Frey (The Frey Saga, #1)(11)
“Elfreda Georgiana Suzetta Glaforia stands before High Council...” The formal tone severed my rambling thoughts and brought me back to a frightening reality. What would they do to me? How bad could the punishment be for sneaking into a library? And stealing a book. Maybe it wasn’t even about that, maybe Fannie had told them I broke into the vault. But they were my family’s things too, it couldn’t be that bad. She could lie. Maybe it was about something else, maybe something else. Maybe a dead bird.
A guard approached me. I had been rambling again, lost in my own thoughts. What had they said? The council leaders were each focused on my chest, the pendant there, lying flat against my skin in the V of the low cut gown and I abruptly realized they had ordered the guard to remove it. Why would they want my mother’s pendant? He stood, facing me, and raised both hands to take the leather chain over my head as I stared on insensibly. I felt his touch linger and automatically glanced down, surprised to see he had a firm grip on the necklace but wasn’t lifting it, couldn’t lift it. I looked to the council leaders as the guard turned toward the table and decidedly stepped away from me.
“The crystal will not be removed,” he said, and though he spoke only to them, it set in motion behind us a wave of murmurs that filled the room and reverberated up the high ceiling.
A council leader silenced the witnesses and then trained on me. “Who instructed you in fusion?”
I didn’t have an answer, I’d never heard of fusion. I didn’t know what to do. I looked toward Chevelle out of desperation. Maybe he had an answer, maybe he could help me. He was watching me, surprise clear on his face. Whatever I'd been accused of, he hadn’t expected it.
The council leaders mistook the exchange as an answer. “Chevelle Vattier, you have led this fusion?”
His head whipped back toward the council table and he shot out a forceful, “No.”
They focused once more on me, “I ask again, Elfreda, who taught you the magic to seal yourself to the crystal?”
I was at a loss. I stood, helpless, as Chevelle spoke up. “Elfreda.” He’d used my given name, I hoped simply because we were in a formal setting and not because of whatever horrible thing I had been accused of. He was pleading now. “Where did you learn how to fuse the pendant with your blood?”
Fuse the pendant with my blood? What was he talking about? I heard someone behind me. “… how did she know to keep it from being removed?” And someone else. “… who even left it with her?”
It came together then, the feeling I’d had when I woke and placed it around my neck, the part of the dream I shook off as I stood before the basin washing up, cleaning the blood from my hands, from the pendant. I wanted to explain, tell of what I’d seen in the dream, but it was foggy and I was too slow to pull it into thought.
I was too late; they had already passed judgment on me. Harsh judgment. The deep voice boomed with finality. “… convicted of practicing dark magic…”
I reached out my hand to plead for mercy, to beg to be given a chance to explain, and he began to list my lineage for the records. I was flooded with fury at the injustice as I heard my mother’s name and my outstretched hand became a fist. The speaker’s voice cut off. He grabbed his throat as the other council leaders rushed to him. His choking face stared directly at me, unquestionably an accusation, and I realized I was cutting off his windpipe, as if it were there in my outstretched fist. I released my grip.
He was surrounded now, and the room was filled with a roar of commotion and terror. My ears rang sharply, I had to look away from it all. When I turned, I caught my reflection in one of the larger mirrors, but it wasn’t me. No, it must be me but… unrecognizable. Not unrecognizable. My hair was dark and windblown, the bell sleeve of the long white gown hung from my still outstretched arm and the pendant against my chest seemed to be glowing. I ran.
As I ran from the chamber, I couldn't tell if anyone had even noticed, they all appeared to be staring at the speaker but, regardless, I concentrated furiously on not being followed. Do not catch me, do not find me, do not follow, do not find me, let me go, let me be safe, I was almost chanting in my thoughts. Out the building, out of the village, running as fast as I could, I kept thinking it over and over and over. I didn’t know where I would go, I just wanted away.
I found myself heading in the same direction I had the day before. But no, hiding in a briar patch wouldn’t work this time. Where was I going? I remembered my prior conclusion, they would find me if they wanted, it would be easy enough to find an elf with no magic and no clue. I stopped running. I tried to go back through what had just happened but it was too painful. I was so confused, so tired. I decided when they found me, I would surrender. I could see no other option.
No one came. I wasn’t going back but apparently they weren’t coming for me either. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had nothing outside of home, outside of the village. I didn’t even know where to go, didn’t know where I was really, just another clearing outside of the only town I’d ever known, or ever remembered knowing. I decided to find the briar patch. It wasn’t far, I found it easily and crawled into the narrow path I’d made the last time. I hadn’t realized what a tight fit it was then. This stupid dress isn’t helping. I settled in and reached over to brush the loose dirt off the papers I had buried.