Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(69)

Cettie found her pouch with the remaining stub of Everoot and quickly removed the little patch of moss with speckled flowers. The lamp illuminated it in her hand. The craving to use the magic on herself was strong, but it felt wrong, so she endured her own pain.

Some of the other prisoners were beginning to gather around now that the snakes had been repelled by the Leering’s light. Cettie felt no threat from any of them, just fear and budding hope. They’d been prisoners there. Slaves. They would be grateful to escape.

“Here, let me,” Cettie said, bringing the moss closer.

“What is that?” Adam asked, his brow wrinkling.

“Trust me,” she said. He backed away at once, still pressing his fingers to the bloody wound. Cettie touched Trevon’s jaw with the moss. Tingles of magic shot down her fingertips into Trevon’s body, and she saw him shudder and groan in relief. The frantic spasms passed, and soon he was breathing cleanly again, his chest rising and falling.

The magic winked out, and Cettie saw nothing left of the root in her hand. As Adam pulled his hand away, he gasped in shock.

“The wound is closed?” he said in surprise.

“It’s a healing plant,” Cettie explained.

Trevon tried to sit up and, with a little help, succeeded.

“I’d almost given up hope,” Trevon gasped. “Sera? Is she alive? I must know the truth.”

Cettie and Adam exchanged a look, then Cettie put a comforting hand on the prince’s shoulder. “We don’t know, but we think so. She was abducted by Lady Corinne a few days ago.”

“Abducted?” Trevon said. “I’ve been in isolation for months. I don’t even know how much time has passed since . . . since . . .” His chest began to heave. “Since our wedding.”

“It’s been over a year, Prince Trevon,” Adam said.

“A year?” he said incredulously. He looked heartsick, bereft.

Cettie’s eyes caught a couple of familiar faces among the prisoners. She almost did a double take. Rand and Joanna Patchett. The real Rand and Joanna Patchett. How strange that she’d never met them.

“Randall Patchett?” Cettie said, looking at him.

“Do I know you?” he answered, confused. He shot a worried look at his sister. “You seem . . . familiar. I’ve heard your voice.” He rubbed his brow in consternation.

She rose and walked toward them. So much to explain. But there wasn’t time. Not yet.

“I must go,” she said, turning back to Adam. “I must stop my father.”

“We’re all going,” Adam said with determination as he rose. “Can you stand, Trevon?” When the prince nodded, Adam gripped his hand and pulled him to his feet. “All of you, come with us.” Adam grabbed the broken lantern, still alight, in his other hand and carried it with him.

Cettie strode ahead, feeling fatigued and drained. The superhuman magic that had filled her moments before was gone. If she’d lain down, she would have fallen asleep in moments.

But she trudged up the stairs, hearing the report of weapons through the walls. With Captain Dumas dead, there was no way to find out what was going on outside. Her father had the magic to turn invisible. He could shoot every dragoon, one at a time. The urgency of the situation lent her strength to mount the stairs faster. Adam brought Trevon after her, and the other freed prisoners followed them, anxious to be away from the dungeon.

Cettie rushed up to the main level and ran toward the door leading to the courtyard. She sensed the magic of a kystrel just beyond it, the power whirling like a storm. The door burst open suddenly.

No one appeared in the doorway, but Cettie could sense her father’s presence. The magic was cloaking him. She sensed its power, felt its threads weaving the illusion—and, with a twist of her mind, she unraveled them. The illusion dropped away, revealing her father standing in the doorway, one hand clutching a pistol.

He stared at her in surprise.

Just as a bullet hit him in the back of the head.

His eyebrows arched and then his legs crumpled, and he fell backward. Standing behind him, pistol in hand, was Aunt Juliana.

“Got you this time,” she muttered darkly, lowering the weapon. Only then did she notice Cettie standing before her.

“I was coming after you,” Juliana said. Her tempest, Serpentine, hovered above the courtyard behind her, its rope ladder swaying in the wind.

Cettie stared down at the body at her feet, the eyes still blinking, his mouth moving but no sound coming out. He was still alive, paralyzed. His eyes were haunting, frantic, desperate. His whole body began to quiver.

“Daw . . . tur . . .” he choked out.

Daughter.

She stared at him in shock. The hate and revenge that had motivated him throughout his cursed life was spilling away now, trapped beneath limbs that would not move as he directed them. Blood pooled behind his head on the cobblestones. He was dying. He was helpless.

Cettie felt anguish seeing him like that. There was no illusion this time. No forgery. He was truly dying. She had no Everoot left to save him.

“Daw . . . tur . . .” he whispered again, his voice fading.

He was not her true father. Not in any of the ways that mattered. But she didn’t hate the man who had given her life. Not even for shooting Fitzroy.

She pitied him.

“Save . . . mmmgghh!” His eyes fixed on her in desperate pleading. He was going into the beyond, to face whatever punishments awaited him. She could see the torture in his eyes.