The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #3)

Colvin nodded sternly. “He has chosen to remain and protect his granddaughter. Hillel will become Queen of Comoros and he will be her advisor and protector. There is still some time before the Blight consumes everyone. At least she knows now what she truly is and what she must never do.”


Lia sighed. “It must have been difficult for you. Ruining her sense of who she really was. You were the one who discovered her at Sempringfall. You were also the one to tell her the truth.”

Colvin looked askance and shrugged slightly. “I suppose I do not judge or consider her pains and loss equal to what you have suffered, Lia. She will be Queen. It is hardly confinement in a dungeon. Her marriage will not be a happy one. But she will have more comforts than she would have enjoyed as a wretched. And more power.”

“You learned her true name from my father’s tome?” she asked.

Colvin nodded.

Lia served up two bowls of porridge, flavoring both with treacle and raisins. They ate it ravenously, washing it down with pure water that Lia summoned from another Leering.

“You told me to wait until today to tell me how you escaped Dieyre’s dungeon,” Lia said when they were finished. “I had thought perhaps Martin rescued you. But now I think not.”

Colvin shook his head. “No, but he did mix the herbs that feigned my illness. He is an astute poisoner. I was truly sick for many days and he used juice from some berries to add little poxes on my face and arms. The important thing to create was the rumor of my illness. Rumors get exaggerated with each telling. I knew that I would be spending the winter below ground in a dungeon. Considering what you endured in the hetaera’s lair, I faced my task as bravely as I could. There were no serpents to torment me. Only rats. Dieyre visited me often, trying to get me to reveal where my sister was being held. He kept me alive for that purpose, using his influence to forestall the Queen’s plan to execute me. As long as I revealed nothing, they had no choice but to spare me.”

“Yes, but how did you escape?” Lia pressed.

He paced the kitchen like he had before, back when he was healing from his wound. She wondered if he would reach for a broom and start swinging it like a sword. The thought almost made her laugh.

“Dieyre let me go,” he said simply.

“What?”

“You must understand that we spent much time talking together. He did not come to that decision all at once, but he slowly turned his thinking. He saw people around him begin to die of the plague. He saw that your warning would eventually be fulfilled. He asked me about you. He said he believed you did not die in the furnace, that you were alive somewhere. He wondered where you were and if you could be convinced to remove the curse you had put on him. I think he kept me so long because he believed you would eventually come looking for me to save me. But how could I explain to him that you were an Aldermaston and were bound to Muirwood’s fate? You will be bound to Muirwood forever you know. We both will.”

“Yes, but as you explained last night, it means I am bound to rebuild her. Not myself, but one of my posterity must do it. I did not know I could freely leave, but now I do. Imagine it, Colvin. A child or grandchild of ours, returning to this land to rebuild the Abbeys. It will take centuries to rebuild them all.”

Colvin nodded. “Until we do, the dead will multiply and roam the land. They will be in chains like the Myriad Ones. We must free them, Lia. We must free them all.”

She nodded, remembering the Aldermaston. “So you convinced Dieyre to let you go?”

He shook his head. “No. None of my persuasions ever convinced him. In the end, he arrived one night after one of his servants had perished by the plague. He stripped the man’s clothes and gave them to me and replaced mine with his. He said he would announce to the world that I was dead and that I could leave that night.”

Lia wrinkled her forehead. “Surely he was letting you go to follow you to Marciana,” she said, suddenly concerned.

Colvin nodded. “Naturally. Which is why I went to Forshee first instead of here. I went there for two reasons. To find my tome and to get something for you. There is something I wanted you to have.”

“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward curiously.

He retrieved the pouch with the Cruciger orb and pulled it out. Then fishing at the bottom of the pouch, he withdrew a wedding band.

“This was my mother’s,” he said. “You remember I told you that she was buried in an ossuary at my manor house? That I had feared she was buried alive?”

Lia nodded, her eyes widening in wonder.

“I opened the ossuary and there was nothing left but graveclothes and this ring. As you pointed out to me in the past, if the dead do not wish to wear rings in Idumea, then we may as well use them here.” He walked up to her and took her hand. “Will you wear this, as a symbol of our binding?”