Page 24 of Her Cruel Redemption (The Dark Reflection #3)

Chapter Twenty-Four

T he carriage jolted to a halt, its wheels slipping slightly on the rain-slicked cobblestones. I drew my cloak tighter around me, staring out at the unassuming townhouse ahead. The shutters were drawn, the narrow street nearly deserted. Only the soft patter of rain and the faint glow of lanterns lit the quiet afternoon. The guard seated on the bench by the driver shifted, moving to dismount, so I quickly opened the door and climbed down before he could help me out, my boots splashing in a shallow puddle.

‘Perhaps you might want to go and keep warm somewhere,’ I suggested.

‘His Majesty has tasked me with protecting you, Your Highness,’ the guard replied, half-risen from his seat and seeming unsure where to go next with me standing at the base of the ladder. ‘I’ll be going where you go.’

‘It’s Torren, isn’t it?’

He nodded.

‘Torren, are you close with the other guards in your unit?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied, wiping rain out of his eyes.

‘You’ve been through a lot together that’s bonded you pretty tightly?’

He chuckled. ‘We sure have. We had some pretty tough years in training. Our sergeant was a real…’ he trailed off, seeming to remember himself and who he was talking to. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Yes, we’re close.’

‘Well, my friends in there are close to me in just the same way,’ I said with an encouraging smile. ‘I’d really like some time to just be with them, you understand? They kept me safe all the way from the Yawn to Sarmiers, so you don’t need to worry while I’m with them. Perhaps you and our driver here—’ I nodded at the man in the broad-brimmed hat holding the horse’s reins, ‘—can sit in the tavern across the road. It’s too miserable to stay in the carriage, and you can still keep an eye on the building. How does that sound?’

Torren was nodding, his expression still unsure, but I was already thanking him, so he couldn’t say no now. I turned away from the carriage with a little sigh of relief. Even bringing a palace guard here made me nervous. I didn’t want anyone associated with the palace looking too closely at my friends.

Inside, the boarding house was a little shabby, a little small, but at least it was dry and warm. The door opened onto a large common room space full of an assortment or tables and mismatched chairs. It was before this first that I saw Elias, Goras and Tanathil sitting. Elias and Tanathil were holding hands of cards while Goras attempted to shuffle them. Stray cards kept falling from his big fingers to the tabletop, and he grunted in exasperation before trying to scrape them up and reunite them with the rest of the deck.

They looked round as I approached.

‘Finally, she comes!’ Tan cried, flinging his cards down and leaping out of his chair before throwing his arms around me. I staggered back, laughing, and he grasped me by the shoulders as he drew back, turning me as though to examine me. ‘I thought you might look healthier now that you’re not having to suffer through our cooking.’

A little of my joy at seeing them evaporated, and with a pang I thought of Kel cobbling together meals out of whatever we had in our saddlebags. ‘I liked the camp food.’

A shadow passed across his face, as though he was thinking the same thing, and he released me. ‘Even so. You look pale, dewdrop.’

‘Get out of the way, Tan, you’re crowding her. Go and tell the others she’s here.’ Elias took my hand, his smile warm, amber eyes creased at the corners. ‘Come and sit.’ He led me to the armchair he’d been occupying, before crossing the room to draw another over. Goras was trying to stuff the cards back into their box as he grumbled about how stupid the game was, and when he’d succeeded, he cast an eye over me as Tanathil scampered away up a set of stairs to find Mae and Daethie.

‘Is this place comfortable?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Have you got everything you need?’

‘Comfortable enough,’ Goras said, folding his meaty arms and sitting back in his chair. ‘We’ve encountered no problems. We stay indoors and keep to ourselves. The woman who owns the house leaves us alone.’

‘Oh,’ I responded, upset at the idea they were all trapped inside. ‘I think you can probably go outdoors. Just try not to draw attention to yourselves.’

‘Don’t worry about us. How has it been at the palace?’ Elias asked as he settled into the new chair, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees. ‘We’ve been worried about you.’ Then he frowned as he seemed to take me in properly. ‘Tan is right. You look like you haven’t slept in days.’

‘I’m fine,’ I replied, reluctant to admit how much being back in the environment of a royal court with all its politics was already wearing on me. Reluctant to admit how out of my depth I felt after the promises I’d made them and the danger they’d put themselves in to get me here.

His mouth twisted. ‘You don’t need to put on a front for us. What’s going on?’

I hesitated, glancing at Goras, who was watching me with the same quiet intensity. It felt impossible to hide from them. My fingers twisted the hem of my sleeve as I tried to find the words. ‘There are a lot of opinions on what my alliance with Oceatold will look like. King Esario has expectations, and so do the lords from my father’s council who have made it here. It’s just difficult to hold my own. I have so little to offer in return for their support of my claim to the throne. I just—’ My voice broke for a moment, and I shook my head, angry at myself for showing so much weakness. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

‘Is that woman helping you?’ Goras rumbled, referring to Rhiandra I assumed. Before I could respond, Tanathil’s light footsteps came thumping down the stairs, Mae and Daethie trailing behind him. Mae’s sharp eyes scanned me instantly, and Daethie’s brows knit together in concern.

‘What’s wrong?’ Mae asked without preamble, striding over to place a hand on my cheek. ‘What are they doing to you in that palace?’

‘Nothing,’ I said with a tired laugh, though her fussing was oddly comforting. Daethie hovered nearby, that odd little smile she always wore drifting over her mouth as she took me in. ‘And Rhi is trying to help me,’ I continued, answering Goras’s question. ‘But she hasn’t got much sway here either. They’re all wary of her, or they downright hate her. Esario wants her to have her marriage to Draven annulled, and she’s agreed to do it, which might help, but even then…’ I trailed off, glancing around the room at their familiar faces, feeling the sharp sting of gratitude and fear. As Rhi had pointed out, if I couldn’t win myself some authority, then I wouldn’t be able to protect them if someone discovered they weren’t human. I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise to end the blood trade that stole their loved ones and saw them die in cells for the sake of stealing their magic. ‘If she was trained to use her magic, maybe she could act as leverage. Wielding lightning has got to be a powerful weapon in a war.’

The room fell silent. Mae’s hand dropped from my cheek, her expression hardening. Tanathil moved closer, his usual levity replaced with rare seriousness.

‘Gwin…’ Elias began, but surprisingly, it was Daethie’s voice that cut across him.

‘Why don’t we just train her?’ she said. The others all turned to stare at her. ‘She’s going to use it anyway,’ she continued, seeming impervious to their censorship. ‘If we teach her, perhaps we could stop her hurting herself or someone else.’

‘If we teach her, she’ll think she can control it and she’ll never relinquish it,’ Elias turned, expression stony. ‘No amount of teaching will keep it from corroding away at her sanity.’

Daethie offered him an almost pitying smile. ‘She’s never going to relinquish the magic, Elias,’ she said soothingly. ‘You must know that by now. And it’s not our right to safeguard her mind for her. If she decides it’s worth the risk to risk her sanity, then who are we to say she can’t?’

‘Daethie…’ Goras sighed, and she frowned at him, her eyes sharpening.

‘Don’t Daethie me. Did we not come all this way because we put our faith in Gwin’s ability to make the changes she’s promised? And now there is one, simple thing we could do that might help her manage it and we’re refusing?’ She shook her head. ‘I will not go back home to face the loved ones of those captured by binders and left in cells to die knowing that there was a single path we might have tried that we left untrodden.’

The room felt heavy in the silence that followed Daethie’s words. She stood there, her arms crossed, staring down the others with a seriousness that felt uncharacteristic for her usually whimsical demeanor.

Elias sighed. ‘It’s not that simple. We’re not just talking about teaching her to channel lightning or defend herself. This isn’t some minor skill to master. That kind of power…’ He looked at me briefly, then away, his voice tight. ‘I’ll consume her, and we don’t know what she’ll become.”

‘Rhi isn’t some reckless fool,’ Daethie countered, her tone sharp but not unkind. ‘If she’s willing to take the risk, then perhaps we should give her the tools to wield it safely.’

Goras shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his brows knitting together. ‘And if it goes wrong? If she loses herself to it and turns on us? Or if she can’t control it and it kills her? I do not think our wisdom is greater than the Elders who forbid the gifting of magic to humans in the first place.’

Elias ran a hand through his bronze hair, looking at me as though searching for answers I didn’t have. ‘What do you think, Gwin?’

My throat tightened as all their gazes turned to me. What did I think? My mind swirled with doubts, fears, with the weight of all their trust. I couldn’t make myself tell them what my advisors and Esario currently expected of me. I couldn’t bear to tell Elias that the fate I was trying to avoid was a marriage I didn’t want to a man who had always terrified me. But now it felt selfish to have ever entertained the idea of using Rhi’s magic to help me avoid it if it made them all so uneasy. And I’d already seen how sick magic had made Rhi last time she’d used too much of it. I didn’t want her to take that risk.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe I should never have suggested it. I’ll find another way forwards. I should be able to just force them all to listen to me, really. I’m not very good at asserting myself.’ I laughed bitterly, and Elias reached for my hand again, squeezing it.

Mae, who had been leaning against the wall, stepped forward, her expression thoughtful. ‘I don’t think you need to write it off as an option just yet. We’ll talk it over some more and weigh it up properly. Honestly, I’m not sure what teaching Rhi would even look like, so I for one would like to actually explore the possibility thoroughly before dismissing it.’

Elias’s shoulders sagged slightly, his face a mixture of frustration and resignation. ‘Alright,’ he said at last, his voice quiet. ‘But no promises.’

It wasn’t a victory, but it was something. Daethie looked satisfied, her gaze softening as she stepped back, and Mae offered me a small, encouraging smile. Goras grumbled something under his breath but didn’t object further.

Tanathil leaned closer to me, his grin returning as he bumped my shoulder. ‘Stay a while. We’ll feed you something to make you look less peaky and you can watch Goras lose at cards. He can’t keep any of the suites straight and he keeps showing us his hand to ask us which is which.’

I laughed despite myself, the tension in the room easing slightly. But deep down, I knew this was just the beginning of the decisions I’d have to make—and the risks I’d have to take—to keep them safe and see this through.