“Please.” Ronan lifted his hands to Mage Wolfson in desperation. “Please, don’t do this. You’ve made your point.”
“Her fate is your decision,” the wizard repeated calmly. His calmness added to his cruelty. How could he so coolly threaten my life?
Tears gathered in my eyes. Frightened tears, not only for myself but for the people of Colsbury.
When I was directly above the beast, my progress halted. I was face down and could see every detail of the wolf yanking against his leash, his red eyes on me. My breaths came out in short gasps.
I should’ve yelled to Ronan to keep refusing, to stand firm with his conscience. Fear closed my lips completely. My noble sentiments of protecting the innocent villagers abandoned me. I thought only of myself and the snarling beast below me. Spittle flew from his mouth. His teeth could’ve broken my bones into pieces, and his claws were as sharp as daggers.
But I didn’t beg for my life. I didn’t look at Ronan lest my eyes plead my case.
And perhaps that gave Ronan the strength not to acquiesce. “A man as great as yourself wouldn’t wish fire on children. There must be another solution.”
“Obedience is the solution. That is lesson two.”
I dropped a foot in the air, close enough that the wolf launched himself at me. His teeth didn’t reach me, but his claws swiped across my face. Pain sliced me from eyebrow to chin, deep, searing. I screamed and couldn’t stop even when the wizard jerked me upward.
“I’ll do it!” Ronan yelled. “Let her go! I’ll do it.”
My screams subsided to gasps. I gazed at Ronan in appreciation, all the villagers momentarily forgotten.
His eyes were shocked, horrified. I wasn’t sure if his horror was for the fate of the villagers we’d both so easily sacrificed or for my ruined face. Blood dripped onto the floor below me like red rain. It filled one of my eyes and I had to blink it away with my tears. It seeped into my mouth.
The wizard smiled in triumph, and it occurred to me that this was the first time I’d seen a true smile from him.Thishad made him smile. My face burned from anger as much as pain. I wished a thousand deaths on him.
He waved his hand. I flipped over and floated down onto his bed, leaving a red trail in my wake. The cord wound around my arms fell away. I tentatively touched my face and felt a flap of loose skin. When I pulled my hand away, blood covered it.
Ronan rushed to the side of the bed and took my hand. Perhaps for support, perhaps to keep me from touching my face again. His own hand trembled. “We need to heal her wounds. She’s bound to get blood fever otherwise.”
The wizard appeared next to him. He held a bottle of ointment in one hand and strips of linen cloth in the other. I knew wounds were difficult to heal, but certainly, someone of Mage Wolfson’s abilities could do it. My mind clung to that idea.
He didn’t hurry despite the stains I was leaving on his blankets. “You’ve learned your first two lessons well enough, but the third still escapes you.” He uncorked the bottle and poured its contents over the bandages. “Did you think I sent this girl to you all those years ago because I cared about your childish loneliness?”
Ronan’s hand was tight on mine. “I thought you sent her to help me study.”
Mage Wolfson slipped the empty bottle into his pocket, pulled a strip of cloth from the pile in his hand, and draped it across my chin. I expected it to sting. Instead, it felt cool and soothing. “I sent her because you were a willful boy, and even then I knew you’d require this lesson.”
What lesson? What could this attack have possibly taught Ronan except that Mage Wolfson was evil?
I wasn’t foolish enough to ask this question.
He placed a strip over my upper lip. The pain there immediately diminished. “Lesson number three: attachments to women leave you vulnerable. Vulnerability is weakness. With only a bit of hesitation, you betrayed your principles and the lives of an entire village. She’s made you weak.”
I hoped the wizard would add that he didn’t really mean to send Ronan to burn Colsbury, that this had all been a horrible, horrible test. But Mage Wolfson, too, seemed to have forgotten about the villagers. His eyes were on Ronan, a sneer growing on his lips. “Do you still think me a lonely, miserable, old man with no family, friends, or greedy children to gobble up my time?” Another strip of cloth. “I chose a solitary life, and it was the correct choice. If you’re wise, you’ll follow in my footsteps. If not, you’ll be as vulnerable and weak as you are right now.”
Ronan clenched his jaw. A muscle pulsed in his cheek. His eyes left mine and went to our hands, clasped together and both bloody now. I felt him let go a little. I grasped his hand to keephim from taking it out of mine. I would not let him pretend, even for Mage Wolfson’s sake, that attachments to people were a weakness.
No one spoke again until Mage Wolfson finished coating my face with bandages. He straightened and his voice returned to that of a teacher. “The ointment I just applied was made of yarrow, goldenrod, and a drop of Monoceros. What will I find when I remove these bandages?”
Ronan’s expression fell. He looked at the headboard behind me instead of at my eyes. “The healing process has been sped to its completion.”
“Yes. Her skin has already knit back together. The only proof of today will be the scars she bears. But that’s for the best. When you see them, they’ll remind you of the lessons you learned here.”
I would be scarred. I wanted to ask how badly. Some scars were faint. Some faded away.
The wizard began plucking the bandages off. “You’ll need to gather your provisions. On the morrow, you and Charles will leave for Colsbury.”
The villagers, it turned out, were not forgotten after all.