Dried blood darkened the metal restraints. Trew’s hand hovered over them, not quite touching, his expression going distant.
“Fenmark,” he said, his voice rough. “I can feel his magical signature in the blood.”
Two throwing knives lay on the floor beneath the table. Trew stooped and picked them up, his jaw clenching. “I gave these to him for his last birthday. He had them with him when he and Addie left on their mission.”
My knees hit the floor hard enough to send pain shooting up my thighs, but the physical hurt was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my chest.
The strands were unmistakably hers, that particular shade of dark brown that caught sunlight like spun copper. I’d braided this hair countless times while growing up, had watched her twist it into fancy arrangements for formal occasions, had seen it wild and tangled after our midnight adventures.
Now it was here in this place of horror.
Bile burned my throat as I struggled to breathe through it. Drawing a dagger, I gripped its hilt until my knuckles ached.
I gathered the strands with shaking fingers, pocketing them as evidence. They boiled like an accusation in my grip. While I’d been stabbing a king and swearing vengeance, my sister had been chained to this table.
“I should’ve felt it somehow,” I whispered. “She’s my sister, and I felt nothing while she suffered.”
Guilt pressed down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Why hadn’t I sensed her pain? How could I have been so blind to the evil happening within the place I’d once called home?
Trew knelt, pulling me into his arms, his voice trembling as he whispered against my hair. He held me, letting me break against his chest while he kept watch.
Pherin cooed softly, nuzzling my neck.
My composure shattered, but I made myself hold it together. I could not fall apart now.
Rising, I stared at Fenmark’s blood on the restraints and felt something cold and final settle in my chest. Trew’s cousin. A man who’d risked everything to protect my sister.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the horror he must’ve felt when he realized he was trapped, when he understood that no one was coming to save him.
Had Addie been forced to watch? Had they tortured them together, using each other’s pain as leverage? The questions made my vision blur with tears I couldn’t afford to let loose, not while we were still trapped in this cursed place with evidence of atrocities surrounding us.
Stunned, I staggered, catching myself with a hand on the wall.
“I accepted everything as it was presented,” I choked out. “I didn’t question her death or who might’ve killed her. I rushed to your court, intending to lay waste to anyone who had hurt her, when all the while she lay here. And they tortured her!”
“No.” His rough voice cut through my spiral. “This isn’t on you. None of this is on you.”
But I made a promise to myself as I looked at those bloodstained restraints. Everyone responsible for this would pay. My father. Whoever controlled the Skathes. Anyone who’d participated in this systematic torture and murder. They would all die, and it wouldn’t come fast.
We pieced it together. Fenmark and Addie had been held here, though we didn’t know if they were here at the same time. My sister sick, perhaps from the same veil-sickness that killed Velacross.
Had they made her transport the Skathes here?
Thorne had only rescued Addie. Where was Fenmark now?
Maybe dead, drained of his magic.
“We need to see it all,” I said to Trew, my voice breaking. “We have to, for them.”
He helped me to my feet with a nod, and we moved to another area.
I studied papers covered in that same scratchy handwriting. Questions about Syllavar’s defenses. Veil research. The advance ofthe wasteland and how to maximize the benefits of it. They suggested using the Skathes as threats to make other courts comply.
References to “the two controllers” appeared multiple times.
Trew and I exchanged looks.
“Twocontrollers,” I said. “Working together.”