Page 93 of A Courage of the Chosen

But it’s not who I am, and it’s absolutely not who I want to be.

The violent depths of that side of my heart scare me, and I fear if I let go, even a little, I’ll never come back from that edge.

It hurtles toward me now with darkness looming beyond it. What hides in the gloom? What would happen if I unleashed her?

“Elsie.”

Callahan’s cool command is what snaps me from the spiral. The only chord powerful enough to yank me back into myself.

“We’re done here. Arrest her. She’s to remain in the dungeons until her trial.”

Brodie and Callahan move at the same time.

“NO!” Lady Navin shrieks. “I will not go.”

She sends magic hurtling at both of the warriors, and everyone shoots to their feet to dodge the mist now flying around the room.

My light stops her spear from hitting Brodie, and Callahan is much too quick for someone like Shona Navin to catch him.

With a brief scuffle, her hands are bound back by Callahan, and her magic pathetically attempts to whip at him. He fends off every attack with ease, barely breaking a sweat as she struggles in his grip.

Together, Callahan and Brodie drag her to the door and the guards beyond, where instruction is given to take her to the dungeons. When she’s gone, much in the same way Hume was dragged from this room, I call my magic back.

The room grows dull in the absence of my light, and I take my seat, a single breath all I allow myself before addressing the rest of them. “I won’t apologize for doing what needed to be done.” I was surprised when it was only Lady Navin that had shared the information, I expected Lord Fettis to be working with them, too. “I’ve spent weeks trying to earn your trust. You tested me, and I proved you all wrong. Remember that trust works both ways. You now have some of mine. Don’t break it.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” they utter as one.

With that resolved, and with the clarity I needed about those helping me rule, we move onto the next topic, broached by Brodie.

“What do we do about Kerr?” he asks.

Callahan quickly explains in clipped sentences the horror inflicted upon him. Most turn pale in the wake of just how far Hume had gone to help the Dorche.

Kerr is in the hospital wing, restrained and sedated. The kind guard who helped me and Grandpa on the journey to Morven for the first time isn’t there anymore, and his sweet nature has been replaced by a senseless brutality. Seeing him in such a state was hard to witness, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must’ve been for Cal and Brodie to see their friend like that. Callahan has kept his feelings on the matter safely tucked away.

Today, we need to decide how to deal with him.

“The healers haven’t been able to withdraw the Dorche magic out. He’s slowly becoming one of them,” Reyne states.

“Then there’s no alternative,” Callahan says. “He will have to die.”

“What?” I whip my head in his direction. “You don’t want to wait and see what happens? It’s not Raghnall or Tavish. Surely the healers can keep working.”

“Your Majesty.” Reyne begins, and there’s a bit of uncharacteristic bite to her tone as she addresses me. No doubt because she’s pissed we didn’t clue her in. “There’s too much in his system. Drawing it out will likely kill him, and be incredibly painful. We’ll be doing him a kindness.”

“All in favor,” Callahan says, before I can even form a reply.

The entire room raises their hand in quick succession like we’re not voting on whether a person lives or dies.

“I’ll do it,” Brodie volunteers. “I knew his family, I’ll make it quick.”

“No,” I object, but it falls on deaf ears.

I don’t understand how they can be so cold. Even Reyne.

Kerr has been by their side for so long. A good man. Loyal. And they’re willing to kill him, just like that. Because there’s darkness in his heart.

So, this is what would happen if they knew about me? If they knew that Tavish’s magic crept inside me, shifting something at the core of who I am.