Текст книги "The poison daughter"

Автор книги: Sheila Masterson

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

The footsteps stop, and I freeze too, holding my breath as I peek over the railing. The Drained one is looking right at me.

It sniffs the air, and I swear to the Divine it smiles.

It’s the faintest upturn in the lips around vicious-looking teeth, but the room is dim enough that my mind could be playing tricks on me.

I expect the Breeder to be under guard, or at least locked in a cell, but it’s wandering freely on the ground floor. Those idiot hunters playing cards outside are probably supposed to be watching it, but when they decided to fool around instead, it took its chance to find a way out.

I duck down behind the wooden railing again. It’s time to go. I need to get out of here and tell Henry.

I still. Henry, who gave me a safe room today. Is this why he offered that gift?

Now isn’t the time to solve that mystery. I turn back to the window, but to my horror, Stefan Laurence’s face is there waiting for me.

“Hey, Carrenwell,” he says. His voice is all menace as he climbs over the windowsill.

I’m torn between the beast in front of me and the one down below.

I could make a run for it to the door on the other end of this catwalk, but it could be locked. If it’s not, my cover will be blown the moment I pop out the door on the other side.

Better to live to see another day.

I jump to my feet and try to sprint toward the door, but I trip over the hem of my dress and my knees slam onto the wooden catwalk floor. I’ve had extensive training, but all of it was done in pants. There’s no accounting for the way a dress moves and tangles as I try to fight.

I spring up, but Stefan is on me. He grabs my hair and yanks my head back.

“Quite a show you put on last night,” Stefan taunts. “But I bet the beast down there would take you for a better ride.”

I’m vaguely aware of the sound of two other people at the window, their graceless climbing making it hard to hear where the Breeder is down below.

I twist, gripping Stefan’s wrist, and yank us both down toward the catwalk floor before slamming my head back into his face.

He curses and lets go of my hair. I grab the blade wedged in my boot and stab it into his side. He howls and backhands me so hard I stumble back into the arms of one of his minions.

“Grab her, Joe.” Stefan’s voice is muffled by the hands trying to stop his nose from bleeding.

Joe wraps an arm around my throat so tight I can barely breathe.

Stefan regains his composure and yanks me away from Joe. He wraps a fist around my hair and shoves the top half of my body over the railing.

I’m bent at the waist, perilously close to falling headfirst to the floor below. That alone might be enough to break my neck and kill me instantly, but I don’t want to find out. I try to shift my legs wider to brace myself, but my dress is tangled around them.

The Drained one hasn’t moved from its spot, but it’s watching me. I recognize the difference in it immediately. It’s terrifyingly calm and unnaturally still.

The Drained in the woods would not be waiting. They don’t have that same intelligence in their eyes. This beast is something else. Real fear bolsters me.

“I went to the nest where they found this thing.” Stefan’s voice is ecstatic with menace. “You should see how it fucks. You think your Henry is a savage?” He whistles low. “He’s got nothing on what that Breeder will do to you, but I bet you’ll love it. After all, you were sent here to be bred like a little traitor whore.”

I don’t break eye contact with the beast, and for a moment, I wonder if it has more humanity than the men dangling me here.

Normally, I would stand and fight, but this is a scenario where I really need a distraction.

“Why do you keep trying to kill me?” I ask.

“The first time it wasn’t personal,” Stefan says, as if sending someone to murder me was only a minor insult. “I was testing Henry because defending you would make him look bad, but so would allowing you to be attacked. You were just a means to an end. But after that, I would have had nothing against you. I think we would have been good together, but you had to humiliate me instead. I couldn’t let that stand.”

I test Stefan’s hold by shoving my chest a little farther forward. It has the desired effect.

Stefan shifts to pull me up, and I throw all my weight back at once, pushing off the railing with all my might and arching my back. I slam into Stefan, and he stumbles. Joe and his other friend catch him.

Joe is on me instantly, but I’m ready for him. I duck his swipe and stab my blade into his side. He elbows me in the chest, stunning me enough that my heel catches on my ripped hem.

I grab Joe for support, but the movement drags him off balance. He’s much taller, so when he hits the railing, he tips right over.

My relief lasts a split second—until he grabs my waist and we both tumble down to the floor below.

OceanofPDF.com

32HENRY

We have the full attention of the Raining Star Bar as soon as we step inside. The storytellers seated on a long line of barstools give me a slow once-over and then turn their backs.

“I’m picking up a bit of an icy reception from about half the room,” Gaven says.

He’s not wrong. He’s probably noticed that the Laurence family is our greatest competition for power in Mountain Haven, but I doubt he realizes that the most established storyteller in the fort is a Laurence.

The greater offense than my being a Havenwood is that we’ve entered and made noise mid-tale.

The storyteller on stage, Marjorie, only pauses a moment to give us a disapproving look before continuing.

I scan the room for any sign of Harlow, but even at a glance, I know she’s already gone. It’s probably too much to hope she went back to our room, but maybe I’ll send Carter back to check.

“There’s something I should have told you before,” Gaven whispers.

Several patrons turn to give us a dirty look.

“Only if it’s urgent?”

Gaven rubs the back of his neck. “Harlow can glamour.”

I grind my teeth, keeping my voice as low as possible. “What the fuck do you mean she can glamour?”

He glances guiltily toward the door. “I suspect that’s how she never got caught sneaking out for her many trysts.”

I’m struck that Gaven knows she was sneaking out but not why. The ability to glamour explains how she never got caught as the Poison Vixen. If she changes her appearance for every kill, it would be a logical assumption that it’s a network of women fighting back, instead of just one.

“She’s twice-blessed?” I ask.

Gaven shakes his head. “No. One of her siblings has a blessing from Stellaria. Harlow has a necklace that has a limited amount of glamours.”

“So she could be anyone in this room?” I ask.

Gaven shakes his head. “She’s not here.”

I want to ask how he knows, but he’s been protecting her since she was a child. Surely he knows her mannerisms and gait even while glamoured.

Our only option is to wait for the story to end, so I can ask if anyone has seen her, but if she used magic to change her appearance, I don’t even know how we will ask if anyone saw her.

The five minutes we wait for Marjorie to finish her tale are the longest of my life. As soon as the crowd applauds, I cross the room to the bar, tossing a handful of coins into the storyteller’s basket on the way.

Nicolina Laurence turns to face me. She’s Stefan’s aunt, and while I know she has no love for me and my family, she does believe in tradition and the chain of command.

“You’re not usually one for the listening, Henry. You’re a man of action. Or has your new love changed you already? Your chemistry was quite something last night,” she says, her voice laced with accusation.

My parents and I knew this would be the most perilous time for our plan. Not telling our people that this marriage is a sham, that we are using Harlow to bring her family down, made sense all those months ago. The more people who knew, the more likely someone would tell her. But now, seeing the faces of the wisest women in the fort with expressions ranging from anger to downright betrayal, I worry we miscalculated.

“My new wife is a fan of stories. I was hoping to bring her here soon,” I say.

I wait for her to say Harlow has already been here, but Nicolina purses her lips. “Shouldn’t you be busy entertaining her?”

“Yes. I’m actually here because I was supposed to meet a woman about some urgent fort business. Unfortunately, Harlow made me late.” I offer a smug smile.

Nicolina rolls her eyes. “What’s your woman look like?”

“She was wearing a red silk dress and⁠—”

“Blonde? Dark eyes?” Nicolina asks.

I nod.

“She seemed quite entranced by the tale of the Deathless⁠—”

Of course. Hundreds of possibilities, and it had to be that Divine-damn story that’s going to reinforce all of her prejudices about fort life. This is exactly why I wanted to choose the night we attended a story session—so I could curate Harlow’s experience.

“But she left a bit ago—wandered upstairs with Brennan Marley,” Nicolina says.

I force my mouth into a tight smile. My wife went upstairs with another man. If that man isn’t dead from poison already, I’ll kill him myself. The thought of Harlow kissing him⁠—

I shove down my rage. If I cannot manage one woman, the Carrenwells will have ruined my family for the second time in a decade.

“Thank you, Nicolina,” I say.

Turning back to my friends, I nod toward the hallway that leads to the boarding rooms. If Harlow kissed another man, I’m going to tie her to my bed for the duration of her time here.

My mind is a torrent of irrational rage. I don’t care about her, but I do need her, at least for the time being. If her recklessness ruins ten years of planning, I will ruin her.

When we reach the dark hallway, we find Brennan standing at the bottom of the stairs.

The very fact that he’s still standing means that Harlow didn’t kiss him, but I feel no less furious.

“Brennan, did you speak with a blonde woman in a red silk dress tonight?” I ask.

He instantly stills at the menace in my voice. “Yes, I spoke with her a little while ago.”

I’m so incensed. I fight the urge to strangle the man. He’s always on the hunt for a woman to bed, but he has the sense not to knowingly go upstairs with my new wife. Then again, she was glamoured.

I lunge for him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and shoving him back against the wall. “Did you take her upstairs?”

He stares at me with wide eyes. “Yes, but I⁠—”

“Is she still up there?”

“No—”

I tighten my grip on his shirt. “Did you fuck her?”

The hall goes silent for a second, then the floorboards creak behind me, and I just know that Carter and Bryce are exchanging one of their wordless judgmental looks.

Brennan lifts his hands in surrender, his eyes pleading. “What? Henry, no! If she’s one of yours, I didn’t know.”

There’s not a hint of deception on his face. He just looks baffled.

“Did she say where she was going?” I ask.

Brennan shakes his head violently. “No. She was curious after the stories, so I told her about the—” He cuts himself off and glances down the hall toward the bar.

“You told her about what?” I grit out.

“I was trying to sound brave,” Brennan says. “I told her about the Breeder we’re holding, and she was rattled. She ran off before anything happened. I swear. It was only a few minutes ago. Please don’t demote me.”

I slam my fist into the wall beside his head. “Telling fort secrets to bed someone is a huge security risk.”

But I don’t have time for that now. Dread turns my chest cold. Harlow is too smart to investigate on her own—and yet I know that’s exactly where she went. Fresh fear hits me, pumping adrenaline through my body.

Bryce and Carter are already moving toward the back door, Gaven falling into step behind them.

I slam Brennan into the wall one more time. “We’ll talk later.”

Then I turn and charge off behind my friends.

By the time we get outside, I’m fully sprinting. I don’t care if it looks like I can’t wrangle my new wife. If Harlow is in danger, the entire future of Mountain Haven is at risk.

My breath saws in and out of me, the cold air scraping up my throat. I welcome the shock of it. The night is so dark, but I have moved through these streets so many times, I know them blind. Bryce, Carter, and Gaven’s footsteps pound along behind me.

I pick up speed as we pass through the gate to the sixth level and turn toward the holding cells. Laughter erupts from behind the gray stone building, and as I round the corner, I find the hunters who are supposed to be standing guard bent over a card game.

They all go rigid when they see me, but I don’t bother to lay into them. I charge up the stairs to the second floor, jam my hand against the blood lock. I wait one agonizing moment until the lock clicks and then throw the door open, faintly aware of Carter yelling orders to the men behind me and Gaven and Bryce’s footsteps on the stairs.

I’m not sure what I expected to find, but it’s not Stefan Laurence and Roland Hazrah leaning over the observation railing, reaching for someone on the first floor.

It’s not the Breeder loose from its cage.

And it’s definitely not my wife in a shredded silk dress, facing down a monster with only a small blade in her hand.

Our abrupt entrance startles Roland. His grip slips, and Stefan with it. Roland struggles to grab him and fails—both men tumble over the railing to the first floor.

A disorienting cocktail of fear and fury explodes inside me. I want to jump down to the lower level, but I have no idea how the Breeder got out of its cage or how it will react to four pieces of bait down there with it.

Gaven and I run to look over the railing in time to see Stefan and Roland struggling to their feet. This is a disaster. If Stefan dies, his family will easily be able to usurp mine. They can say we have no control of the fort, and they will be right. Their hold will be temporary, since he’s their last living child, but it will be enough to ensure that the Havenwood family loses power—and in the long term, whoever steps in to fill the power vacuum could be worse.

Harlow stands between the creature and the three men, her gaze fixed on the barred first-floor door.

The Breeder watches her with studied patience, but Harlow ignores it. She gives the beast her back and turns to face the men.

She’s laboring, her hand bracing her left ribs. There’s a bright red slash across her forearm and she’s shaking badly. Her fear is so potent, I can smell it. Her hand is trembling so much, I’m afraid she’ll drop her dagger.

“They’re Polm-blessed.” Her voice is tremulous, and though she doesn’t look at me, I instantly know what she means.

Both Joe and Stefan have blessings from the Divine of Malice, and they’re hitting her with fear manipulation at once. I don’t know how she’s still standing. The strongest men I know would be curled in a ball on the ground, but Harlow is ready for a fight.

Killing any of these men would be bad—they all come from powerful Mountain Haven families—but killing Stefan would threaten everything my family has built, though it would be within my rights since using his magic against my wife warrants retribution.

Gaven, rigid beside me, tries to size up the Breeder. “Why doesn’t it attack? She’s bleeding. It should be on her already,” he whispers.

“We’d love to know,” I say. “We’re keeping it for observation, but this isn’t exactly the kind of testing we had in mind.”

The beast looks up at Gaven and cocks its head to the side, the only movement it’s made since we came in.

The Drained used to attack quickly and recklessly in the pursuit of the fastest path to blood. In recent years, one of the most notable changes in their behavior has been that they now tend to attack the strongest member of a party first.

The Breeder didn’t look at Stefan, who has a very powerful blessing from Polm, or either of his friends. It didn’t look at me. It looked right at Gaven.

It’s all but confirmation that the bodyguard is more than he appears. There’s no way the Carrenwells would send their youngest daughter here with someone they didn’t genuinely believe could protect her.

“Can you help?” I ask.

It would be convenient to let the thing kill him, but then we’d have to explain to the Carrenwells how he died and why we’re studying the Drained. Divine know how they would manipulate that information. Plus, now that Gaven has revealed that Harlow can glamour, I’m wondering what other secrets I could get out of him if I had the time to torture him.

“I need to get between her and that thing,” he whispers.

This could all be over in a second, but I’m not confident that Gaven could handle the drop.

“Go around the outside, to the ground floor door, but you have to wait until I open the door to come in. We can’t risk that thing getting out.”

I turn to Bryce. “If it somehow gets up here, you’re all that stands between it and the rest of the fort. Don’t let it get by you.”

He nods, tying his hair into a bun at the nape of his neck as Gaven brushes by him and climbs out the window.

I have no warning before the mayhem breaks out. All three men on the first floor sprint toward the door, but Harlow is closer. At first, I think she’s going to run, but when she reaches the door, she stops.

“Harlow, let Gaven in. Then run!” I yell.

She stands between Joe, Roland, and Stefan, but she doesn’t run. Determined to defy me, she lifts her hand from the bar on the door and turns to face them with her blade clenched in her fist. She stands between three Divine-blessed men and one evolved Drained and their only way out, and she’s ready to fight.

OceanofPDF.com

33HARLOW

Ireally was going to run. I have at least one broken rib from the fall, and I need to wrap the cut on my arm. But if I open this door now, they will be right behind me and the Drained one will be right behind them and I shudder to think of what that thing might do if it’s let loose in the fort.

Putting all three men between me and that beast was intentional. Now I can see all of my adversaries at once, but unfortunately, I don’t have anywhere to run.

That Drained is unnerving. The aura void around it is the largest I’ve ever seen. That, combined with the fact that there’s blood dripping down my arm and it hasn’t so much as taken a step toward me, is a clear sign that there’s something very different about the beast. If it truly wants fertile women to breed, then I’m less likely to be killed immediately than these three men, and I will hold them here until that thing rips them apart.

Stefan smirks at my bloody arm and the small blade in my fist. “Move.”

The third idiot man, whose name I don’t know, has the good sense to turn toward the Drained.

“Roland!” Henry’s voice rings out.

But it’s too late. The Drained grabs Roland and bites into his throat before he even has the chance to scream.

Henry jumps from the catwalk, landing behind the beast in a low, graceful crouch. I faintly remember what he said when he told me about returning from death—how it gave him more animal instincts.

The Breeder drops Roland’s half-drained body and turns to face Henry. It cocks its head to the side and with a voice that sounds like a claw dragged along bone, it speaks.

“You don’t scare me, death-touched.”

Henry’s face betrays no shock, but his aura flares out wide. Clearly, he has also never heard a Drained one speak.

“I should scare you,” Henry says. “You’re standing between me and my wife.”

The Drained makes a low sound like a rasping laugh. “She doesn’t smell like yours.”

The impulse to run is so strong, but I am not letting these two assholes who tried to pass me off to a monster get away so easily.

I shouldn’t kill them. I shouldn’t hurt them at all. It will make me more of a villain than I already am in Mountain Haven. It will make it almost impossible for me to do what I need to do.

My mind conjures Aidia’s face, and I almost open the door and let them run.

But this is what I do. I punish men who think they can hurt women without repercussions.

The surprise on their faces is so typical. Men are always shocked when they meet resistance to their plans. Comfort has made them all complacent.

I have no such luxury. I was very young when I learned not to expect any softness from life. Violence came for me the way it does for all women. It hunted me, and I let its blade whittle me into something too sharp to touch—so that no man could bleed me without getting bloodied too.

“Are you so weak you won’t turn and fight this beast?” I taunt.

Over Stefan’s shoulder, Henry and the Drained are circling each other.

I need these two idiots away from the door so I can let Gaven in to handle the Drained. I don’t want to show Henry his magic. That was a secret we were keeping as long as we could, but desperate times require improvisation.

“Move or I’ll move you,” Stefan says, his dark eyes full of menace.

His orange aura spikes out, prodding at me, and I have had enough of that.

Much as I loathe them, murdering Divine-blessed hunters of important fort families will do nothing for my mission. If the Havenwoods lose their power here, my chance to help Aidia will be lost as well.

Leaving them alive is also a risk. Stefan is too volatile to be controlled. If his family takes over, I will have no way to earn his trust.

Both men are looking at me like they’d be happy to kill me just to get through this door—and if they open the door too soon, that Breeder will escape. Much as the people here might hate me, they’ve suffered enough. I don’t wish them any further suffering—especially if this thing is hunting women.

I take a step toward Stefan. Gaven taught me how to fight like a woman, which means following an opponent’s movements instead of trying to overpower them. It has meant learning to ignore the natural fear in my body, to let an adversary close. Stefan comes at me hard with a left hook. I slash across his forearm with my blade and snatch his wrist, using momentum from the punch to slam him against the metal door.

He hits it shoulder-first with a loud pop. As he stumbles to the side, I pin him against the wall, calling up my magic. My lips tingle and my mouth turns sweet as I lean in.

Stefan fights for a second until he realizes what I’m doing. He thinks he’s getting what he’s owed.

In a way, he is.

My lips are a breath from his when I’m grabbed by my hair and jerked back. I stumble a few steps. Joe releases my hair and tackles me to the ground. He tries to pin me there, but something inside me snaps.

It feels like I’m being pulled apart by a living anger, like all the rage in the world is splitting me up the center and coming out to rip these men apart next.

It’s only a blink of an eye that the world disappears in a flash of white, but when I come back to my body, I’m straddling Joe’s waist, ripping my blade from a raw, bloody wound in his neck.

“Harlow!” Henry’s voice drags me from the daze. He’s circling the beast, but his shirt is torn, bloody scratches weeping on his side.

Stefan is leaning against the wall next to the door, holding his shoulder, which dangles at an odd angle. I must have dislocated it when I shoved him.

I sprint for the lock. When Stefan sees what I’m doing, he tries to cut me off. I throw my full weight into him, ignoring the fierce protest of my broken ribs. His head hits the door with a dull crack and he collapses against the wall.

For a moment, I can’t figure out how to open the door, but then I see the pointed blood lock on the wall. I hold my breath as I press my finger to it, praying to the Divine that it will work like the locks in Havenwood House.

The bolt clicks, the bar sliding to the side. It’s heavy and the notches fit into the wall like a puzzle, but after a long moment of fiddling, it finally lifts and the door is unbarred. I press my ear to it and knock three times—my signal to Gaven that we established years ago to let him know when it was safe for him to come into my room.

It’s immediately wrenched open, and Gaven sprints past me. Carter rushes in after him, yanking the door closed and barring it again before any drunken hunters can get a good look.

Carter takes one look at my blood-soaked hands and dress and stops. “What⁠—”

“It’s not mine,” I say. “I don’t know what happened.”

I couldn’t possibly explain it. The anger carried me somewhere else and I was gone for what could have only been seconds.

Across the room, blue fire flares from Gaven’s hands and the beast lets out an unholy keening sound as it burns into a bright blaze of holy fire. Within moments, it’s nothing but a pile of putrid ash.

Henry doesn’t even wait for it to cool before he’s stepping over it and rushing toward me. He looks me over, patting my arms.

“It’s Joe’s blood,” I say. “Not mine.”

He looks at the shredded throat of Joe’s body on the ground beside us and then back at my face. “Did you have to make such a bloody fucking mess?”

He cups my chin roughly and wipes my cheeks with his handkerchief. I stare at the dark stubble on his jaw instead of meeting his eyes, until he brushes his thumb to my tingling lips.

“You tried to kiss another man.”

I lick my lips. “It seemed practical in the moment. I didn’t think you would mind.”

“You can use your⁠—”

Hands. He’s going to say hands.

I yank his face to mine and kiss him. It’s quick, just a subtle parting of our lips, just a hint of whiskey on his tongue mixing with the poison sweetness on mine before I pull away.

“I told you that no one else knows that,” I whisper.

He bends so his lips brush my ear. “So many secrets, but your days of poison kisses are over.”

Gaven is suddenly yanking me away from my husband.

I realize when I look at his stunned face that I never told him Henry is immune to my magic.

“Relax, Gaven. Henry is as impervious to my poison as he is to my charm.”

Gaven’s relief is instant, his face morphing from a look of panicked escape-planning to one of annoyance. After all these years, I would think he’d be used to being kept in the dark.

Bryce jumps down from the catwalk and saunters over to us, appraising Joe’s body with raised eyebrows.

“Would have been helpful to know you could wield holy fire this whole time,” Henry says, eyeing my bodyguard.

Gaven crosses his arms. “My duty is to Miss Carrenwell. That wasn’t information you needed to know.”

“How?” Henry asks. “According to the records, you’re not blessed.”

Gaven looks to me for permission.

I wave a hand. “May as well.”

“I’m not,” Gaven says. “But I showed enough promise when I was a young man that Harrick Carrenwell hired me to protect Harlow and offered me a unique gift.” Gaven rolls up his sleeve and bares his forearm, showing off the dark, shiny inked sigil of Vardek.

Henry narrows his eyes at me as if it’s a betrayal that I didn’t tell him, but I can’t imagine he would have been forthcoming if our roles were reversed.

My husband looks at the mark. “I’ve always been aware of magically blessed objects that transfer power for limited uses, but I’ve never seen a blessing infused into one’s skin.”

“They didn’t want to risk me losing the object in a fight,” Gaven says. “Best to have it marked right into my body with a brand and ink made with well water.”

“Holy fire. How can Harrick Carrenwell bestow a Divine blessing?” Carter asks.

“I can only use it to protect Harlow from threats against her,” Gaven says. “I can’t power a city wall, or fire it off at will. She needs to be under threat.”

Henry rubs a hand over his face. “That’s why you kept the Breeder between you and Harlow. As long as it’s a threat, you can use that magic. That’s how you survived the horde alone in the woods on the ride here. They were standing between you and her.”

Gaven nods. “She and I have trained extensively on how to maneuver ourselves in a fight. Now, if we’re done exchanging secrets, what are we going to do about this mess?”

The ashes of the Breeder are the least of it. My dress is soaked in Joe’s blood, and Stefan is unconscious, bleeding from a slice along his left forearm.

“Carter, can you…” Henry gestures.

“Can I make the last twenty minutes not have happened?” he asks, a nervous pinch in his brow. “No, Hen. Afraid not. Polm’s gifts are powerful, but not that powerful. We need a strategy.”

“Drained attack?” Bryce suggests.

Henry shakes his head. “They weren’t on duty, and it makes my family look bad.”

“Training accident?” Carter says.

“This late at night?” Gaven counters. “And it still makes the Havenwoods look bad.”

“They attacked me,” I say.

Carter sighs. “That makes Henry look bad.”

My trembling from Stefan’s fear magic has stopped, but I know I don’t have much time before the adrenaline hits me.

I’m good in an emergency. It’s born out of necessity—out of years of needing to show a brave face and suffer quietly far from prying eyes. It’s like my mind and body have learned how to postpone the panic until all the danger is gone, but the delay costs me. When it comes on, it comes on very hard—until I’m a shaking mess, entirely unable to compose myself.

I don’t know how long I have before I fall apart completely. I need to get away from Henry and everyone else before that happens.

For the first time in my life, I wish for my sister, Electra. She is beautiful in a cold, cruel way—much like our mother—but her blessing from Harvain gave her the ability to erase or reform memories. I used to resent her for being granted a much less brutal gift by the same Divine. Most of my family have blessings from Harvain. It was part of the reason my father chose to marry my mother.

Harvain is the wildcard of the Divine. His blessings are the most unique and least predictable. They’re also highly coveted because there are fewer defenses to counteract them. I know I’m ungrateful, but I wish he’d granted me something I could control.

“How does your magic work?” I ask Carter.

Carter looks to Henry first. Bleeding woods—don’t they ever get tired of looking to him for approval? How does Henry even have such allegiance from two men who look like they could at the very least go a few rounds with him in a fighting ring?

When Henry nods, Carter looks shocked, but his gaze turns skeptical when he looks at me.

“It works a little bit different for everyone because no two gifts are exactly the same,” Carter says. “But, generally, Polm’s gifts are most effective on someone with whom you’ve established a personal connection. What Henry is asking for here is a challenge, to say the least.”