Chapter 15

Chapter 15

ELENA

The first thing I saw was a bundle of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling.

Lavender. Sage. Something with small yellow flowers that I didn't know. They swayed a little in the air from an open window. For one sweet, confused second, I thought I was home. I thought I was lying on the old cot in my mother's kitchen, and she was about to walk in with a cup of honey tea and tell me I had slept too long.

Then I tried to sit up, and the pain in my side pulled me back down with a cry.

I wasn't home. There was no home anymore.

I turned my head slowly. I was in a small room with white walls and a wooden floor. Shelves full of jars and bottles covered one whole wall. There was a table with a mortar and pestle, a pile of clean bandages, and a basin of pink water. The healer's room. Hilda's room.

I was alone.

I lifted the blanket and looked down at myself. My side was wrapped in thick white bandages. Around the edges of them, on my skin, I could see thin dark lines. They were faint now. Gray instead of black. But they were there, running up toward my ribs like the roots of a dead tree.

Poison.

I remembered bits and pieces. Kade's voice shouting my name. Hilda's hands. A bitter drink poured into my mouth again and again. And heat. So much heat, pouring into me through the bond, fighting the cold that was trying to climb up into my heart.

He had saved me again.

I didn't know how I felt about that.

Then I remembered the rest.

The ring. The dagger. A soft voice at my ear.

You should have died in that fire, little human.

Silas.

My heart started to pound. I had tried to tell Kade. I remembered that. I had grabbed his shirt and said the name. And then Silas had been right there, kneeling beside us, with his hand on my forehead.

Kade didn't understand. He thought I was calling for help.

I had to find him. I had to tell him now, before anything else happened.

I pushed the blanket back and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The room tipped sideways. I grabbed the edge of the table to hold myself up. My legs were weak as water, but I made them hold. I took one step toward the door.

The door opened.

Silas walked in.

He was carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and a cup of tea. He smiled when he saw me standing. That warm, kind smile.

"Look at you," he said. "Up already. Hilda said you were tough."

I froze.

He set the tray down on the table. Then he turned around, very calmly, and closed the door behind him. I heard the soft click of the lock.

"Where's Kade?" I said. My voice came out rough and dry.

"At the northern border," Silas said. "Seeing my sister off into exile. It's a long walk. He won't be back for a while." He pulled the chair out from the wall and sat down in it, crossing one leg over the other. "Hilda's sleeping. She sat up with you for two nights. Poor old woman was dead on her feet."

Two nights. I had been asleep for two nights.

"Sit down, Elena," Silas said. "Before you fall."

"I'd rather stand."

He tilted his head and looked at me for a long moment. Like I was something interesting. Like a bug he had found under a rock.

"You remember," he said softly. "Don't you?"

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

"I know it was you," I said. "In my mother's house. In the fire. I heard your voice. You told them to leave no one alive. You told them to find me."

I waited for him to deny it. To laugh. To look shocked.

He didn't. He just smiled.

"I wondered how long it would take," he said. "Most humans don't remember anything after a bond. Their minds are too weak. But you. You just keep surprising me."

"Why?" My voice cracked. "Why would you do that? They were farmers. Children. They never hurt anyone."

"That's not really your business, is it?"

"I'll tell him," I said. "I'll tell Kade everything. The whole pack. Everyone."

"No," Silas said. "You won't."

He stood up.

Something happened to his eyes. They had been a soft brown. Friendly. Now, as I watched, they darkened. The brown bled away until they were black. All black. No white left in them at all. Like two holes cut into his face.

The air in the room went cold. So cold my breath came out in a small white cloud.

When he spoke again, it wasn't his voice.

It was heavy. Deep. It sounded like many voices speaking at once, all layered on top of each other. Men and women. Old and young. It filled the whole room. It pressed against my ears and my skull and my chest until I thought my bones would crack.

"You will never speak of what you heard in the fire," the voices said. "Not a word. Not a line on paper. Not ever."

Something cold slid inside me. I felt it. It wrapped around my throat like an icy hand and squeezed.

Then his eyes went back to brown, and the room was warm again, and he was just Silas. Smiling. Kind.

I opened my mouth to scream.

Nothing came out.