Satia jerked her head up, her face distorted with rage.
Caris’s bondmark flared blood-red and agony erupted at her wrist, catching her between breaths. She fell to her knees, gasping, as did the others.
“How dare you,” Satia raged, lips twisted. “There will be no one else to witness my pain. Bad enough to suffer these indignities in your presence. I have said no, and yet you defy me. You defyme.”
Caris tried to focus, to form words, but the pain squeezed the very breath from her body. She sprawled at the Bonded’s feet, dimly conscious that the others had also collapsed. Satia had hurt them all before but never this bad, never all at once. Never like this.
She flung out one hand, instinctively reaching toward the Bonded, arm stretched in desperate supplication.
“No,” Satia spat, drawing her robe closer. The burn in Caris’s arm intensified, crawling up her forearm as frustration and fury poured out of the Bonded and into the bondmarks.
Distantly Caris heard Nora whimper. Avice writhed next to her, lips peeled back in a horrific grimace. Flat, unable to move, unable to breathe, Caris felt the heat of the poison weave up her arm toward her shoulder. She wasn’t sure what would happen if it reached her heart. Probably burn it out of her body, as the Bonded willed.
Caris struggled to draw one last breath, make one last plea. She implored the cold face above her. “Bonded,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face, “your plan.”
It was too much. Caris collapsed in agony, face down on the stone floor, Satia’s red slipper inches away.
“You’re right,” Satia said. “I am not myself.”
The sudden absence of pain was a shock. The room was cold and quiet except for the breath that rasped in all their lungs. The memory of pain lingered in her muscles and her lungs. The burning receded down her arm, her bondmark returning to its normal black.
Caris dared to raise her eyes to the Bonded.
Satia stood, tall and straight, her red-hot, fiery rage gone, clarity returning to her eyes. “Lashing out like this, letting my emotions control my reactions, accomplishes nothing.” She smoothed her hair with a graceful gesture, frowning as she looked off into the distance. “No one prepared me for this aspect of the matter.”
“Perhaps no one can,” Avice’s broken whisper came. “Perhaps it needs to be experienced to know.”
“Perhaps,” Satia said. “At the least, I need someone who knows what they are doing.”
She lifted her chin and cradled her stomach. “This is the key to my future. My survival. Suffer what I must.” She deigned to look down at them.
“Very well, Guildmaster Forterran mentioned someone. Mira, find that midwife. Bring her to me.” Satia gathered up her robe and stepped over the mess and her Bondmaidens’ prone bodies, speaking over her shoulder as she strode toward her bedchamber. “I am exhausted. Avice, come and sing me to sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It took Iris a full day to recover.
She’d had a little warning of the Bonded’s rage, barely enough to hide in some brush and curl into a ball before the full agony hit.
Whatever had set off the Bonded, the pain had been the worst she’d ever felt, harsh and virulent. She’d no doubt she would have fallen if she’d been mid-stride. As it was, she just curled up tighter and tried to keep breathing. When the agony released her, its sudden absence left her gasping.
She managed to get to her pack, get her blankets and huddle under them, keeping every inch covered, trying to stop shivering. Never before had the Bonded lashed out like that, leaving her gasping and feeling bruised in every bone. The others had to have suffered as well; Iris had no way of knowing what shape they were in. Alive, hopefully.
It didn’t help her recovery that her shelter was no more than a thick bush and she couldn’t risk a fire. The rain had cleared at least, and thought the sky was heavy with clouds, there was no wind.
Long before she was ready, the bond pulsed. The sense of urgency returned, the push at the back of her throat like a terrible thirst.
Iris forced her tired, aching muscles to move. The Bonded wanted this, so it had to be done. Iris had only one purpose now, far from her Bonded: to hunt.
So be it.
Except that she had lost the trail.
She found the hut quick enough, but there was just a trace of their presence in the dirt around the fire pit. No ash in the fire, but two rabbit pelts buried in the woods a distance away, starting to rot
She bit her lip; she could not return to the Bonded with failure.
She walked a spiral pattern with the hut at its center, moving slowly, looking for any sign, taking her time. Rushing would only cause her to miss something.
