The flap of wings filled the silence, and there it was—the eagle, gliding just above me. A startled breath shuddered from my mouth, puffing into the gloom. Somehow, I could still see, even without any real light. The bird was unmistakable now.
Something clamped around my shoulder, and I whirled, finding Laerune standing before me. Amid the darkness and the silver threads that seemed to be made of solid light, she watched me and didn’t.
I staggered back.
Her pupils and irises were gone, replaced by a ghostly white that fixed on me unblinking. Pale veins gleamed around her sockets, flowing like charged currents beneath her skin. I felt her gaze, though she couldn’t have been seeing. Her mouth moved, but her words were lost beneath the frantic flap of wings tearing through the air overhead.
Numbness crept through my legs, inch by inch, and though nothing moved, the silver lines pressed in, closing around me. Laerune’s strange eyes never left my face as she spoke again, yet, in my stupor, I could only hear part of it.
“The eagle…you…now.”
Something wet struck my eyes when I lifted my gaze, and I blinked.
The brightness of the silver threads surged, blurring Laerune until she vanished in a storm of red.
Blood-red petals, soft as velvet, burst where she had stood. More drifted from far above, falling between the silver threads. One brushed my lips, its velvet edges closing over my mouth. I couldn’t reach for it, and it smothered the scream as I called forhelp. Another sealed one eye, then the other, until red consumed everything.
Pressure swelled in my head, clawing at my mind as though something were trying to force its way in. It hurt. It hurt so much I could no longer think.
From behind my eyes, the eagle’s call echoed, loud and desperate, pleading for release.
I never learned if she let me go.
Chapter 19
Reagan
“The Highlands are now charging tolls on all goods passing through,” Finn said, his tone clipped and hard as he filled in the present staff members.
The chamber Reagan had chosen lay among the Hall’s lesser-used rooms, furnished with twelve stiff-backed chairs. He used it for visitors he intended to dismiss quickly.
Varian shifted in his seat, his mouth pulling into a grimace. “Why does this matter? Highlanders don’t even supply for themselves, as far as I know.”
Reagan’s patience, which was nothing impressive to begin with, was already thinning. He pushed the irritation aside with a long gulp of water. “It isn’t about their goods. It’s about their location. The farmlands produce the most, but how do you think we distribute them?”
When his cousin didn’t answer, Reagan rolled his neck, letting the soft crack ease some of his tension. Just like his power, it had been gathering at his shoulders and the tips of his fingers every minute he had to stay close to Varian. But right now, Reagan had bigger problems to solve.
If his cousin was as clever as he thought he was, he would have asked why the Highlanders were charging tolls for goods that they themselves needed.
Castor, the steward of the Highlands, knew the territory under his command was indispensable to Mountheim. It encompassed the only railway routes linking the estate to the three other towns that made up the farmlands, effectively bypassing the delivery portals.
If they had to pass through portals, it would be a logistical nightmare, with extra hands required at every gate. Shipments would pile up in transfer queues, needing storage room that didn’t exist, and towns would be left undersupplied, as inevitably happened.
“And he’s just charging for the goods leaving the Highlands, not what they are retaining,” Reagan guessed, and Finn confirmed it. “How steep?”
“Seven percent of the cargo,” Finn said.
Cerridwen sat impassive. The silent quality in the way she waited made it clear she had no intention of speaking in present company.
Reagan set down the glass of water that had long since warmed in his hand. “And their reasoning?”
“Inspection fees,” Finn explained. “He says there is need to control the traffic of hemlock.”
Hemlock. A paralytic plant traded quietly and never for anything decent. Still, it was never found in large amounts across Mountheim, nor did it grow in the farmlands.
Reagan knew the toll was a convenient excuse, one that allowed Castor’s goods to move first while everything else stalled behind inspections. A profitable manoeuvre, especially for a steward desperate to refill his coffers. But his yields didn’t sustain all towns, especially with the blight still chewing through Highland soil.
Once more, Reagan found himself praying to Zara and Godric that the wretched ground would recover sooner. He would bloody tend it himself if it would help.
