Page 39 of Dark Bringer (Lord of Everfell #1)

Cathrynne

H er head throbbed like a second heartbeat. Memory returned in fragments. Leaving the Angel Tower. A car pulling alongside. The Jennies . . .

Cathrynne’s eyes snapped open. She sat up too fast and pain lanced through her temples. She was lying on a four-poster bed with silk pillows and a goosedown comforter. Sconces cast warm yellow light across damask wallpaper. The windows were draped in heavy velvet curtains.

She was still in her cypher uniform, but her whip and cudgel were gone. So were the gem pouches.

Cathrynne swung her legs off the bed, gritting her teeth at a wave of dizziness.

She tried the door first—locked. When she opened the curtains, she saw a vast emerald lawn stretching toward a line of dark woods in the distance. No other buildings were visible, no roads, not a hint of where they’d taken her. The sky was overcast and a fine mist hovered above the grass.

She tried to open the window but it wouldn’t budge.

“Have it your way,” she muttered, picking up an antique chair. It was nice and heavy. She took three steps toward the central window and hurled the chair at the glass.

It rebounded off an invisible barrier with a sound like a struck bell and flew back at her. Cathrynne barely managed to duck as it crashed into an expensive-looking writing desk behind her, snapping one of its legs.

Abjuration magic. They’d left a shield in place.

She looked around, thinking. There wasn’t a single scrap of metal in the room. Even the hinges and doorknob were wood. A room made to hold witches.

But not cyphers.

She picked up the broken chair leg, hid next to the door, and waited.

After an hour or so, she heard footsteps.

They paused outside the door. There was a scraping sound as a bar was lifted on the other side.

As the door swung inward, Cathrynne brought the chair leg down.

It rebounded against another magical shield with such force that her wrist twisted and nearly broke.

She cried out, half stunned by the pain.

“I do admire your spirit,” said a cultured male voice, “but I’d hoped we might conduct ourselves with a bit more civility.”

It was the dark-haired witch with streaks of white at his temples. He wore slacks and a tailored coat, and had the sleek, well-fed look of the very wealthy.

“Is it civil to kidnap someone?” she asked, cradling her throbbing arm.

“You left me no choice. I did invite you to come of your own accord.”

She backed away as he entered the room. “Just tell me what you want so we can get this over with.”

“Surely you can guess. I need to know everything Lord Morningstar has uncovered about the kaldurite.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “Well, someone tried to kill him with it. Was that you?”

The witch frowned. “No.”

She bared her teeth. “See, I believe you. So you can believe me when I tell you I know nothing, except that Barsal Casolaba was murdered for it and so was the boy from Pota Pras.”

“Casolaba.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Now that was a spectacular end. But I had nothing to do with him, either. What I need to know, what is of paramount importance right now, is where Kal Machena and Durian Padulski found the stones.”

“I have no idea,” Cathrynne said.

“You must grasp the urgency for both witches and cyphers in every province,” he continued reasonably. “If we don’t control it, the humans or angels will, and we’ll lose what little power we still have.”

He stopped at the writing desk to survey the damage, looking slightly amused. Cathrynne backed against the windows, but he didn’t pursue her.

“Listen to me,” she said tightly. “ I don’t know.”

He smiled. “I’d love to take your word for it, but I must ask for more concrete assurance. So you will give me a sweven of all you have done from the time you left Kirith until yesterday. Once that’s over, you are free to leave.”

Cathrynne’s pulse leapt. A sweven used the ley to transfer memories from one person to another. It was done with a simple spell, but if she allowed it he would have access to everything , including her feelings for Gavriel, their kiss at Red Dog Camp—and even worse, her visions.

And if the White Foxes discovered that she was a seer, they would take her straight to the kloster and she’d never come out again.

“That’s a ridiculous request,” she said flatly. “I’m not letting you inside my head.”

His brows rose. “Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse. I cannot set you free until you permit the sweven. It must be given voluntarily, as I’m sure you know. Swevens cannot be extracted against a person’s will.” His tone implied that this was a minor obstacle.

“Then you’re out of luck,” she said. “Sorry.”

“I can make your problems in Arioch go away if you cooperate. Call off George Claymond and Audrey Hayes.”

She laughed. “Lump and Crump? They don’t scare me.”

He regarded her for a long moment. “I know who you are, Cathrynne Lenormand.”

It took all her fragile self-control not to react. “My name is Cathrynne Rowan,” she corrected, though she could hear the lie in her own voice. The fear.

“And mine is Markus Viktorovich,” he offered with a slight inclination of his head. “But we both know the truth of your lineage.”

Something about him nagged at her. She studied his face but felt certain they hadn’t met before. He was in his late middle years with tanned skin and thin lips. Attractive, in a ruthless way.

“Take some time to think about it,” Markus said, walking to the door.“I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Once the bar settled into place behind him, Cathrynne resumed the search for weaknesses in her prison. There were none.

Darkness fell. Footsteps came, two sets this time. Markus’s lackeys, Ash and Kane, opened the door.

“Stand back,” Ash ordered. “All the way to the windows.”

Cathrynne complied. They left a tray of food on the floor and retreated.

Steam rose from a bowl of soup, alongside a chunk of dark seeded bread.

She turned her back. Better to go hungry than be drugged.

She curled up inside the footwell of the desk with the broken chair leg in one hand and fell asleep.

Morning light was filtering through the windows when Markus returned.

“Have you reconsidered my offer?” he asked.

She sat up. “I’m not giving you the sweven.”

He eyed the untouched tray. “There’s no purpose in starving yourself.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said, as her stomach betrayed her with a growl.

Markus stood aside as Ash and Kane replaced the tray with a fresh one. “It isn’t poisoned,” he said.

When Cathrynne didn’t reply, he broke off a piece of bread and ate it, then sipped from the bowl. “Satisfied?”

She still said nothing, but once they’d all gone, she fell on the food and devoured every bit. It helped her think. Markus was careful. He wore no gems she could try to take away. The room was stripped of anything useful.

She would have to put him off guard, and then strike when he least expected it.

* * *

A week passed. Each day, Markus brought her a breakfast tray, his manner unfailingly courteous as he asked the same question: “Will you give me the sweven?”

Each day, Cathrynne refused.

He never raised his voice. Never threatened. But she knew that wouldn’t last forever.

However, she did figure one thing out.

On the third day of her captivity, she noticed a red squirrel darting across the lawn. It paused to unearth an acorn before bouncing away. The next day, she saw what appeared to be the same squirrel, digging in the exact same spot.

On the fifth day, she watched and counted: twelve seconds after the squirrel shimmied up a tree, a robin landed on the grass, strutted in a circle, plucked a worm from the ground, and flew to a low branch of the same oak.

This brief performance repeated itself every morning in a predictable loop.

She noticed other things, too. The way it always rained for about an hour after lunch. How the direction of the wind rustling the treetops never changed. The way the lawn remained pristine despite the lack of gardeners.

“Illusion,” she murmured, pressing a palm against the misty glass.

The house could be anywhere. In the heart of a city or on an island in the middle of the sea. She had to consider the possibility that they’d forced with her while she was unconscious, so she could be in another province altogether.

When she escaped, she’d have to be ready for anything.

Cathrynne paced the confines of her prison—fourteen steps from window to door, nine steps from bed to desk. She grew desperate enough to consider trying to work the ley in her own blood. Only the knowledge that it would probably kill her stopped her from trying.

On the seventh day, desperate for any distraction, she turned to the stack of cloth-bound books Markus had left on the table. She’d ignored them thus far, but now she ran her fingers over the spines.

Sinn of the Southern Provinces. An Evolutionary History of the Aquatic Sinn in the Lochs of Kirith. Taxonomy of the Great Northerns. Et cetera.

Every single volume was about the Sinn.

Apparently, Markus’s idea of a joke. Cathrynne opened one at random and studied an engraved illustration of a blue emperor.

Its eyes and horns were golden, and so were the overlapping scales across its chest. It was elegantly built, long and serpentine, with blue claws tipping its six sturdy legs.

Just like the one that had crawled out of a crevice in the Zamir Hills.

She idly paged through the books until her attention caught on a peculiar title.

A History of the Settlement of Eidanger, Years 430-450.

She opened the brittle cover and started reading.

At first, she thought it must have been accidentally mixed in with the other books because it didn’t seem to be about the Sinn.

It was about a village in the far north of Sundland and had lists of names, all women, with the dates they had arrived.