He scrawls my best friend’s name into the empty space. Just like with Braith’s information, the silver ink fades away.
It worked. It actually worked!
“Age?”
“Twenty-three.” At least, she would’ve been if she’d survived.
“Birthdate?”
“January fourth.”
“Previous employer?”
“Lady Marjory Rittey. She passed away.”
The man looks as if he couldn’t care less as he motions for me to join Braith at the river’s edge. Now to make it through the waterfall, and I’m in the clear.
Braith offers a hesitant smile as she strips out of her boots and stockings.
I bend to untie my laces with stiff fingers, slipping them off. My bare feet sink into the cold, silty sand. With my face burning, I remove my dress, knowing the thin shift beneath will do nothing to hide my nakedness once it gets wet. I ball up my things and adjust my hair to conceal the scars at my back, watching Braith disappear beneath the waterfall.
My feet slip into the icy water, and my thundering heart pounds louder than the torrent as I approach the freezing spray and step beneath the waterfall.
Water pummels my head and shoulders. I try to step forward, but the liquid has become a solid wall. I try to step back to no avail. My heart falters in my chest with blind panic. Somewhere, someone shouts.
This is it. This is how I die, drowned beneath Senan’s castle.
Let me through.Dammit. Let me through!
I’m not Scathian—not anymore. My wings are gone. My magic is gone. I am empty. Nothing. Please,please, let me through.
No matter how I shift, the waters refuse to let go.
More shouting erupts at my back.
Maybe this is just another punishment for binding myself to a Vale prince. For what happened to Wynn. For leaving Eason behind. For leaving my aunt. Maybe I deserve this fate.
Don’t give up, I swear Wynn’s soft voice whispers.You’ve come too far.
I squeeze my eyes closed and surge forward with every ounce of strength I possess. The water seems to part, and I fall through the liquid curtain, my knees slamming against the hard stones on the other side and my bundle of clothes spilling into the water.
Braith is right there, catching my arms and helping me to my feet. “Are you all right?” she asks, gathering everything I’ve dropped and handing it back to me in a sopping heap. “What happened?”
I clutch the soaked garments to my chest, peering back toward the water distorting the outline of three guards, their colorful wings wide and swords drawn.
“My…my foot. It got wedged between two rocks,” I lie, loud enough so the two women in white waiting on the shore with stacks of towels and garments can overhear.
“You’re lucky you didn’t drown.”
I glance back at those guards. Drowning was the least of my worries.
Together, we make our way to shore. It’s not until one of the Tuath women hands me a towel that I realize how badly I’m trembling. I wrap the dry linen around myself. Before we receive our uniforms, a burly man with a thick black mustache stalks out of one of the many passageways dotting the stone wall.
“Hands please,” he orders, removing a golden dagger from the sheath at his belt. Braith hisses in a breath when he pricks her thumb. A deep-red drop of blood wells from the tiny wound, which the man adds to a page in the notebook from his pocket. His hazel gaze slides to mine. “You’re next.”
Not wanting him to see my mating bond and start asking questions, I offer my right hand. The cut only hurts for a moment, and once he has collected my blood, the man disappears back through the same passageway.
I suck on my sore finger until the bleeding stops. “What is the blood for?”