“The next town over.”
The town with the trap. “What does the tea do?” I glare. Her explanation of the herbs makes as much sense as a donkey in a mare race.
“It’s a charm. When people look at me, they see her.”
I didn’t know charms could work that way, but there’s more to Channeler magic than I’ll ever understand. Of course Phelia, a Spiriter—the most powerful type of Channeler—would know how to use her magic this way. But why wouldn’t she just disappear? Why keep me on the hunt for a month, chasing a mirage?
“Where’d she go?” The desperation in my words sounds like a growl.
“S-s-she didn’t say.” The girl cowers, wringing her hands. “But I, ah, watched her leave. She took the northern road that cuts through the Bloodwood Forest back to Malam.”
Her words spiral inside with jagged edges. Suspicions run under my skin. Why would Phelia return to Malam? A couple of reasons come to mind—to help her lover, Lord Jamis, escape the dungeon or to take back control of the king.
I kick a hay bale to shake my frustration.
Doesn’t work.
One thing is for certain. I’m going home.
Chapter
6
Aodren
GODS, NOT AGAIN.
Neither my arms nor my legs can move.
My head is leaden. My mouth is dry. My eyelids are immobile.
The last time I felt this weighted, sluggish, and disoriented was a month ago. I learned then that waking from the influence of magic was grim business. I’d been bound by a Spiriter and then freed by another—all of which was explained by Captain Omar. Had I not the scar on my neck and the word of the only man I trust, I might not have believed the full extent of Lord Jamis’s deception. Though, to be honest, I should’ve expected as much from the former regent. It wasn’t the first time I’d been betrayed.
I’ll be damned if it isn’t the last.
I rack my brain for a last memory before my current suffocating, sluggish state.
Nothing comes except an image of her.
The wisp of a girl with the backbone of iron. Britta Flannery, Saul’s daughter.
I think of the fight she wears in a scowl and try to hone the same angry strength, because the urge to dip into a deeper sleep is strong. Wake up.
The horse smell, achiness registering all over my body, and an oddly scratchy pillow keep me alert enough. Above those distractions, the drone of a voice breaks through my mental haze.
“Britta, you are my daughter,” a woman says, her voice all coarse edges and shards of granite. Something familiar about it raises the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
My attempt at talking shapes into a groan.
In response, warm pressure lands on my back. Is that someone’s hand? My eyelids crack open, finally. It’s work to blink away the grit, but after a dozen tries, my vision clears enough to make out horse hooves and squashed shrubs dusted with frost.
Hooves? I squint and try to turn my head, only there’s no moving. My head feels heavier than the ostentatious throne my father commissioned while he was alive. Something hard digs into my stomach and chest, cutting my ability to breathe. And it feels like two bony knees are shoved against my ribs.
I flex my fists, willing my arms to move, but they’re secured to my sides in a way that feels different from the sluggish effect of magic. Have I been bound? I want to yell like an Akarian warrior, but all I can manage is a grunt.
“I could end your life with the release of my arrow.” The words are clear and spoken by a voice I recognize. Britta Flannery. It comes from above me. She must be the one touching my back. I relax a bit under her hand.
“You could, but you won’t. You know by now I’m not here to cause you harm.” The terrible voice rings with disquieting familiarity. “If I wanted that, you’d be dead already.”
“Like them?”
No response.
“What about him?”
“He’s my way of getting you here. You look like you don’t approve. I left him alive, for now.”
“You’re not going to kill him.” The pressure on my shoulder blade increases.
The blood rushing to my head is dizzying. I try again to lift my chin, move my legs, anything to change positions and see how I’ve come to be face-down over a horse.
“Wouldn’t his death be to your benefit?” the woman says, and I instantly find it imperative to break free of whatever’s holding me in place. “The bond you have with him must’ve been an adjustment for you. Such a taxing price for giving away your energy. Don’t you want to be free of him?”
“You don’t know me.” Britta’s words are sharper then the dagger she carries. I imagine her face is pulled into the same menacing scowl she’s thrown my way many times. “Don’t speak as though you do.”
“I wanted to meet you. See for myself the girl who broke my bind. Did Enat tell you how at eighteen you fully come into your ability? Merry birthday, my child.”
A scoff or a gasp and then the hand on my back leaves, taking its warmth. I stretch my neck, but all I can make out is the broken brush around the horse’s legs. My position makes it too difficult to take in anything beyond the ground beneath me.
“No farther.” Britta’s command has me momentarily pausing my struggle to loosen the ties on my wrist.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious? No one in all of Malam is like you. No one but me. I brought you here today to join me. It’s my gift to you. You can come with me, to be with other Channelers.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You don’t want to be on the losing side, Britta. Why stay loyal to a man who hunts our kind? He’s weak. Look how easily his men fell before him. Aodren doesn’t deserve your allegiance any more than he deserves to rule this country. Come with me and I’ll teach you. I’ll give you your independence from him. I’ll show you how strong Channelers truly are. Don’t you want to know all you’re capable of?”
Silence.
Flashes of memory break through—
A maid in my bedchamber, saying she’d come to collect a chamber pot and seeming startled because she hadn’t expected me.
The same woman standing over my bed beside Jamis. Her voice in my head. Her words coming out of my mouth.
A veiled woman on the path today, seeking help, claiming her carriage had overturned just around the bend.
Her face, showing through the veil as she stepped closer. Recognition slamming into me.
Britta’s talking with the Spiriter!
I groan and fight harder against the restraints. She said she was Britta’s mother. But that cannot be. I’ve known Britta’s father—and by extension, Britta—her whole life. Her mother died when she was born. The woman is either manipulating Britta or she’s returned from the dead. Either way, I wonder if Britta knows the Spiriter isn’t alone. I remember that much now.
I wiggle some more.