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The words spilled out, my razor-edged confession. It was both freeing and infuriating to admit this to a total stranger.
His eyes narrowed briefly. “Academy?”
My mouth opened and closed. If he didn’t know about the magical academy, then he was either from a faraway kingdom or…or he’d been here much longer than I’d thought. But if that were the case, he’d be an old man. I shook the thought away.
“I’m not a mind mage,” I said. “They threw me in here because they assumed I was. And I have to get out, because I’m afraid they’ll do the same thing to my brothers.”
Fear caressed my spine. Danny and Archer had to be warned, had to be saved. I glanced at the creek again. There must be a way out, no matter that no one in eighty years had found it. Now, more than ever, I wanted to believe those childhood fantasies that spoke of creatures slipping from the maze at night.
Ash studied me again, this time with an intensity devoid of mocking or mischief. He seemed curious, which was somehow more unsettling. People tended to avoid looking at me, and if they did look, their glances were often accompanied by poorly delivered insults.
“What?” I finally burst, unable to stand the silence.
“Come with me.” He reached for my arm, but I jerked away from him, noting a small, straight scar on his forearm. His right forearm. “You’re not what you think, Vera Rivers. And I can’t let your magic keep breaking things around here.”
“Breaking?” The only thing I’d broken was a few twigs. “I haven’t broken—” My words stopped as I recalled the strange memories I’d seen the two times Ash had appeared. He’d accused me of attacking him with magic. I must have seen into his memories, somehow.
Then it hit me. Like a solid wall bursting from the ground and toppling me. The hands I’d seen in that flash of battlefield memory were Ash’s hands. He’d been in the war that took place eighty years ago.
“You said you’ve been here a long time,” I began, trying to gain the courage to say what I’d just concluded. “Tell me your name again,” I said, voice shaking. “Your full name.”
His expression darkened and he leaned toward me. “Figured it out, have you?”
The name I’d learned in class, the name everyone in the entire kingdom of Bevon knew and feared, whispered through my memories as I stared at this man’s deep brown eyes.
“You’re him. You’re Henry Asher. The mage who started the war.”
7
My head began to shake, first in small motions, then in increasingly larger movements. “No. It can’t be.”
He sighed and collected the bow and quiver from the ground. “Not many of the prisoners here have discovered this information. I would prefer if you kept it to yourself.”
He wasn’t even denying it.
I backed away, wrapping the leather belt around my waist with shaky hands.
“Don’t walk away,” he said.
"Don’t talk to me!”
He folded his arms. “I could make you come with me, but I’d rather not.”
Gaping at him, I tried to fill my lungs, but my breaths had gone shallow once more. “You didn’t have a problem controlling entire armies in the war.”
His expression darkened. “And people can’t change, can they?”
I paused, one hand holding tightly to the knife hilt at my waist. “You murdered thousands of people.”
“It was war.”
To that, I had nothing to say. My throat had closed up so that only ragged, wheezing breaths sawed through me.
“You may think what you wish about me, but I cannot let you go.”
I pulled the knife out, knowing now that he could make me stab it into my own stomach if he wished. This was the villain that had caused mind magic to become illegal. How he was still alive, I didn’t want to know.
“I’ll attack you again!” I warned, my voice weak and uncertain. At the thought that I'd considered this man attractive, I heaved with disgust.
