Page 47 of Kingdom of Chains

Ita closed her eyes for a moment. ‘At first it was a simple hanging, but when the message didn’t get through, they became graphic events. It’s not uncommon for people to be drawn and quartered, disembowelled, or burned alive.’

Isabel stared off into the dark. ‘Now I understand why your mother did not want to leave with me. Leaving is not freedom.’

Ita watched the flames. ‘You should know better than anyone that no one is free anymore. There are just different forms of prisons outside the camp. It’s understandable why most choose the safety of shackles.’

Isabel shuffled forwards slightly until Ita looked at her. ‘I need to know what happened the night of the fire.’

The tension in the air was instant. Blackmane wondered if he should leave, but Isabel’s eyes were already shiny with tears, so he stayed.

‘I think it’s too soon for this conversation,’ Ita said, looking back at the fire.

‘You have had five years to think about what you would say to me if we crossed paths.’ There was a long pause. ‘I tried to get to you, and the door was locked. That door had never been locked in the fifteen years I lived in the house.’

Ita’s gaze fell to Isabel’s scarred hand. ‘We crawled out the small window at the top.’

Isabel looked thoroughly confused. ‘Why?Did you not hear me pounding on the door? If Hodge had not dragged me from the house, then I would have been buried in it while waiting for you to appear.’ Her voice broke. ‘I have spent the past five years wishing you were alive, going over every detail of that night in my head, wondering if I could have gotten you out if I had stayed a little longer, fought a little harder. And now I find out that you were not even behind the door I tried so hard to open.’ She scratched at her scarred hand, breaths coming faster. ‘Why did you lock the door?’

Ita’s face looked pale despite the orange light from the fire. ‘We didn’t lock it. It was locked from the outside.’

Isabel blinked and fell silent for a moment. ‘What?’

Blackmane stared at the flames, having already figured out the end of the story.

‘He wanted us dead,’ Ita said. ‘So we climbed out, and we ran. We couldn’t risk being seen.’

‘Who wanted you dead?’ Isabel demanded, her voice raised and choked.

Ita reached out and stilled Isabel’s hands. ‘Hodge locked the door.’ She swallowed. ‘He locked the door, and he lit the fire.’ There was a brief pause. ‘The only reason we’re still alive is because he thinks we’re dead.’

CHAPTER 14

It took Isabel a moment to piece the threads together, to accept what Ita was actually telling her. It took longer than it should have because her mind was repelling the facts. ‘No. No. I know he has his faults, but he would never…’

He would, though. He was very good at removing obstacles.

‘I woke up to noise in the kitchen,’ Ita said. ‘I peered through the keyhole to see who it was and saw Hodge fiddling with the stove. I had no idea what he was doing, so I kept watching, curious. Suddenly the kitchen went up in flames. And not small flames but instant fire, climbing all the way to the ceiling. Hodge fled and screamed at my mother to wake up. When I went to open the door, it was locked.’

Isabel pulled her hand from Ita’s. ‘Maybe it was an accident.’ Her throat closed. ‘The man would have no idea how to use a stove.’

Ita tilted her head, face filling with pity. ‘Seven days it took that man to fall in love with you. You were barely fifteen. Marriage was the last thing on your mind, and he knew that.’ She smiled. ‘Iwas the love of your life at that age.Iwas the personwho made you laugh, who walked with you arm in arm. We used to laugh at how ridiculous he was, do you remember?’

Isabel nodded. ‘I remember.’

‘I was in the way,’ Ita said. ‘And the fact that you already had a home, one you and your mother wished to remain in, was problematic. Gwenore wasn’t scared off by the rebel groups moving through Carmarthenshire at the time.’

‘My husband died defending this home,’ her mother had told Lord Tompkin the first time he asked for her hand.

He had been respectful of that becausehewas a good person. When the house was gone, she had been left with no choice but to accept his hand.

‘Hodge knew exactly what he was doing,’ Ita finished.

Pressing her palms to her eyes, Isabel drew a shaky breath. The air felt stifling suddenly, despite being quite far from the fire. ‘I need a minute.’ She rose and walked twenty yards or so, leaning against a tree for balance.

‘You can’t just wander off’ came Blackmane’s voice in the dark.

She startled and spun around.

‘Sorry,’ he said.