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Juliana’s words stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t speak.
“I didn’t want to hurt her,” he continued. “I never would have hurt her.”
“You drew your sword.”
He sighed, turning to stare at Cerridwen’s face. “I did,” he admitted. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? You and I? We fight. We turn to the blade when we cannot think.”
“I do that because I learned it from you,” Juliana whispered. “I don’t know another way to be.”
“It’s who we are, Juliana. Warriors. Fighters.”
But we’re fighting ourselves,Juliana realised.My entire life, I’ve made an enemy of my own heart.
Not anymore.
“Why?” she asked. “Why keep her here—why tell everyone she’d left? Why let me think…”
Markham exhaled, still not meeting her eyes. “I am sorry about that, or at least sorry about what it did to you. I tried to make you understand it wasn’t you she was abandoning, but I failed in that regard.”
Oh, Father, you have failed in so many more ways than that.
“I needed her to be alive, see. So that she could come back.”
Juliana’s insides iced. “What?” Her gaze fell once more to the markings around the coffin, the herbs, the candles— “What have you done?”
“She was still alive when I found her,” he explained. “Still clinging onto life. A witch came upon us quite by accident, and I traded a few of my years to keep her in this shell, her last breath preserved. She’s not dead, not truly. Neither is she fully alive. For years, I searched for a way to bring her back from the brink, all to no avail. And then… then I found Ladrien.”
Cold, hard realisation dawned on Juliana. “Your bargain. That was what he promised you. What he gave you. A way to bring her back.”
Markham nodded.
“But the answer—it wasn’t what you wanted?”
He nodded again, movements slow. “I knew a sacrifice would be required,” he continued, and Juliana noticed a number of dark stains on the floor, small… and large. “I just wasn’t sure what.”
“And?” Juliana sucked in her trembling. “What was it?”
For the first time, Markham’s eyes rose to meet hers. “The heart’s blood of the one I loved most in the world.”
Juliana’s veins chilled. She wanted to move back, but her feet remained stuck in position. Something rocked against the stone, dark and powerful.
Hawthorn.
Markham glanced around him, but said nothing. Not even when he drew his sword.
“No,” Juliana managed.
“I’m sorry, my dearheart,” he said. “There is only one way to make this right.”
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He won’t!
His blade lunged for her, and she drew Briarsong to meet it, not trusting her instincts over her steel.
His attack drove into her, knocking her back to the wall. The cave trembled more, but there were no vines here to help her. Nothing for Hawthorn to manipulate. The stone stood strong.
“Come, daughter!” Markham hissed. “Fight back like I taught you!”
“You don’t want to do this!”
