose, knowing that the next movement wouldn’t be mine. It would be hers. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of any kind of weakness.
Her grin returned and she bared her teeth at me. I didn’t flinch, didn’t react.
“Why Reychel, dear Prophet, now that you’ve come back to the living we’re going to kill you.” She turned her back to me, striding over to the window. She grabbed the curtains and whipped them to the side. The room flooded with bright sunlight.
I threw my arm across my face. It was too bright.
“You can watch all the clouds you like now. They won’t do a thing for you. There will be no clues on how to escape. They won’t tell you how your friends have fared or if the war still continues. They won’t give you any comfort at all. Your gift is now void.”
Void? I couldn’t control the damn thing well enough to matter anyway. I didn’t care if my gift was blocked here. I’d never used it in the past to much avail anyway. I was better, stronger, without my gift. Even though I could feel it now, I wasn’t so sure that my gift would ever save me. I only needed to contact Mark through our bond and he’d find me somehow.
Her smile only grew, her eyes narrowed even more. A chuckle escaped her mouth. “You don’t understand, do you?”
I sta
red her down. She could play all the games she wanted, but I had a secret only a select few knew. She couldn’t take my bond with Mark away from me.
“Reychel, you have been severed.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my bond with Mark. I ran through my mind, poking every corner, familiar and new to me. None of them pulsed with the trail of Mark. Can you hear me? I screamed in my mind. It echoed in every corner. He had to hear me.
I waited for his response.
The only sound was that woman leaving my room and laughing as she shut the door behind her.
Chapter Ten
Mark. I closed my eyes and slowed my breath to an even rate. I wouldn’t let her claims get in the way of what I needed to do. They couldn’t have severed me. My gift wasn’t gone. It couldn’t be. Wouldn’t I feel different? Empty? Instead I had a feeling of fullness spreading throughout my body. I felt powerful, magical even. Was this how everyone else felt and I’d just been missing it all these years?
I tried to remember the first time I’d felt Mark’s presence in my mind. I relaxed into the headboard, instead of rigidly pushing myself into it out of fear. I probed my mind, looking for any sign of Mark. Maybe he knew what was happening. Maybe he just wasn’t in a place where we could be connected.
With my eyes still closed, I focused on his face, recreating it in my mind. His dark hair flopping over his left eye, the stubble on his chin that scratched me when we kissed. He was still real in my mind and my hands ached to touch him, to feel him close to me. I wanted, needed, to feel the things I felt our wedding night. His touch on my bare skin, even just the thought of it sent shivers down my spine.
But he wasn’t here. Not in the room, not in my mind. Every passing second of silence forced me to wonder what exactly was blocking us. I knew my gift was still in there. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did. If I lost my arm, I’d know it. I felt the same way about my gift.
I couldn’t ignore the fact that my connection to Mark was gone.
