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“Not yet. I might need her.”
I could feel Zehr’s indignation and confusion through our bond, and I tried to push him away, but I couldn’t. He was in my head, and I couldn’t get rid of him.
“You have to kill her or she’ll keep running the Scourge!”
“No, she won’t,” I said, then realized Kessily’s gaze had snapped to mine. I’d accidentally spoken aloud.
I heaved Zehr off the bed, pulling him over my shoulders once again. My knees buckled. Gods, I was almost spent.
But one more push.
I leapt forward.
Kessily threw herself back against the other side of the cage, trying to get away from me. I dove into the shadows, then came out again behind her.
I seized Kessily and dragged her with me as I slid into the shadows.
CHAPTER9
Honor
I traveledto the dungeon I’d seen in Joachim’s old castle, the one way where he’d once caged me and where he’d caged Lynx long ago.
I left her inside the locked cell, and then traveled outside it. Kessily stared around in confusion.
The dungeon haunted me. Everywhere I looked, the faintest wisps of memory rose in my mind: a pit of hunger in my stomach, bleeding fingernails from scrabbling along the stone, trying to use my broken nails to comb through my hair which had become one massive knot threaded through with hay. The memories came with a sense of misery and dread, and a tremor ran through my body like the memories were physical. I raised my hands in disbelief to realize they were shaking. I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t control them. The same bitter edge of panic bit into my chest, making it hard to breathe, like when Caldren and Jaik were in mortal danger.
“Honor,”Zehr said quietly.
I didn’t want to ask him if he could see what flickered through my mind the way I’d glimpsed his past earlier. I didn’t want to know.
I turned a bright smile on… no one. Kessily was backing up, staring around, horrified.
“I know you’re going to try to summon the Scourge to help you,” I said quietly. “So let me tell you now that won’t work.”
She turned a rebellious gaze my way. “I have more power than your dying would-be king.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But you don’t have more power thanme.”
“You’re nothing,” she began.
“Do you know the spell Teris used on me?”I asked Zehr.“To shut me up?”
“I may have been watching from the shadows.”
“Help me. Keep her from ever being able to command the Scourge, even if she still has a shred of your power.”
“My wicked queen.”Zehr sounded delighted.“My pleasure. But why do you want to keep her alive when killing her is so simple?”
“She hurt my best friend. She doesn’t get to die simple.”
Besides, I needed something to offer Ebba. It was the wickedest thought I’d ever had, and yet… when I thought of Caldren’s life being taken by the chaos god, I would do anything to stop Ebba.
I used Teris’s spell to seal her lips from giving any order to the Scourge.
Then I left Kessily there in my old cage.
She broke that eerie silence by screaming and screaming and screaming before I faded away.
