WHEN WE FINALLY MAKE OUR WAY ONTO Adora’s estate, it’s twilight and our horses and bodies are ready to give out from the day’s pace. Eogan sends Colin off to wash and rest. As soon as he’s gone, Eogan and I brush down the mounts and work to avoid each other’s eyes in the barn’s buttery lantern light.
Haven flicks her head, grunting for more as soon as I’ve finished. When I don’t give in, she catches her halter chain around her leg and winds herself up in protest. And glares at me.
“You’re such a baby,” I murmur, and bend to unwrap it, struggling when I realize my crooked fingers are stiff from riding.
Eogan is instantly behind me. “I’ll do it.”
“I’m fine. I’ve got it.”
“You’re not fine. You’re putting your face next to an exhausted, half-starved horse like a lunatic. Let me do it.”
I don’t move. Mainly because I’m so tired that if I stand, I’ll either dissolve in his closeness or lash out at his face. Either way, I’ll make a fool of myself, and I’m not in the mood to be mocked tonight. “Look, just go take care of whatever it is you have to take care of, okay?” I whisper.
He doesn’t argue, but he also doesn’t budge. Just stands there, leaning over me, being attractive and holding out his hand. Finally, he sighs and reaches around to grab her harness and hold her head while I struggle with the metal rope.
“Thank you,” I mutter when I’m done.
He unhooks her halter and pulls it over her head, then coos her into the stall. I walk away without looking back at him.
Adora’s voice carries across the yard and makes me jump. She’s yelling my name.
“Tomorrow we’ll be training up at a lake while Colin stays behind to rest,” Eogan says coolly just as I reach the barn door. “Bring a water satchel and cloak.”
I nod and rush off to the house.
When I reach my bedroom, the door is ajar and Adora’s shrill voice is emanating out along with the pungent smell of soap. I push it open to find Breck on hands and knees scrubbing the wood floor and Adora standing at the window.
She turns, and I swear the entire drapery moves with her, as if her pantsuit was made from it. She’s wearing the highest pointed heels I’ve ever seen. No wonder she yelled across the grass instead of stomping over to get me. “Ah, there’s the deaf girl. I was beginning to think you were being defiant.”
“I was brushing down the horses.”
She arches a brow. “I hear Colin is hurt.”
I nod and glance at Breck. She doesn’t turn. Just tucks her auburn hair behind her ear and keeps scrubbing. She looks weak hunched over like that, and the skin above her collar is yellowish. I peek closer. It’s sporting what looks to be a half-hidden gash. There are smaller ones on her arms.
What the—?
“Breck!” Adora snips in a loud whisper.
The servant girl looks up and something’s clearly wrong with her. Her face is puffy and there’s bruising around her eyes. She’s either been beat up or in a fight. She stands. Bows to Adora and mumbles that she’ll be back later to finish.
As soon as she’s gone, Adora’s gaze is back on me. “And Eogan? How was your time with him?”
“Fine. What happened to Breck?”
“Fine how?”
I stare at her straight on. “Like I-despise-him fine. What happened to Breck?”
The first part seems to please her because she instantly smiles and swaggers over to me. For a second she looks as if she’ll brush a hand across my hair, then pulls back and wrinkles her nose, taking in my outfit. “I’m glad to hear it. I trust you’ll keep it that way. It’d be a shame to . . . cause anyone grief.” She walks over to where Breck was cleaning the floor and taps her foot, drawing my gaze to the stained wood.
Wait . . .
My lungs fold.
Even from this distance I can see it’s blood. Dried into two tiny separate pools.
I snap my head up. “What did you do to her?”
She lifts her hand and studies her sharp, green-painted fingernails. “It’s so reassuring to know I have your continued gratitude and commitment to my rules.” The foot tapping ceases. “I trust your skills have almost reached their full potential?”
I clench my teeth. She beat Breck without any idea whether I’d followed her rules or not. And now she wants to talk about my skills?
Of course she does.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Good, because I have a job for you and Colin. A way to . . . alter the disappointing course of this war, if you will. We’ve a small window of opportunity three days from now that I believe to be our chance to save Faelen. I spoke with Eogan before you left, and he agreed. In the meantime, Lady Isobel is visiting the next five days, and you’re to stay out of sight. Except, of course, for tomorrow evening’s party. Understood?”
I stare at the bloodstained floor through my anger and slowly force a nod.
She’s careful to avoid brushing up against me on her way to the door. “Oh, and before you dress for bed, wash the filth off yourself.”
As soon as she’s gone, I walk over to stand beside the blood. A servant being beaten is nothing I’m unaccustomed to, but Breck . . . The smell of the soap stings my nose along with my own sweat. It turns my gut. This was because of me?
My hands ball into fists even as my legs grow shaky and my vision narrows in anger, disgust. I slide to the stained floor before my knees give way. It’s always because of me.
Colin. The little boy’s village. The wolf. And now, Breck.
Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes I sit as the fury inside builds, inflicting pictures of the latest life I’ve destroyed—even if only a wolf. And of the lives I’m on the brink of destroying.
That I’m being conditioned to destroy.
I hate this, hate all of it.
The sky outside begins rumbling the same way my fingers are quaking, and suddenly that twisted thing inside me is aching, churning. I tug one of the knives Eogan made from its sheath and look around for my mugplant jar even as Eogan’s gaze drifts through my head.
I shake it off. How dare he invade my private space. Especially when part of this is his fault.
I press the blade against my skin to add a mark, a branch just beneath the bluebird. But that face, his gaze, won’t stop. And for whatever reason, I can’t shut it out. It comes again, lingering a moment before slipping a path all the way through me. And then abruptly there’s Adora’s face smirking down at Breck.
I stop.
Adora. I raise my shaking chin and glare at the bloodstain on the floor. I clench my jaw. From somewhere the determination emerges that, whether because of me or not, this insanity of Adora’s has to stop. And no mark of guilt is going to do that.
I lower the knife even as everything in me screams to continue—needs to continue.
But I won’t.
I don’t.
My hands are shuddering as I resheath my knife, just before I hurtle a roar of thunder to shake the entire house.