Spirit Binder (8 page)

“Thank you.”

“Just doing our duty, my lady.”

“Yes. There is a lot of that going around.”

As she turned to head off to bed, Theo beckoned to the carpet, which, currently sulking in the corner, pretended to ignore her. Though she was quite mentally exhausted, she realized the guards might be able to provide some details relevant to her kidnapping and where she’d been for the last ten years.

“You were trained by my uncle Dougal before you were assigned here, were you not?”

“Yes, my lady,” the Corporal answered. “Not by him directly, nor in his Elite Guard, obviously, but he oversees all the guards. I was head of my class last year, and I specifically requested assignment to the Apex.” The corporal grinned, very pleased to be able to express his pleasure at getting his choice of assignment.

 
“And you, Davin?” Davin started a bit, perhaps by her use of his name, and stumbled over his answer. “I … I … came in the fall, my lady. Very pleased to be here.”

“Have either of you met me before?”

“No … no, my lady. Not until you returned four days ago. We were assigned to your guard, but … ah …”
 

“Then I slipped by you without you noticing and almost got myself killed?”

“Um, yes, my lady.”

“Sorry about that.”
 

The corporal straightened uncomfortably at her apology. “We failed you, my lady, not the other way around.”

Theo sighed, and let the matter drop. “When you were training in the Midlands, you never saw me there?”

“No, my lady. Should … should we have?” The corporal seemed confused by her question, but answered readily enough. Davin nodded, vehemently, in agreement.

“No, I guess not. Thank you for your time.” Could Dougal have kidnapped her and kept her segregated for ten years? How large was the training facility? Even if she’d only been among the Elite Guard, could Dougal really enforce such loyalty that no one spoke of her presence there? Perhaps he’d some how cloaked her identity? She was disappointed at the guards’ lack of information, but also aware that she should still try to be polite. “Will you work though till morning?”
 

“No, my lady. We should be seeing our relief at midnight. One hour.”

“Sleep well.”

The Corporal’s face flushed with pleasure and Davin bowed his head as if in reverence. “Thank you, my lady. I am sure we will now.”

∞

She wandered, not at all hurried, back to her rooms. The carpet pretend to not follow her, though it showed up in her room right before she slipped into bed, and she found it curled at her feet by morning.

Her thoughts became heavy and muddled each step she took closer to sleep. She fretted about the missing ten years, her increase in power, and what her mother was hiding from her. She fretted about the ultimate fate of the men in the dungeon. But, mostly, she fretted about Hugh. She wondered if he was going to sleep in the stables, and why. She wondered if it was easier for him to not be in the castle, to not be near her. Why did he stay at Hollyburn, if she was such a bother? Why had he come at all? It wasn’t as if the betrothal was scheduled to be formalized in the near future …

She really was having a difficult time remembering she wasn’t sixteen anymore.

∞

She dreamt again.
 

She realized where she was, and what she was dreaming, the moment after she felt the smooth surface of the gilded column underneath her hand. She looked around the darkened ballroom. It appeared now as it had earlier in the afternoon when she’d wandered through it; neglected and unused, covered in a pallor that had nothing to do with cleanliness and everything to do with lack of joy. A room like this should be continually filled with laughter and gaiety.

Though, honestly, if the reason it looked like this was because her mother had mourned the absence of her daughter, then she didn’t mind the dolefulness at all.

She glanced down to see she was wearing her clothing from today, so this wasn’t a memory dream as it had been before. The observation made her glance around to see if she’d been pulled here by a dreamwalker rather than her own dream state.

The ballroom was empty, but something about it put her on edge. Some sense-memory that she couldn’t access had triggered when she wandered through here this afternoon, and remained with her even in her dream.

The upsetting thing was that this memory loss seemed to predate the loss she was currently struggling through. She looked deep within the memory to trace the feeling, but came up with nothing.

“Theo.”

She turned to see Ren, if that was indeed his name, standing in the middle of the dance floor. Even in the low light, he looked completely out of place in light armor and sporting a sword, but, then again, he wasn’t really there at all. She had an inkling that he’d never be invited to one of her mother’s parties with all their tedious politics. She was, once again, stuck by how fiercely handsome he was, though there was nothing at all beautiful about him.

“Ren?”

“You remember!” He quickly closed the space between them. His smile transformed all the hard lines of his face, but it faltered when she took a few steps back at his approach.

He dropped his hands. They’d been raised as if to clasp her, which was odd for two reasons: he couldn’t touch her in a dream, but, if he could, why he voluntarily touch her at all?

“You look more like yourself.” He spoke as if he wanted to say so many things all at once but was restricting himself. “I hope that means you are well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I … I’m … I have … We’re looking for you. Are you in the castle?”

“At Hollyburn? Yes.” It was odd that he was asking, as surely that was common knowledge by now? That she’d returned?

“Has she got you locked up? In the dungeon? There’s been no ransom demand.”

“Why would there be?”

He looked as confused and frustrated as she felt.

“Theo. You are so … so … formal, and, and, coolly poised. Do you not know me at all?”
 

“No. Though I think your name might be Ren.”

“Yes. That’s good you remember that at least.” He grinned and she loathed to mention that she’d read the name, his name, from the dreamwalker, not that she’d remembered anything. But, then looking at him … maybe if she just took some time to look at him, she could remember … something about the sun and sand … the wind lifting her hair … she was holding something heavy in her left hand, which was odd because she was right handed … then the feeling dissipated.

“We met on a beach?” she guessed.

“No. Not on a beach.” His grin was gone again, and he ran an exasperated hand through his hair, again as if something was holding him back from speaking. “I have a feeling that there are many things at play here that I don’t yet understand.”

“That makes two of us.”

“A least we have some common ground.”

“Is that why you are here? Why the dreamwalker is using you to access my dreams? Because we have common ground?”

Ren looked sorrowful for a moment, and didn’t seem to want to answer her. Then she realized he was listening to someone on his side of the dream, someone she couldn’t hear, though she’d been able to hear the dreamwalker speak before. It was as if this was a different person, one she couldn’t feel or see, though a presence was there, if she looked for it. It was just heavily shielded.

Ren nodded and squared his shoulders as if gearing up to relate something that he didn’t completely want to say, or was worried about saying. And suddenly, after spending the entire day seeking answers, she was afraid. Afraid in a way she hadn’t even been on the cliffs, or when she’d woken in the tunnel underneath the castle. Ren was going to tell her things she didn’t want to know … not yet … not now, at least.

“Theo? What is it? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, but didn’t want to look into his concerned eyes, didn’t want to see the intimate way he tilted his body toward hers, didn’t want to know that she was supposed to know him. She was supposed to know him very well.

“I’ll find you, Theo. We’ll fix this,” he whispered fervently, like he was worried someone might overhear. “Whatever is really going on. No matter the obstacle. I promise.”

She shook her head and turned away from him.

“Theo,” he called, with the sound of her name full of emotion she couldn’t, wouldn’t process.

She was aware she was being manipulated from multiple directions now. She was aware that there were many things she didn’t understand, and clearly things she’d forgotten, and she was more than a little tired of feeling lost and alone, of not knowing who to trust or who to believe.

She didn’t know Ren, didn’t know who was talking to him on the other side of the dream, and she wasn’t going to let anyone control her any longer, not even in her dreams.

“Goodbye, Ren.” She turned and walked out of the ballroom. When she paused to look back, he wasn’t there anymore.

“Her magic radiates. She gathers followers just by walking into a room. Those men, those assassins, couldn’t figure out if they wanted to kill her or drop to their knees, and they were programmed to kill by someone powerful enough to block you.”

“Destroying a mind doesn’t take power or skill.”

“Not the point right now. You expect me to help you corral her, and yet the roses turn their heads toward her when she laughs, like she’s the bloody sun itself.”

“Be careful. It’s a fine line between admiration and worship.”

“Is it? I’ve never been good a towing a dictated line.”

“Which is exactly what makes you so valuable. Let’s just make certain it stays that way. Let the worshipers worship, while we make sure everything progresses smoothly.“

“She’s not a puppet.”

“I’m her mother, don’t you dare sneer at me. You wouldn’t want to be here without my blessing.”

“Your blessing was never a factor, Apex. Even you don’t outrank a prophecy. Why don’t we consult with Theo? She’s been waiting outside the door for some time.”

Her mother’s surprise, and then flash of anger, quickly tamped, hit Theo like a physical force as she pressed both of her palms to the library doors and pushed them open.

Hugh stood by the windows with his back to the door, which, oddly, was the same spot she’d occupied the last time she’d been in the library to confront her mother.

Rhea was behind her desk. She should really just cut the pretense and get a throne, though maybe she preferred the barrier the large, ornately carved, wood desk provided.

The tension that shrouded the room only increased as she entered.

“Theodora, you are awake. Good. Hugh and I were just discussing —”

“I heard.” She cut off her mother’s attempt to erect a cover story, and then threw herself into a reading chair off to one side of her mother’s desk. From this vantage point, she had eyes on Hugh and her mother, as well as effectively blocking the door.

“That carpet is following you!” Her mother glared toward the entrance.

“It is, and I have no idea why you have a problem with it.”

Hugh half-turned from the window. “The carpet is a prime example.”

“She spilt blood on that carpet. She isn’t spraying blood indiscriminately.”

“You look tense, Hugh. Perhaps you need a good spar. I’m sure the captain must have some practice swords we could borrow.”

Hugh and her mother instantly dropped their bickering, and turned to stare at her with almost identical looks of surprise on their faces.

“Spar? With swords? With you?” Hugh stuttered.

“Why not?” she laughed. “Think you can beat me?”

“I … I … didn’t know you —”

“She doesn’t,” her mother insisted, and then Theo heard it. Heard her rather provocative offer to Hugh, while, at the same time, she realized she’d never held a sword in her life. She sat bolt upright and tried to trace the thought, the impulse to speak, back to the source.

Hugh’s shoulders had looked tense … he looked like he knew how to wield a sword … and a good fight always settled her a bit … what? Since when?

She followed that train of thought all the way down into the dark cavern that was her missing memories. She struggled, and pushed into the darkness — there was a block there — if she could just break it —
 

Pain lanced through her head.

Her entire body clenched and then spasmed.

She broke the heavy wooden arm off the chair.

Hugh’s startled face swam in and out of her vision. She clung to the thread — the glimmer — something about a sword, something about strong shoulders.
 

She could feel the moment her mother attempted to enter her mind, attempted to calm her, attempted to draw her away from the darkness. She screamed, and mentally shoved her mother away.

Books exploded from the shelves.

Her mother fell back.

Hugh flung himself across her chair as if to shield her with his body.

The thread snapped. She lost the thought. She lost the memory.

She came to awareness slung in Hugh’s lap and arms. Her mother was pacing back and forth through strewn books at the edge of her field of vision.

“She’s awake.” Her mother spun back at Hugh’s pronouncement, and leaned over her.

She expected anger, she expected chiding, and instead, her mother was excited, almost buzzing with it.

“Theodora, do you see the books? See what you did?”

“I see,” she groaned and straightened out of Hugh’s lap. She was still holding the arm of the chair; it was rather heavy. She considered hitting her mother, who was back to pacing, with it, though she wasn’t too sure where the violent thought came from. Hugh took the chair leg away from her with a murmured, “Let’s not mention this.” He meant the display of strength; a mind mage didn’t break arms off chairs.

“Do you know what this means?” Her mother clasped her hands and looked down at Theo with fervent eyes.

“It means you will stop trying to control and manipulate me,” she responded, and, with as little assistance from Hugh as possible, gained her feet. “It means you will never enter my mind without my permission.”