He made it across the yard, to the outer wall. The man stationed there, recognizing him, pushed the iron grate outward, and it swung open. “Thanks,” he murmured, blood racing. He’d done it—killed the queen and got out of the castle alive.
A wave of nausea rolled over him, and he staggered. He turned back to the guard and tried to give him a reassuring grimace. She’d compelled him. That was what the icy energy zipping through his blood had been. He forced his body into the first alley he came across and fell to his knees. He could almost laugh that a punishment had been her final act.
Johnneth could hardly think as he stumbled down the alley, her shocked glowing silver eyes a haunt in his mind obscuring the path before him. A few more steps and he was on his knees again. The further he got from Roskide, the sicker he became. Still, he crawled forward. He’d crawl all the way to Veetula if that’s what it took to get away from here. His stomach clenched, then he was spewing up its contents. Bile and the remnants of the sugary truffles splashed on the worn stones beneath his palms.
He scrambled back a few feet, and the nausea eased. Testing the limit, he advanced, and again he was vomiting on the alley floor. Gasping in giant breaths, he pushed himself backward and pressed his back against the building right inside the alley. He couldn’t get more than a few yards beyond the castle walls without illness incapacitating him. Caroline had confined him to Roskide. She probably had faith Angus would eventually sniff him out. Deliver the punishment she hadn’t had time to do.
Wait. She could have compelled him to throw himself from the nearest window. Take the dagger and end his life right then, but in the split second before she vanished, she’d decided to keep him there,alive. He shuddered. It was like she sensed she’d be back and wanted to deal with him herself.
Dread lanced through his mind, almost making him need to hurl again.
He didn’t know how long he stood in that alleyway collecting his thoughts, but eventually, he peeled himself off the wall and made his way back to Roskide.
“Back so soon?” the guard said, eyeing him.
“Changed my mind,” he answered, hoping the man couldn’t see his sallow skin, the telltale sign of fighting the queen’s compulsion. He supposed he could chalk it up to food poisoning. He’d certainly retched enough.
“Angus made it back yet?” he asked the man as he approached the attendant’s entry.
“I believe he’s due within the hour.” The guard stepped aside, allowing Johnneth to pass through unhindered.
Good.He sighed internally. That would give him time to get his composure before he needed to inform Angus of her visit to the Gods. He had to keep up the ruse, since he was confined to this castle.
If she never returned, Angus couldn’t suspect him, and maybe he could have some influence over the fate of the kingdom in limbo without its queen. She had trusted him, and her commander might too. A guilty twang bit at his conscience. The worst case he could envision was being sent from Roskide by Angus on some mission and being discovered when he was unable to leave the confines of its walls.
Once back to the relative security of his room, he pulled his shirt off, tossed it aside, and surveyed the scratch marks on his forearms. They were shallow but had drawn enough blood for Caroline’s compulsion to take hold.
A few inches of water was in the basin on his dresser. Scooping up a handful, he splashed it on his face. The crisp water cleared his head immediately. His eyes shot to himself in the mirror. Could a Dallimore’s compulsion survive them? If Caroline was dead, how was he still resigned to the castle? He watched his reflection as the color slowly drained from his cheeks.
Part Three –
The Ivory Rose
Chapter 1
Carolineblinkedawaywhatwere the last moments of her life. For surely this was the end. She still wrapped her slim fingers around the rosenwood dagger. Her hand was too pale and red poisoned veins spidered out from where Johnneth had driven it into her.
Johnneth. She shook her head. Anything that beautiful had to be a fiction. She should have known. That kiss couldn’t have been real either, though it had cracked that obsidian wall that kept her safe.
The dagger would kill her. They’d won. Veetula would take her kingdom, even if Angus freed Emmy and let her reign. Her sister wasn’t clever enough to keep them at bay. When she died, would her imprisoned sister inherit the Gift, or would it die with her and Everstal would be no more? A part of her preferred the Gift to die than go to that traitor. Even after ten years, she still resented her sister.
A scream bit from her lips as she wrenched the dagger free. The gnawing chasm where the blade had been seared and the wound’s fiery edges curled outward. Caroline’s knees hit the white marble floor with a crack she didn’t feel. Her awareness, too, consumed with the death creeping through her body to feel a minor stab of pain.
White marble.
Her gaze shot up to the five Gods who sat on their benches around her in a semicircle, watching her life slowly seeping away. Caroline forced herself to get to her feet. She hated them in that moment more than she hated anything. Even the man who’d killed her. He at least believed he served some sort of loyal purpose. The Gods were just voyeurs who found their satisfaction in the misery of humans like her. She refused to let them see her so defeated.
“You’re going to just watch me die? You could heal me.” Caroline hated the pleading in her voice. Hated that she needed what only the Gods could give. She longed to be back in Everstal. She’d sit through days of Petitions, fight through the mountains of paperwork that ruling required if she had the chance. She never balked at it. It was what she lived to do.
“Why do you think we brought you here, daughter?” Life said, her ethereal voice as low as Caroline had ever heard it. They weren’t pleased.Good, she wasn’t pleased either.
A chill swept across Caroline’s skin, a thread of power from Life sent to stall her death.
Fury reddened her vision as she studied the unmoving beings. Only Death sat glowering. The others had impassive blankness scrawled across their androgynous features. If they planned to save her, they sure weren’t acting like it.
Caroline was used to pain. It had become a friend, a constant in a strange way. Dying, or it was the reaction her body had with the rosenwood—this pain was unlike anything she’d experienced before. Every thread of her being vibrated with lightning-fast shocks of electricity, so hot they eclipsed fire, as they danced through her insides. It was like burning alive with the power of a thunderclap.
She reached up and touched her wet cheek. Caroline pulled her sleeve up, cursing the silken fabric that would be a poor tool to soak up the tears that sprung unbidden from her eyes. The sultry gown she’d worn to tempt him. Her mind kept drifting back to her murderer. Something about it didn’t sit right with her. Aside from the obvious.
