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Chapter 4

Morgana

“G oodnight, dear.”

I meet Etusca’s gaze, but I have no words for her. My throat is tight and scratchy, run ragged by the argument we’ve just had over all the same points we always do. I want answers about what the plan is for me, why I never see my parents, whether I’m ever going to get to leave Gallawing and live a normal life. But all Etusca can give me are the same empty words.

“Please trust me, Morgana,” she says, tears shining in her eyes. “We’re doing what’s best for you.”

This jerks an angry retort out of me.

“We? Who is ‘we,’ Essy? You and a group of strangers with complete control of my life? Am I really expected to live here for the rest of my days, without any chance to live a life of my choosing?”

Etusca looks as tired as I feel. Her glassy eyes drift from me to the window, as if she’s struggling to focus.

“No, I don’t think that’s what your parents want for you,” she says weakly.

Despite her obvious discomfort, her feeble response only sparks my anger more.

“You don’t think ? Then what do they want? When will I be free ?” I choke the last question out, heavy with despair.

“When it’s safe.”

“Safe!” I can only throw the word back at her as I bark out a strangled laugh.

It’s been four days since my carefully laid plans were torn to shreds, and every minute, every hour, has felt like a countdown to disaster. Bede didn’t get his chance to attack me that night. As soon as the guards returned me to the manor house, Marlowe put every single one of them on duty. There was a double watch assigned to me, and when I refused to tell him how I was able to leave without anyone knowing, any guards not posted at my door were ordered to spend their time trawling the manor, hunting down the way I got out.

They haven’t found the delivery tunnel yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Then a chapter of my life—the one with friends and a sliver of liberty—will be ended forever. And I don’t even want to think about what the new chapter will look like—one where I’m trapped at Bede’s disposal with no way out, surrounded by people more concerned with keeping me prisoner than keeping me safe.

Etusca was horrified when she heard what had happened. It shocked me to see the intensity of the fear and sadness in her eyes that night. She grasped my hands so tightly I thought my fingers might snap, and she told me the outside world wasn’t safe for me. I’d heard that a thousand times, but I knew then, with crystal clarity, that Etusca believed this completely.

But why?

“Your potion can’t be found on just any healer’s shelf, dear,” she explained when I was forced to admit my plan about finding more on the road. “It’s special, difficult to make, and you wouldn’t have been able to replace it. Then who knows what could’ve happened?”

“I’d still be free,” I shot back. The idea of dying in agony in some coach house long before I reached Will, didn’t fill me with enthusiasm, but at least I wouldn’t constantly be looking over my shoulder worried about Bede.

My eyes are drawn back to Etusca’s face, which is sickly pale with worry. Despite our fight, I rise and go to her, pulling the dryad into my arms. She’s shorter than me, and her soft, green hair brushes against my chin. She still smells like trees and fresh greenery and earth, even after all these years away from the Miravow. I close my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Essy. But at least if I was gone, you could return home where you could get healthy.” And not waste away because of me. I don’t share that last part.

She squeezes me back, though her embrace is much weaker than it used to be.

“My dear, I don’t have all the answers, but I know I can’t lose you.” She sniffs.

Guilt eats at me knowing I’m the cause for her worry now. “I know.”

Etusca isn’t getting any better. Just this morning she was so distracted she had to measure out my potion twice to get the dosage correct. “But I’m not okay with you sacrificing your health to keep mine thriving.” I can’t bring myself to tell her that if I can’t find a way to leave this place soon, I might not want to stay alive.

As Etusca leaves my bedroom, I remind myself that none of this is her fault. If I wasn’t born without magic, if I wasn’t so fragile, none of us would be here in the first place.

The moment she’s gone, I start my evening preparations—the ones I’ve put in place every night since my escape attempt. I shove my weight behind my armoire, heaving it up against the door. My bedroom is locked from the outside, but I don’t know which guards are posted on the other side with the key. Soon Bede will be on a night shift and will find a way to charm the other guard into turning a blind eye to an evening visit. Who knows, perhaps he’ll even invite his colleague to join him.

That sickening thought gives me the strength to ram my shoulder into the lump of wood, hard, ensuring it’s properly wedged against the frame. I open the top drawer and reach in between my underwear to pull out the serrated knife I swiped from the kitchen. Una’s been complaining for days about it going missing, but if she knew where it went, I’m sure she’d agree I need it more.

I don’t know whether it was boredom or some sort of premonition, but Will had found an excuse to teach me all manner of skills a lady isn’t supposed to need to know, and I would forever be thankful. As I slip the blade under my pillow, I ask the gods to bless my friend, wherever he is, and to watch over me too. My faith has never been particularly strong, but on a night like tonight? I’ll take whatever help I can get.

* * *

I’m drowning.

Water cascades over my face, soaking my pillow, filling my mouth as I open it to gasp. I try to swallow it down, but it fights me. Like a thousand clawing fingers, it pushes its way back up, churning in my throat until I’m choking for air.

My eyes dart around in panic, taking in the open window and the figure standing above me, an empty jug in his hand. Bede’s vicious smile sends my whole body rolling with dread, but I can’t scream; I can only breathe in desperate snatches of air through my nose as the water rises and falls. He sets the jug down and climbs on top of me.

My hands scrabble underneath me and my fingers brush across the knife handle. I grip it like a lifeline.

Remembering Will’s teachings, I whip the blade out. I slash at his forearm, the blade cutting through his uniform in a jagged tear. For a second, all I can do is stare in fascination as blood pools, staining his sleeve. In all the years I’d trained with Will, I’d never managed to cause him any harm. But after a beat, I remember to swing again. This time, though, Bede blocks me, slamming the flat of his hand down on my wrist and causing me to drop the knife with a gasp.

“Bitch!” Bede backhands me with his injured arm and I can feel wetness on my cheek from his blood as my face whips to the side. His knees tighten painfully against my hips as he presses down on me, his weight crushing me into the mattress.

I let out a tortured gargle as I attempt to yank my body up and away from him, but I might as well be trying to wriggle out from under a boulder. I reach out to slap him but he easily catches my wrists, pinning my forearms under his knees. If my mattress wasn’t so soft, he’d probably have snapped the bones.

I’m trapped. I can’t move, all because I’m too fucking weak.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to have you underneath me like this?” Bede asks. I glare at him, my fury making me emotional. I can’t let him do this to me, but he’s so much bigger than me. A tear rolls down my already soaked face. It only makes Bede’s eyes brighten with excitement as he lets his hands roam. I ram my eyelids shut, trying to escape into my mind, but it only brings the awful sensations into more focus—his hands mauling my body, dragging downward toward the edge of my nightdress.

In his eagerness, his control on his magic slips, and the water bubbles up high and stays there, no longer allowing me the precious slivers of air I was snatching before. I jerk beneath him, my body silently screaming for oxygen, but he doesn’t notice. My heartbeat thuds in my head, and I know I don’t have long before I lose consciousness altogether.

Will he let me die, suffocating beneath him as he takes his fill of me? Would he care if he left a corpse behind, as long as he got what he wanted? Maybe he would, if only for the trouble he might get in if I’m found dead. But beyond that? Of course he wouldn’t care. I’m only a body to him.

It would be so easy to let go. To let the water overtake me and put an end to my years of captivity. But I realize that I’m not ready to die. Not today, and not by his hand. Not when there’s so much of life I haven’t yet lived. The thought of having that chance taken from me, having my story blotted out before it’s even been written, burns through my despair.

Something else is burning too—my blood in my veins is boiling like molten lava. I’ve been angry before, and it’s never felt like this—but then I’ve never been this angry. This terrified. This certain that I’m only moments away from my own death. The darkness of unconsciousness presses in around me, but before it can swallow me up, I look Bede straight in the eyes.

I imagine that heat surging straight out of me, consuming every inch of his hateful flesh. I want to wipe that damn smirk off his face and have him feel real fear for once.

The whites of Bede’s eyes widen for an instant, then I’m blinded by a light so bright I think the room might have exploded. The weight on my arms releases in a rush, and the frothing water stills in my throat, soaking me as I spit it out at last. It’s the scream I can’t miss though—a strangled howl of agony echoing in my ears as the heat courses through me. The weight of his body on me disappears and I draw in huge, gasping breaths.

My hands are numb from being crushed under Bede, but as soon as I’m able, I use them to pull myself upright. They brush against the cotton of my sheets, now in singed shreds, and I look down over the end of my bed to see the man who’s been terrorizing me for three long months.

He’s unrecognizable. All that’s left is a blackened mass of charred flesh with bits of bone shining through seared muscle in horrible flashes of white. My nose is still burning from struggling to breathe, but I can smell him nonetheless, an acrid smokiness wafting over to me.

He’s dead. Of course he is. No one could’ve survived whatever hit him.

Not whatever. Who ever.

I did that to him.

It’s impossible. My entire life I’ve never shown so much as a glimpse of power, no matter how many times I stayed up at night trying to summon something, anything—begging the gods to make me normal so I could be allowed to go to my real home. To meet my parents at last, no longer too fragile to be loved.

So how could I have had fire-magic all this time and not even known? Is it possible it only sparked to life now? Has it been hiding away, half formed all these years, waiting for the moment when my life was truly threatened to come out and save me?

My head whirls with so many possibilities, still unbalanced from being starved of air, that at first I don’t notice the footsteps in the corridor. Soon though, they become impossible to ignore, drumming down the hallways like a death march. Someone must’ve heard Bede’s scream, and now they’re coming to check on me. But no, that doesn’t make sense. If that was true, the guards on my door would’ve heard it too and tried to come immediately.

Whatever their reason, they’re coming now. They’ll be here in moments.

I realize the true consequence of what I’ve done.

I’ve just murdered a man. Even if I did it in self-defense, Bede is dead by my hand. I shouldn’t celebrate taking a life.

I scramble out of bed, looking around for an answer I know I won’t find. I wonder if I might be able to hide the body, but the smell is too strong to ignore, and my burned bedsheets will be just as conspicuous if they’re missing. Will my own guards arrest me for this? Or call on the local militia to do it? I suck in big gulps of air at the thought of being taken from one prison to another.

The feet are outside my door, a key rattling in the lock. I jump at the bang of the door opening as it hits the armoire I pushed in front of it.

“Morgana?” Etusca’s voice is raised in concern. “Morgana, are you alright? Something’s blocking the door.”

I try to speak, but my words only come out as a rasp.

“Get this door open,” Etusca demands of the guards, sounding more alert than she has in years. “Hurry. Something’s wrong.”

There’s a fizzling sound of magic being cast—an aesteri using wind to help the men shove aside the bulky piece of furniture. I can only stand, frozen, as it moves across the floor until the door is fully open.

Marlowe enters first, his sword drawn. His face shifts to open shock as he takes in the body still smoldering lightly on my floor. Etusca is behind him and lets out a little shriek at the sight of Bede.

“Who is that?” Marlowe asks.

I force my sore throat to work, croaking out the words as I speak to my nursemaid.

“Essy, it was an accident. I didn’t mean?—”

“Did someone attack you, my dear? Are you alright?” She rushes over to me, examining my face, my arms. She lightly brushes my cheek with her fingers where Bede hit me. An instinct to flinch away rises up in me, my body reacting to being touched. At first all I can think of is Bede’s hands raking over my skin, but I push the repulsion down, suppressing the urge to pull back from Etusca. My nursemaid throws an accusing look at Marlowe, though I’m sure she doesn’t yet realize one of his men assaulted me.

“An assassin, Marlowe, here in Gallawing—in her room ,” she hisses.

I blink, bewildered by her assumption—an assassin is such a strange suggestion. But I’m more confused by the fact that no one has yet asked how the person on the floor came to be a burned corpse.

There’s nothing obvious in the room that could have been used to set someone ablaze. It’s a warm night, so there was no fire in the fireplace. No torches lit, not even a candle. What do they think happened? Do they believe the would-be assassin was a fire mage who lost control of his powers? That hardly seems likely.

Yet no one seems the slightest bit suspicious. There must be something bigger on their minds, but what?

“Etusca, what’s going on?”

A solemn shadow falls across her features, and she steps in closer, taking hold of my hands and giving them a comforting squeeze.

“My dear, the king and queen are dead.”

I stare at her. All the history books in the library at Gallawing are at least fifty years old, so I know very little about the current Trovian royals, and even then, only from passing comments from people around me. My addled brain turns over her words, trying to make sense of them.

The king and queen are dead, and they rushed in here to tell me. They didn’t hear Bede’s attack, I’m sure of it now—the only reason they came to me was because of this news.

The king and queen are dead, and Etusca’s first thought was to fear an assassin had come into my room. Why? What would the death of the royals have to do with me?

I search my memory, trying to find a clue to grasp onto that will make these pieces fit. Once, many years ago, Will had said something about having worked in the palace at Elmere, hadn’t he? But then he refused to answer any of my questions about it. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to mention it at all.

A strange tingling seizes my body as I start to wonder if perhaps the lack of recent history books in the library isn’t an accident.

“What are you saying?” I ask, not daring to voice the idea forming in my mind. “What does that have to do with me?”

Etusca swallows, glancing at the guards, who are avoiding my gaze.

“The king and queen are dead,” she repeats. “And as their daughter, you are Trova’s new queen.”

My hearing stops working, the tingling sensation rushing into my ears to block out all other sounds. I see Etusca say something to Marlowe and gesture to the guards. I watch, as if from a far-off place, as she steps forward to curtsey.

Then one by one, each of my captors bow to me.