Page 24 of A Crown of Tears and Treason (The Curse of Silver Secrets and Cruel Shadows #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Four

EVIE

“ A gain.”

Adara’s stern voice echoed in the courtyard, beating against my heaving chest. The sun bared down mercilessly, glazing the sweat on my arms and back. I’d need to buy Goose new clothes at this rate; I’d left my pretty dresses in their pretty wardrobe for this training session.

“Again.” Adara had been standing in the same position for the past hour, watching as I fought the mannequin. And lost.

The skin on my knuckles had split around the half hour mark, but I kept punching the wood.

Over and over and over again.

“Your Grace, you’re already five minutes late,” Leesa said from the veranda. She’d been watching too, concern marring her doll face.

I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my bloody hand. “In a minute.”

Was I avoiding talking to Allie?

Maybe.

Because I’d have to tell her the truth about that horrid, awful night, and I wasn’t eager to see the devastation in her eyes. Or worse, the disappointment at what I’d done.

Zandyr had been understanding and–dare I say it?–gentle last night, but that didn’t help ease my nerves at telling my family.

“She needs to make it fall first,” Adara said. “Then she can leave.”

“Why can’t I just kick it?” I asked after another painful punch; my bones clattered. Five more minutes of this and I wasn’t sure I could use my fingers again. “It’s not like an assassin is going to stay still while I pummel it.”

“You need more muscles in your arms. You said you slipped in the temple.”

“My hands were sweaty.” Another punch. The pain spidered from my wrist up my arm.

“They will be sweaty again. And you need the strength to handle bigger weapons.”

Punch. “Was is it with you Blood Brotherhood members–”

“ Ex -member,” Adara rumbled.

“–and big blades?”

“If your assassin’s larger, your little switchblade can’t even dig deep enough to hit their artery.”

Punch. Harder this time. “I’ll aim for their eyes.”

“There are worse things out there than assassins, Blue Queen, and some of them don’t have eyes.”

Another punch. What could be worse than a human thirsty for your blood?

“Ten minutes late,” Leesa muttered.

“Your blade doesn’t even have a blood hilt,” Adara muttered under her breath.

“And it won’t have any on it. Not if I can help it.” I focused my frustration on my fists. The last strike swayed the mannequin harder.

“With your track record, I doubt it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I slugged the wood like it had personally offended me. It groaned as it finally– finally –swung and hit the bone-dry ground with a satisfying thump. I jumped in the air with a roar of triumph, throwing my hands up and not even caring that it hurt to breathe.

“How are you feeling?” Adara asked.

I laughed. “Exhausted.”

“Perfect,” she said with a hint of a smile.

Then she pounced.

She came at me strong and fast, teeth bared. A weapon materialized in her right hand. I ducked as the blade hissed through the air, aimed straight at my neck.

Leesa gasped, covering her mouth.

“What in Xamor’s name are you doing?” I yelled, pivoting to the side as Adara’s sword embedded deep in the ground where I had just been standing.

I smacked the bracelet, switchblade flicking free.

“Attacking you,” she deadpanned and swung her sword at me once more. “The likeliest ambush is when you’re weak.”

I crouched as the blade whizzed past my head. “You’re insane.”

“I’m winning.”

I danced out of her way, fear moving my limbs. Adara wouldn’t actually kill me…would she?

“Use that little blade of yours and stop me.”

I bent backwards, narrowly protecting my neck, and raised my switchblade to parry.

Adara kicked me straight in the chest, sending me tumbling on my ass. I hissed as the coarse dirt dug into my forearms. As I jolted to rise, Adara impaled her sword a breath away from my left ear. I froze, not even daring to breathe.

She leaned over me, completely calm. No bead of sweat on her face, while I was completely drenched.

“Your track record is that people seem to either want to kill you or marry you. You’ve survived one, learn to live through the other,” she said.

She offered me her hand and helped me rise. My knuckles screamed as her fingers wound around my palm.

I shook my wrists, willing the ache away. Everything hurt, but for a good reason. I was getting better. “Why, Adara, is this your way of proposing to me? I’m taken, you know.”

A beat of silence passed.

“You’re spending too much time with The Dragon,” Adara said at last; I heard the hint of a smile in her voice, even as her face remained stony. “And you’re not my type.”

“Your Grace…fifteen minutes late.” Leesa sighed. “And I hear screaming from the library.”

I expected nothing less from Allie. She hated waiting–and let me know it as soon as I hobbled into the library.

“Finally.” Allie rolled her eyes in the portal. “I was afraid you’d destroyed another temp–what happened to you?”

“First training session,” I said, proud of the cuts on my hands and the dust in my hair. “Wait, how did you find out about the temple?”

I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat; the healers were still working on those two elders and I wasn’t allowed to visit them yet. But I could send all the food I wanted down to the port, at least.

“Ryker told me. He was quite impressed.”

Ah, the Commander. “He’s a sour kind of fellow, but he cut through those Serpents like they were made of butter.”

Allie blinked at me. “He was there ?”

“Yes…?”

Allie sprung up from her chair, tilting it back. I stared at her intricately braided golden belt as she paced in front of the portal.

“Uhm…Allie?”

She sighed, fisted her palms, and bent down until we were eye-level again. “You’re in a place that feels like a furnace, yes?”

“A balmy furnace.”

“All I’ve seen out of these wretched windows are snow storms, frozen mountain peaks, and ice trolls.” She seethed. “So tell me, how did Ryker get from the Blood Brotherhood Capital coast up to whatever backwater northern underworld I’m stuck in? In a single day?”

How had he traveled across the entire continent so fast? “Are you sure it’s him?”

Fairytales had a grain of truth, right? I’d read about the proteans, shapeshifters lurking in the forests and stealing unsuspecting travelers’ faces. Not to mention the Morgana Clan, whose magic could change appearances with one strong spell.

“Yes, it’s him,” she mumbled and I swore I could see a hint of blush in her cheeks.

I shifted in my chair. “Zandyr moves fast, too.”

Allie slashed a look my way. “How fast?”

“Fast enough that I can barely see him sometimes,” I whispered, as if it was some deep, dark secret that I shouldn’t have told. It felt strange to reveal that to Allie, as if I was betraying Zandyr’s trust. Which was insane. He hadn’t tried to hide his speed, from me or in battle.

Allie straightened her lavish golden chair and plopped back into it. She steepled her fingers. “Perhaps Blood Brotherhood magic is more powerful than we thought.”

Maybe. But right now I was more concerned with Protectorate magic.

“About that.” I cleared my throat, nudging closer to the portal. Come on, you can do it . “I wanted to ask you–”

“You did good at the temple,” Allie interrupted. “Buildings can be rebuilt, even sacred ones. Some of the Serpent attackers were captured and can be interrogated. You protected innocent lives and that’s what matters. But the way you did it…”

Allie worried her bottom lip between her teeth. My nerves simmered with anticipation.

“I’ve never heard of adults doing that,” she said at last. “Having such a powerful surge of magic burst out of them. No incantation, no spells. Children’s first magic surges that way, but it’s the equivalent of a bump. You produced an inferno.”

Fantastic. I deflated further into my chair. “How do I control it?”

“Maybe we should focus first on how to stop it.”

I stilled. No . Not again . “Stop it?”

“Not like that.” Allie waved off the concerns I hadn’t even voiced. “Do magic, but learn how to suspend it when it threatens to get out of control.”

I sighed in relief. “Like a switch.”

“Yes, exactly. Learn how to dig inside you and decide when and how you want to channel it,” Allie said. “And when you do…it’s going to be amazing.”

Did I hope? Could I dare? “Really?”

“Channeling power without incantations? That’s the stuff of legends, Evie.” Allie smiled. “Imagine what you can do in battle if you don’t waste time on incantations. I think Adriana herself might come out of the grave, wherever that is, to witness it.”

The bubble of excitement quickly dissipated as Allie’s smile grew. She trusted me. She believed in me.

And I had to disappoint her.

I twisted my sore fingers. Maybe if I could focus on the physical pain, it would eat up the emotional one.

“I–I actually wanted to ask you about warding spells.” I struggled to meet Allie’s confused eyes. “Protectorate warding spells.”

“They’re a mix of protective and concealment charms, depending on the caster’s needs–”

“No. An important question.”

“I’m listening,” Allie said cautiously.

And she did. She listened as I mumbled and trembled my way through that awful night. The running away that didn’t even happen. The masks. The three men. My parents. Their lifeless eyes and slit throats.

By the end of it, both I and Allie had tears in our eyes that refused to fall down our cheeks. A hollow silence clung between us.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” were the first words out of Allie’s mouth, choked and ragged. “I would have gutted the entire world to protect you from Fabrian.”

“I was afraid he’d kill you, too. If he was involved with the assassins who managed to find and kill my parents…I didn’t know what he was capable of and I wasn’t about to risk any of your lives to find out.”

“I still can’t believe it.” Allie took an uneven breath. “Throats slit?”

I nodded, gulping down more tears that refused to fall. My parents hated seeing me cry.

“There’s been a slew of murders like that in the past three years,” Allie said.

I froze. “Think they’re connected?”

She hesitated. Finally, Allie shook her head. “It’s a coward’s way to take a life. It’s fast. You can attack before true magic wielders can obliterate you. They were muggings, nothing more. Whoever those assassins are, they weren’t there to rob your parents.”

“They stole me.”

Allie shook her head. “The other attackers have already been caught and executed. Common cutpurses couldn’t have killed Mara and Falor.”

I kept on nodding, stuck in ghostly memories.

“Evie…it wasn’t your fault,” Allie whispered.

Instead of relief, my heart tightened. Zandyr had said the same thing, but I still couldn’t believe it, not really.

Allie cleared her throat and licked her lips. Two blinks later, she was back to her unflinching self. The Huntress had come out to deal with the issue that was too harsh for Allie to tame. “What I’m about to tell you will be difficult to hear.”

I gulped. “I’m ready.”

“May the gods go easy on them, but…” Allie shook her head. “Mara and Falor lied to you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Protectorate wards don’t work like that. Any piece of magic, minor or major, takes something from you. Power means sacrifice,” Allie said. I thought back to how utterly depleted I felt after my light tendrils had incinerated the Serpents. “Even Mara and Falor, who had more power than the rest of the family, couldn’t have sustained a protective zone that vast for so long. A week, maybe. Two weeks, and they would’ve been bedridden. No living being can maintain a concealment spell for years.”

My breaths turned shorter. Harsher. A part of me wanted to believe, but the other…the other seethed.

“Unless they had some enchanted stone…But that would have needed to be endowed with magic constantly,” Allie said.

“The only piece of magic was the book.”

“Unless Mara and Falor somehow found a very specific site brimming with concealment magic that nobody has ever heard of…” Allie shrugged one slender shoulder, pursing her lips against the truth.

“There were no wards,” I said the words she hesitated to speak.

My voice was hollow.

Inside, I raged.

Sixteen years.

Sixteen long years of being lied to. Manipulated with fear by the very people who had the duty to protect and care for me.

I hadn’t questioned my parents as a five year-old child. How could I? They were gods to me, ones I loved and despised at the same time.

If there had never been a warding spell, then me stepping beyond the nonexistent barrier hadn’t broken the magic. Hadn’t sounded some alarm our enemies had detected.

I hadn’t been the one to bring death to our little cabin.

I wasn’t the reason my parents had died.

As soon as the realization sliced through the guilt, another thought speared me, straight to the core.

I jumped out of my seat, pain and sorrow pulsing in the back of my mind.

“If I didn’t deactivate the wards…how did they find us?”