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I couldn’t take my eyes off all the injured. “Camps?”
“I can’t bear this, Grimm.” A harshness underlay Mama Jo’s tone. She waved her hands and hurried out of the room; obviously, the sight of so many injured shifters upset her a great deal.
Justifiably so, given the circumstances.
On the other hand,myfeet were glued to the spot, my thoughts on the plight of all these poor people.
“Help us distribute the water,” suggested Grimm. “And I’ll tell you everything.”
I followed him and Teeny to a bench that held clay mugs and a bucket, which they used to fill the mugs, and then they passed me two of them. Together, we distributed every cup. I gave one to a young woman with lash marks on her back, and she accepted the gift with a thankful smile.
“Once your father passed,” Grimm said, “your stepmother brought in a small army of paid mercenaries to help her defeat the ward’s army and seize control of his lands.”
So that was how she’d managed to work her evil plan. I knew she couldn’t have done so much damage on her own. The people of Tritonia were loyal to my father. I squeezed the clay mug hard, calling upon all my self-control not to throw it at the nearest wall. Teeny took it from me and handed it to a young man whose ribs protruded from his bare torso. The older man to whom Teeny gave away his last mug had burns across his shoulders, and the poor thing winced as he raised his arms to receive the gift.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
Grimm pulled me away to tell me the rest of the story. “Your stepmother then removed anyone loyal to you or your father, throwing them into the slave camps, forcing them to work on the farms or in mines she stole from others. Rumi, the farmers, the villagers—any shifter who posed a threat to your stepmother—were starved, beaten, or sometimes killed as a lesson to others. Even in front of the children.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth and moaned. The poor children, having to witness such horror. All of these hapless creatures had been abused like I had been. It was time for me to stop pitying myself; I wasn’t the only one affected by the evil witch. My shock and horror blended with my anger, burning up my insides, making me even more determined to destroy the witch before she hurt anyone else.
Grimm’s eyes glazed over with an equally thick and dark anger. “To ensure absolute power in Tritonia, your stepmother then installed her minions, placing them in positions of authority and elevating those who complied with her demands, rewarding them handsomely if they kept silent. If anyone dared challenge your stepmother’s power, they were rounded up and never seen again. Presumably, they were killed or worked to the bone in the slave camps.”
My legs wobbled. I knew my stepmother was evil. But I’d thought her desire for power only extended to my father’s territory, to only ridding the land of my father and me. I’d never dreamed she’d take so many other innocent lives.
“How…why would she do this?” I asked, shaking from the rage rolling through me.
Grimm’s hands twitched, and his posture curled forward. “Simple. Power.”
Teeny wrapped a stout arm around his friend and shook him, as if trying to calm his anger. “It gets worse, Snow.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it. Already, I’d had enough. But I braced myself for the rest of Grimm’s dark news.
