Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 26

There is something odd about the way the Duchess stands in the workshop alcove with her back to the passage. I expected her to be pacing, wringing her hands, anxiously checking for my return. Instead, she is as still as one of her bone-dry clay models. A deep part of me warns I should proceed with caution, but anger eclipses reason.

I slip into the alcove and bang the door shut. The Duchess's shoulders jump in fright. When she turns, neither remorse, nor shame, etch her cold expression. The sting of it, in the face of Kel's pain, fuels my blazing outrage.

"Do you even know how your guards are treating him?" I spit. "Your son is almost the same age. You are Uru Ana. How could you let your men do this!"

"The journey here was not kind on him," she answers.

"The journey, or your men?"

"They had to transport him in a wooden chest."

In my mind, I see Kel trapped and crushed in a dark clothes chest, getting bashed about as the men's horses gallop south. Starved of air, and light, and hope. I stare at the Duchess with dry eyes. I have no more tears to cry. But grief can move beyond the body I discover, to furrow rifts in the soul.

"The bruises on his face were not from being bumped around," I say, stepping closer. Before she grapples for another pitiful excuse, I slap her hard. My hand leaves a red imprint on her cheek. She gasps, and shrinks back, covering the injury.

Behind the alcove wall comes a scraping sound. We are not alone! There is another mind, dulled and hidden by mist berries.

I spin around the wall of the alcove, swiping a large ballerina statuette from one of the drying racks to arm myself.

"Watch who you're striking, Mirra," Tug says. He has followed us here! Or the Duchess arranged for him to come. How could I have been so naive?

I leap at him with the figurine. He blocks my aim for his head. The clay shatters across his arm. I try to punch him in the neck but he grabs me, wrapping his fist around the top of my shoulder, squeezing my healed arrow wound. The edges of my vision twinkle with white specks, but I am happy to be pitted against someone who will fight back. Someone who will make the hurt real and muffle the unbearable pain of my brother's suffering.

Kel is dying. If I do not take him from Lyndonia tonight, he will not survive another week. The Duchess will force me to break this last promise, and it will destroy him. All for Tug, and his stupid loyalty to a selfish, cowardly woman, who would willingly send another child to be assassinated in her son's place.

I spit in the direction of the Duchess and hopelessly kick at Beast-face. His grip risks pulverising my rib cage, but I don't care. Elise's eyes widen with shock at my transformation. Yes, Your Grace! Take a good look! I've grown up in the dark northern forests, hunted and hiding. I'm no more than a wild beast!

As she realizes Tug's hold on me is unyielding, and I will not be escaping to strike her again, a little of her composure returns.

"This!" I sneer at him. "This woman is who you have dedicated your life to protecting and destroyed yourself for? She is honorless! She is disloyal! She is selfish and cowardly!"

One of Tug's great, brute hands pinches my jaw to stop my insults. I spit and bite but he doesn't let go. He tilts my head, compressing a nerve. A bolt of pain zigzags up my neck. Leaning over, he growls in my ear. "How many lives would you risk hurting to save Kel?"

"I'm nothing like her!" I hiss. But deep inside, I'm not so sure. Would I kidnap Jules and hold him prisoner, if it meant Kel could return to Ma and Pa? I would, without a second thought, betray the Prince, and leave Tug and Brin to die.

I give up struggling, exhausted, and aware it is pointless. Tug's hand loosens around my mouth.

I'm heaving and puffing and burning with indignation. "At least I don't pretend I am noble and kind. My choices have been ripped from me. I have no other options. Unlike you. Unlike her!"

Duchess Elise swishes closer. "You will stay in Lyndonia," she says, "until Prince Jakut receives word of his father and leaves for the Ruby Court. You will go with him and do what you were purchased to do. You will discover who is behind the Prince's assassination and whether my husband and son are also targets. Your brother will remain here until I am confident Jules's life is not in jeopardy."

So haughty and sure of herself now she has Tug to protect her. She is a false and brutal beauty.

"Kel will die," I tell Tug, "if he remains her prisoner. He will not last until the third moon."

"You have my word," Elise says. "I will do what I can to keep him alive."

"Your word means nothing to me. Your own husband does not know who you really are."

"You stand nothing to gain by telling the Duke the truth," she answers. "He would not believe you."

Her confident bearing doesn't fool me. "You doubt your own words. Besides, your husband might be a fool, but he would recognize the truth fast enough if I told him who Tug really was, and why you were waiting at the waterway last night."

"I told you I was not waiting for anyone."

"Yet Tug came," I guess. "And when he saw us together, he followed you back to your quarters to speak to you." It is only an assumption, but in the mind-world a memory flits to the surface, confirming it.

She moves quickly through a dark alcove. Tug lurks in the shadows. She instructs her guard to wait for her at the end of the passage.

"You of all people," she says, "understand the ties between a brother and sister."

"He is not your brother," I snarl. "You were waiting for him because you used to be in love with him. Because you're still in love with him."

"Stop!" she whispers.

"And the Duke suspects your feelings, and suspects that you and Tug are not true brother and sister. How long did you put off having children, terrified one of them would be glitter-eyed? What would you have done if you'd seen Claudia's eyes sparkle in her first days of life? Would you have let her live, or strangled her in her crib to protect your secret and your own life?"

"Enough!" The violence in Tug's voice rips through my haze of contempt. "You will go," he says, "with Prince Jakut to the Red City and discover who is behind his assassination attempt. You will discover whether the Duke and Elise's son are in danger. You will report back to her regularly. I will take charge of Kel. I will tell him of this bargain and return him to Blackfoot Forest myself."

I grow quiet, weighing up why Tug would make such an offer. Is it so he'll still be paid by the Prince? Or to protect the unrequited love-of-his-life's secret? Is he trying to win her over with a show of mercy?

Away from this oppressive fort, back in the hands of Beast-face and on his way home, Kel would start eating. As always, Tug understands I will accept some hope over none. I am bound to.

Jakut cannot be informed of the situation. I have hidden too much from him for too long, and after last night, the distrust between us is unbridgeable. Besides, if the Duchess suspects I have confided in the Prince, she would be forced to get rid of Kel. She would probably send him to the tundra or kill him to save her own skin.

"If you take the boy," she says to Tug, "what assurances do I have she will report back?"

Oh, how I'd love to knock her down, back to the earth and grime she was born into.

Tug cracks his knuckles. "If I hear that she has not upheld her part of the bargain, I will take a half-dozen men into the northern forest and slaughter her parents."

I curl my lips in a contemptuous smile. Beast-face cannot hide his true nature for long. Even his efforts to show mercy and grace are steeped in violence. Good. It means I know if I stick to my end of the bargain, he will stick to his.

Oops, forgot to post the chapter yesterday. Sorry it's late. xox