The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1)(58)

Since leaving the lost abbey, her dreams had been particularly vivid. She had thought it was the Medium’s will for her to relive parts of her past when she fell asleep at night, that the memories were being sent to assist her in some way. Suddenly it seemed as if the answer were altogether different. For days now, she had not been her true self at night.

Oh no, she thought miserably. What have I done!

Had her experience in the lost abbey enabled one of the Myriad Ones to take possession of her body as she slept? Had she returned to the hetaera’s Leering later, unwittingly, and received the brand? After visiting the dark pool within the lost abbey, she had lost consciousness for a time. It could have happened.

“I am sorry I do not have a ring to give you yet,” Collier said. “But in fairness, you did already receive one from my father. Do you recall it?”

Maia’s thoughts scattered, collected, and then scattered again. She trembled in the chair as if she had been struck by a fever. She hoped she would not vomit. “It was a silver ring,” she whispered, trying to quell the panic. “With a large diamond.”

He smiled. “The very one. Too small for your finger now. Maybe your smallest one.” He reached out and took her hand, caressing her smallest finger with his thumb. “I was not there, of course, being nothing but a babe myself. But there were two emissaries present—Chancellor Walraven and Aldermaston Bonnivet—as well as both of our fathers. When Bonnivet gave you the ring, or so he told me later, you said to him, ‘Are you the Prince of Dahomey? If you are, I wish to kiss you.’ I find that sentiment deliciously ironic now.”

Maia stared into his eyes, feeling lost and abandoned. Her last memory was exposing the brand on her shoulder. Something had smothered her mind in that moment, a presence thick as oil, making her black out. She obviously had not passed out. What had she agreed to beyond the marriage?

“What is it?” he asked her, dropping to one knee by her chair.

“My thoughts are a bit wild at the moment,” she answered truthfully. “Forgive me if I am unwell.”

He patted her arm and then rose. “Wine would only make you sick. Some water then?” She nodded briskly, and he went to fill her cup again. She had married him. In front of witnesses as well. What could she say to repudiate her actions? If she revealed that she was a hetaera, she would be murdered for certain. Was there a way she could be freed from the curse? There had to be! The maston lore spoke of the hetaera. She needed to find an Aldermaston.

Muirwood.

She shivered violently at the thought and gratefully accepted the cup brimming with water and gulped it down.

“Easy, lass. Do not drown yourself in it,” he teased.

The enormity of her situation spread a cloak of shadows across her mind. Had she been corrupted by Walraven as a child? Had his guidance and care been a means to an end? But how could that be? Her father was the one who had sent her to Dahomey. Walraven fell in disgrace, losing his title and his lands before his untimely death. But he had given her his kystrel, wrapped in a note. At the time, she had taken it as a sign of his unshakable faith in her, but could there have been a darker purpose? Was the kystrel’s magic irrevocably linked with the hetaera’s power? Where could truth be found amidst so many shadows?

Truth is knowledge. You must seek the High Seer. She knows the truth.

Maia shuddered in response to the whispers that would send her still to Naess. Was it even the Medium that spoke to her? How could she know whether to trust that inner voice? After all, it had sent her here. It had sent her on the north road. She pressed her fingers to her lips, stifling a sudden compulsion to weep. No, she could not! She did not cry like other girls. She did not surrender her will to her emotions. Maia pulled her feelings tight, wrestling against them. A small hiccup bubbled up. Her lips. She felt their shape against her fingertips.

Her lips could kill a man.

Help me, she thought desperately. Mother, help me! I am lost.

She had to make it to an abbey. The closest she could find. Only an Aldermaston’s power could save her now.

She looked up at Collier. His expression was so enigmatic. He was studying her closely, watching the whirl and shift of emotions in her eyes. He said nothing, only stared.

“What is wrong, Maia?” he whispered, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Your countenance has changed . . . again. Do you seek your . . . your mother?”

“My lord!” shouted a voice from outside the tent. “Riders! It is the Dochte Mandar from Roc-Adamour!”

A grim look played on Collier’s face. He stood and began pacing. “Delay them.”

“My lord, they are on my heels!”

Maia heard pounding hooves, the snort of several horses frothing with foamy spittle. She heard a sharp voice and the thump of boots hitting the dirt. She recognized the voice.

“Is His Majesty within?” Corriveaux barked. Her heart spasmed with dread.

“You must give my lord leave!” said a strangled guard. Maia felt the Medium ripple in the air and then the tent flap whipped apart and six Dochte Mandar stormed inside, Corriveaux leading the way.

He looked no different from how he had appeared in her mind. His trimmed beard was immaculate, but his skin was flushed and dripping with sweat. He wore his kystrel proudly on his chest, its metal gleaming against the black velvet fabric. He was a thin, lanky man, and his eyes were sharp as daggers. He saw her crumpled in the chair, and a look of blazing triumph coalesced in his eyes.