Текст книги "The poison daughter"

Автор книги: Sheila Masterson

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

But Henry doesn’t move. He’s so still, I’m not certain he’s breathing.

Some part of me wants him to look—wants someone, anyone to bear witness to this secret burden I’ve carried for so long.

The desire to show my strength could work in my favor. Henry has already seen it. I may as well let him look his fill and see that I’m not so easily daunted.

“Harlow—who did this to you?” His voice is tight with anger.

Maybe he’s mad his bride isn’t pristine. Maybe he just wants to know my past so he can try to understand how to frighten me. He’ll be disappointed to learn that he can’t.

Henry waits for me to speak, his eyes drinking in the topography of my back.

I lick my lips. “How did you put it? To use your own words: This is what survival looks like.”

He swallows hard, his gaze tracing over the starry pattern at the very bottom of my spine, like he’ll be able to find the truth written there on my skin. I suppose that’s exactly what it is, but it’s impossible to read if you don’t know the language of this kind of violence.

“You are entitled to my future, Henry. Not my past.”

He holds my gaze, but I refuse to give him an inch. I know what he’s thinking—that he’s owed something because he shared with me. That’s the trap he tried to set. He can’t be mad at me for not stepping into it. I keep my chin up, my arms crossed over my chest, and turn to face him.

“Share if you want, but don’t expect me to feel obliged to do the same.”

Giving him this now might make him feel like we’re even, but it could also make him suspicious. I think it’s too soon for him to believe this is a realistic win. Just like how I don’t believe he was being magnanimous when he told me his secret. He wants sympathy.

“We all have our secrets, Harlow. But here, the difference in living and dying is knowing which ones keep you alive and which ones will cost you. Those marks are not…” His voice trails off, his face torn between anger and confusion. “Natural,” he says finally. “I’m not judging you, but as my wife, people will always be looking for your weakness because you will be my weakness. If someone here sees those scars, you need to be steadier. If they see a place to hurt you, they will use it.”

“Sounds like I’ll be right at home.”

In all our time together, Henry has been at ease, but now he shifts uncomfortably, water stirring around him as he crosses his arms, then lowers them back to his sides. It’s as if he can’t decide how to rebuild the wall that this unwanted intimacy tore down.

I know the feeling. It’s not as if I didn’t expect this to come up. In a few days, he’ll see me naked, but I had hoped to reveal my secrets at a moment of my choosing, when they could be used to strategically disarm him, instead of leaving me feeling exposed.

He looks down at the rippling water and then back up at my eyes, and I know at once that—even if this started as a way to test me—whatever he’s feeling now is real.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.

He frowns. “Like what?”

“Like you’re forgetting to hate me.” I arch a brow, glancing down at his body shimmering in the water. “Don’t go soft on me now, Henry.”

His lips tip into a wicked grin as his gaze dips to my breasts. “I think you’ll find that no matter how I look at you the next few days, there’s no risk of that.”

Well, at least I have that going for me. Sex is one of the more effective motivations I’ve used.

Henry sighs. “Fine. If you won’t tell me about the scars, will you at least tell me about why you locked yourself in your room for three days and Kyrin wouldn’t leave you alone?”

I stare at him. I can’t tell if he orchestrated this whole thing with his oversharing, or if I’ve tragically developed a conscience that makes me feel uncomfortable that he shared so openly while I held everything back.

“If I tell you this, I need you to swear you won’t immediately back out of the wedding.”

He holds perfectly still, as if afraid any sudden movements will scare me off. “Harlow, whatever it is, your secret is safe with me. Consider it mutually assured destruction. You know mine and now I’ll know yours.”

“I prefer just knowing yours,” I say.

His lips twitch. “You would.”

I look away. I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face when I tell him. “My whole life, I have been plagued by these—episodes. I can always feel them coming on. Usually they’re preceded by light sensitivity and these glowing orbs that shine around light sources. Sometimes I get dizzy or nauseous. And from the time I get those first few warning signs, I can have anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to get somewhere private. They can last a few hours to a few days. I know strength is important here, but it’s also important for my family to always present a strong, united front. It wouldn’t do for our people to know that I have this kind of weakness.”

“That’s not weakness,” Henry says. “Do you know what causes them?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve seen every healer in Lunameade and none of them has any idea. Stress can make them worse, but truthfully, they seem to come entirely at random, and when they come on, it’s crippling. I can’t do more than lie on the washroom floor and vomit and try to survive. It’s all very pathetic.”

“Harlow—” His voice is pleading. I finally allow myself to meet his gaze.

The pity I find there is worse than disgust or anger. I hate it.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap. “This is the exact reason I don’t tell people. It’s just something I deal with. I don’t want to hear that I’m brave or strong. I have no choice but to bear it. I need this marriage to work to protect my family. So, if this changes things, please don’t be angry. I wasn’t trying to trick you and I have no reason to believe it will be passed down to our children.”

Henry frowns. “So the ice is for your head?”

I nod. “It helps sometimes.”

“They shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you. They should be finding you support to deal with it. Surely there must be an herbal treatment. Maybe we have a healer here who would know something. Carter’s wife is an excellent herbalist. I could speak with her discreetly to see if⁠—”

“Stop! I’m not a problem to be solved. I don’t need you to fix me.”

He has the sense to look chastened. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I know. You want to help. But sometimes the idea that I could and should always be doing more to figure it out feels like a massive burden on me when I’m already embarrassed to need the help in the first place.”

The same pity from before is back. “I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t treat me differently now. It feels worse to be treated like I’m weak. You don’t know what it takes to endure that on a regular basis. If they aren’t that bad, I force myself to go about my day.”

He rubs the back of his neck, and he truly looks like he’s on his heels for once. “I feel like shit for pressing you so much about appearing strong now that I know you do it all the time.”

I look away. This is too much. I want to crawl out of my skin. I’ve never spoken about this in depth with anyone except Aidia, and it was even hard to explain it to her.

“What about your family well?”

I shake my head. “It helps afterward with the sore muscles and fatigue, but it’s never cured an episode, and I don’t think it’s improved anything for me.” I run my hand over the surface of the water. “I was afraid to get in, because if this doesn’t work, then it means I’m really broken.”

Saying it out loud feels like I’ve gone a step too far. The instinct to run returns.

“I don’t expect you to push through daily. I want you to tell me when you need a break. If you need to rest, Harlow, you will always be given that dignity here.”

I glare at him. “If I lay down every time I don’t feel well, I’d never leave my bed. I don’t have the luxury of pain-free weeks. I have to live, Henry. I have to do something.”

“What happens if you hold still?”

The answer to that question is dangerously revealing. Is this my madness? The inability to just hold still? The fear that everything tucked away in the back of my mind will finally catch up if I stop moving. My hand comes to my back reflexively—the mark there tied to every memory I’d rather not unpack right now.

“I think that’s enough soul-baring for one day. I’ve answered your questions and you haven’t rejected me—yet.”

He chuckles and looks away. “So prickly.”

“You would be too if you’d been vomiting and curled up in pain for three days.”

“How do you feel now?”

I cross my arms. “Like I’ve revealed enough of myself.”

His gaze drops to my breasts. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just the right amount.” There’s a heated interest in his eyes. It would be unnerving if I weren’t relieved that he’s looking at me the same way.

Henry shakes his head and climbs out of the pool, grabbing a towel from the table on the edge of the room, and wraps it around his waist before he turns back to me. “All right. I think that was quite enough for both of us and the last thing I need right now is for my parents to find out I showed you that this was here. Harlow—” He waits for me to climb out and hands me a towel. “I need you to understand that this is a very big secret. Not to my people, but⁠—”

“To my people. I know,” I say, knowing very well that it will be the first thing I offer my parents.

“Let’s go, lovely. This was a good start, but you should rest up before this wedding.”

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23HENRY

The night is a fierce, breath-stealing cold. The wind tears at my coat as I pass through the gates from level two to level one of the fort. A chill zips up my spine.

I’ve tried to banish the dread by returning here over and over—conditioning myself to the rush of memory of the moment I first knew the fort might fall. But all my efforts have been in vain. The fear of that night never quite leaves me. It has grown roots inside my chest. Vengeance on the Carrenwells is the only thing that has a chance of ripping it out.

Kyrin trots along beside me, closer than usual. I think he senses my apprehension. Maybe that’s why he’s finally left Harlow’s side, or maybe he stayed there in the first place because he knew she was in pain. Ky has wandered progressively closer the lower I descend through the fort.

The eleven bells ring out from back atop the level six wall. I should be in bed, resting ahead of tomorrow’s wedding, but instead I’m trudging through the dark fort with just the sliver of the moon in the sky.

The colorblindness that came with my first death used to bother me in this kind of darkness. But where my vision was diminished by my journey across the veil, my other senses returned sharper. I could probably navigate these streets and alleyways blindfolded at this point.

I’m energized from this new knowledge of my wife-to-be. Harlow has pain that can’t be cured by the well in Lunameade. While I’ve only been working on her for a short time, this chance at revenge has been such a long time coming. Finally, I know something valuable.

I know there’s so much more to learn about Harlow. At first, I thought her way of talking around things was just a deflection—the result of being around magical people who could probably tell how she was feeling and what she wasn’t saying—the practiced dance of someone who must always be cautious. But there was real pain in her eyes when I told her about Holly.

If she were the idiotic, spoiled city girl I was expecting her to be before I met her, I might feel bad about sharing what she told me. But Harlow is a worthy adversary. She’s probably off spouting everything I told her to her bodyguard now. I’m suddenly glad I burned the note from her family and instructed the dove keepers to confiscate any correspondence she or Gaven try to send.

Music spills out of a pub to my right, the sound of laughter and glasses clinking punctuating the frantic fiddle music. The familiar sounds of a normal evening should be relaxing, but they set my nerves on edge.

I always feel that way when I’m on the first fort level at night, but it’s worse with Harlow here. The stakes are higher.

The bright white scar of the mending against the darker, weathered cream of the rest of the wall is impossible to ignore, even in such low light. I turn down the straightaway that leads to the front wall, trying to settle the restlessness that hasn’t left my body since I walked Harlow back to her room and made sure she actually read the ceremony sequence for tomorrow.

Pre-wedding jitters would make sense if I were actually worried about the success of my marriage. This is more of a growing apprehension that I’m in over my head. The more I learn about Harlow, the less I understand her. It’s not as if I expected it would be easy to overthrow the family that’s ruled Lunameade for generations, but this is a type of warfare I am unprepared for.

Kyrin trots ahead of me, claws clacking on the stone. I climb the stairs behind him and turn right, nodding at the guard stationed at the bell tower by the front gates as I walk toward the mended part of the wall.

My father is standing exactly where I expected him to be. He does this often—walks through the fort in the evenings, checking on our people as he makes his way down to the wall. He stays for a while, sometimes just watching the forest or others walking the wall.

He smiles as I approach. “Surprised to see you down here. Tomorrow’s a big day. I take it you have news.”

I slide up beside him and lean my elbows on the stone railing, looking out at the towering trees. “Harlow is ailing. She has episodes of severe pain in her head that come with nausea and shifts in vision.”

My father tilts his face toward me. I can’t read his expression when he’s backlit by torchlight. “Is that why we haven’t seen her in a few days?”

“Yes, she locked herself in her room under the guise of being in prayer and meditation before our wedding. Apparently the well in Lunameade hasn’t been able to heal her.”

“Not everything is meant to be mended by the Divine,” my father says. “Some ailments are teachers.”

“I doubt she would agree with that assessment.”

He hums. “Yes. I’m sure you’re right. Does her family well give her any relief at all?”

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

We fall into a silence, and he traces his fingers over the white stone mending the wall. Standing on top of the breach, the wall looks stronger than ever. It is stronger than ever. The stone was mended by one of the most powerful fort families, the Rathens. It took them months of intricate work, and I spent those months guarding them as they used their protection magic from Divine Vardek to fuse the stone back together.

When I asked one of the Rathens how they did it, they said you have to remind the stone—like it’s a living thing—that your will must be stronger than what seems possible.

Every time I look at this mark on the wall, I think of those words.

“Anything else?” my father asks.

The etched lines of the burns on Harlow’s back rise in my mind unbidden. They aren’t random. They’re art. Someone made art out of her pain.

“She has a large and very unusual scar on her lower back that looks like a brand.”

My father rubs a hand over his beard. “How did it make you feel?”

The question is so unexpected that I can’t think of a lie or deflection. “Uneasy. Like I’ve underestimated my opponent.”

“But you’re already in the fight.”

I nod. “And I didn’t wait almost ten years not to finish it.”

“Well, by all accounts and reports we’ve received, no one in Lunameade lays a hand on a Carrenwell without paying for it,” he says. “Which means it was either done by a dead man, or⁠—”

“A relative,” I finish for him.

The thought fills me with irrational anger. The skin was healed—the scar old and white, as if someone had hand-painted shooting stars there, when really they were branded into her flesh.

“It’s not a bad idea to work that angle and see what you can find.” My father cocks his head and smirks. “Curious how you saw her naked.”

I slowly turn to face him head-on. “She was too buttoned up. I had to give her something if I wanted to get something out of her. I suspected that she’d been ill when she was locked in her room for days.”

My father’s face is a mask of calm. “So you showed her the well?”

I nod.

“And she saw your scars?”

I nod again.

He sighs. “Well, we knew you would probably have to give that up at some point. No way she would see all of those scars and not start asking questions. Better that answer come from you and not someone with loose lips. She can’t know the full story until you’re married.”

I know he’s right. Very few people know the truth, but they know that those of us who were revived are different. Whatever blessing Asher granted us made us baser, more animal. This possessiveness I feel about Harlow is just part of that baser instinct I came back with.

I try not to think about the soft curve of her hips, her full breasts, or the way she groaned when she slipped into the hot water. This would all be easier if I weren’t attracted to her. The inconvenient animal instinct in me wants to drag her into a dark room and make her scream and come for hours, until I’m so deep inside of her that I know there’s nothing she can hide from me.

Rolling out my shoulders, I try to shake the lewd thoughts away. Unfortunately, chasing them off leaves me with only the disquieting feeling that perhaps not all of my desire to protect her is born out of some base animal possessiveness. Some small part of me likes the way she challenges me. It’s both comforting and unnerving that she looks at me with no fear—like she has seen much worse.

I shove the thought from my mind.

My father pats my back. “Don’t worry about the well. We’ve long suspected Harrick knew about the Mountain Well. I imagine it’s why he was willing to sacrifice our people. If the fort fell, he would have yet another secret well.”

I clench my teeth. Harrick Carrenwell’s greed and desire for power knows no bounds.

“And given that we showed up after ten years away with no fear of what he would do, he must assume we have a strong magical community to have survived. We couldn’t do that if we weren’t doing our own well ceremonies and continuing to have new generations blessed with Divine gifts.” My father tugs at the sleeves of his wool coat. “Is Harlow ready for the wedding tomorrow?”

I nod. “She claims she’s read everything I gave her, and by all accounts she’s committed to being respectful and following through on this. I haven’t figured out what she’s getting out of it yet, but it must be something good for her to travel so far from home and risk her life to ruin mine.”

My father laughs—a deep, rumbling laugh that’s so rare to me I can’t help but smile. “Divine deliver us! No concern you’ll be seeing color any time soon.”

I laugh along with him at the sheer absurdity. Even before the wall fell, I wasn’t prone to flights of romanticism, but since the attack hollowed me out, I’ve filled every empty inch of space inside of me with simmering anger. Every time Stefan makes his snide comments. Every time I think about the Carrenwells merrily ruling over Lunameade with no consequences. Every time I have to perform some official duty as heir and feel Holly’s loss all over again.

Kyrin’s ears perk up and the fur on his back rises as he glances down the wall. He bares his teeth and lets out a low growl.

Bells ring out in a familiar pattern. This frantic, drawn-out clanging means a breach. The Drained have breached the wall. Two more short trills ring out.

“Hunter down!”

The shout comes from the darkness down the wall to our left, and Kyrin takes off toward it, growling.

Fear arrives before any of my other senses can register what’s happening. It’s there and gone so fast—shoved away by years of training and the intimate knowledge of what happens to hunters who panic when the Drained attack.

My father is already in motion, one hand holding out a blade, the other pouring well water down the edge of it. I follow him, coating my blades as we sprint along the top of the wall toward the sound of claws and steel meeting.

We pass four torches, and the scent of blood and rot hits me just before the fight comes into view.

Two hunters are fighting off four Drained. Their movements flicker in and out of shadows. I’d almost rather fight in full dark. The stuttered, dancing torchlight and the illusion of being able to see something are distractions.

I cut my father off, forcing him to stay behind me as I charge into the fight. It’s the least I should do. If I were wise, I’d send him away. But the head of Mountain Haven can’t be seen running from a fight.

I recognize the hunter closest to me, Pelan Langley. He’s guarding someone wounded on the ground. It’s a technique we all use, called blood baiting. When the Drained are near fresh blood, they’re so desperate to get to it that they will always take the shortest path. It’s easier to fight a wild beast off if you know its motivation.

Their appearance is humanoid since they were once humans. I never quite get used to their eerie appearance. After turning, the Drained grow more hunched and animalistic, their skin going gray, their bodies gaunt, and their eyes black as night. Their fingers lengthen into dark claws and their teeth turn viciously sharp.

The beast roars in my face as I step between it and the wounded hunter. Its breath smells like iron and carrion. I grip the hilt of my sword until it hurts so that there’s no room for the fear that scent evokes.

Kyrin snaps at the Drained one’s ankle, but it swipes its claws at me. I dart left and run my sword across its ribs.

It screeches as the well water sizzles on its skin. It stumbles back, and I shove my blade up between its ribs and into its heart.

The Drained lets out a loud wail and curls forward. Its whole body crackles as it lets out one last screech and disintegrates into ashes.

I turn just in time to see my father shove a beast back off his blade and over the edge of the wall.

Pelan has finished off his beast as well, as has the other hunter, who. I now recognize as Kayleen Reyas. She nods to me as she kneels beside Pelan to tend to the wounded man.

Finally, I turn my gaze on the injured hunter. Maxime Palemore. He’s one of the fiercest men in the entire fort, five years older than me and still in his prime at thirty-eight.

Kyrin paces back and forth beside the guards.

“Did they bite him?” I ask.

Maxime shakes his head, but we can never take a victim’s word for it. We always have to check. While their claws can maim, a Drained one’s bite transfers the disease. It starts with a fever and then an almost deathlike state where the heart slows so much, its beat is barely perceptible. Then they wake, violent and hungry.

We’ve only seen hunters survive a bite three times. The rest have all either been killed as they were transforming, or shortly after. A bite from the Drained is largely considered a death blow.

However, it’s not uncommon for men to deny it and only admit later what happened. That threatens the safety of the entire fort.

Pelan looks up from the wound along Maxime’s stomach. “No bite. Just claws, but it’s deep. He needs a healer before he gets down.”

I glance at the bell beside the nearest torch and ring it five times in quick succession to call for a healer. There are at least three healers stationed at the level one wall at all times so they can respond to emergencies like this.

My father nods to Pelan and Kayleen. “Clear the area. Make sure there are no more. We’ll hold this spot and Henry can work on him until the healer arrives.”

The two hunters split and walk in opposite directions in the protocol we use to ensure there are no further breaches.

My father kneels beside Maxime, and I walk to the wall. “Listen for the mist. Then help him.”

Peering over the side, I squint into the dark, listening for the rushing sound. It’s never been clear if they follow the blood mist or if it follows them. The wall is tall enough to keep out most of the Drained, but there are those hungry enough to wear their claws off trying to climb it. That’s my best guess for this breach. What concerns me is that they occasionally hunt together on the ground, but apart from the night the fort fell, they tend to climb alone.

A chill runs down my spine as I turn and kneel beside Maxime. He winces as I probe the bloody wound.

Pounding footsteps sound to my right. I jump to my feet, drawing my sword.

But it’s just Kayleen and a healer who emerge from the shadows. The woman nudges me out of the way and gets to work immediately, speaking quietly to Maxime as she works.

After a few tense moments, Maxime is able to sit up with Kayleen’s help.

“Get him to the clinic downstairs so he can rest and send up a reserve hunter to replace him in the meantime,” my father says.

Kayleen nods and leads Maxime off into the dark.

We hate calling on reserves. It means that we’re waking someone who has probably already worked their required shifts this week. It’s hard work staying vigilant on the wall, and we limit shifts for that reason. But desperate times call for desperate measures. If I weren’t getting married tomorrow, I would do it myself.

We fall into silence, the two of us facing each other, leaning against the stone railing of the wall.

“That’s the fourth hunter down in two weeks,” my father says quietly.

Naima will be able to heal him so he’s good as new, but Maxime is very experienced. This is just a sign of how thin our lines are getting. When the wall fell, we lost half of the newest class of hunters because they were the least experienced at fighting the Drained, but they were almost all stationed on levels two and three. In one night, I lost half of the men I grew up with and a third of the women.

This problem has compounded over time as older hunters aren’t able to keep the same number of patrols anymore and we don’t have enough skilled hunters to replace them.

“Standing on that wall at night is not a job just anyone can do,” my father says. “We need the Carrenwells to send us those able-bodied guards sooner rather than later. Once that part of the marriage contract is complete, we can move to the next part of our plan and work at depleting their control in Lunameade.”

I stare out into the dark forest. I can hardly see a thing, but I can hear the occasional hoot of an owl from somewhere deep within the woods. Animal sounds are always a good sign. They get quiet when the Drained are close. Plus, Kyrin has gone back to meandering down the wall casually instead of growling at the dark. If he doesn’t hear anything, we should be safe for now.

“How do you know that who you’re going to replace them with will be a better option?” I ask. “What if we’re just clearing the way for someone worse?”

My father turns to face me. The torchlight casts shadows over his eyes. “I’ve made that mistake once before. It’s not one I’ll make again. You’ve made your desire to know the full plan clear, but I am reminding you again that there is a reason we compartmentalized information, and you are in too deep for us to tell you everything⁠—”

“I’m not⁠—”

He holds up a hand to silence me. “I don’t mean that I don’t trust you. I mean that I don’t want to put you in a situation where you have to compromise the plan to win her over. It’s best if you know less for now.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He places a hand on my shoulder. “I know you think that now. But once that blessing comes into place, you might be less certain. I know that the real driving force behind you all these years has been the fire of revenge. I worry what you’ll do without it to keep you going. I worry you’ll keep burning even once this fight is won.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and breathe out slowly, watching the cloud of vapor dissipate.

I wish I could say that he’s wrong, but sometimes I feel like I’m made of nothing but that churning need for revenge. The ability to put rage into action—to rebuild and reinvent myself into someone who can settle this score by any means necessary—I have only been able to do that by ignoring what it took to get here.

My father turns his face, and in the torchlight, he looks older than ever. “Sometimes I feel like I lost both of you that day. Holly was gone and you came back as someone else, with an extra weight on you that you’ve never been able to lay down. I pray to the Divine you’ll be lighter when this is over. I miss my son.”

He squeezes my shoulder, and I want to reassure him so badly. But deep down, I know that I’m in this mess too deep already, and with tonight’s attack, I don’t have the luxury of time to worry about my soul and what this fight might cost me.

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