A Trial of Sorcerers: Book One by Kova, Elise (universal ebook reader .txt) 📕

A sack was thrust over her head. A hand ripped the pin from her breast. Eira was thrust onto a cart and another tarp thrown atop her. She gasped the stale smell, coughing up dust. They didn’t want the masses to see a candidate dragged through town. This would all be hidden. They would try and blame her for the murders, but as long as Eira drew breath, she would not let that happen.

Because, no matter what they did to her, as long as she had strength in her marrow she kept her hand clenched into a fist. Ferro was still her captive. And maybe her last bargaining chip.

26

The cell she was thrown into was a cold, barren place. There was nothing. No bed, no chamber pot, no warmth, no light.

It suited her.

Eira leaned against the bars of the door. The footsteps of the soldiers had long faded into the dripping of some distant water. Someone had to be stationed somewhere to keep an eye on her. Iron bars, even strong ones, weren’t effective at keeping sorcerers locked in. She wondered what sorcerer was given the order to kill her if she tried to escape. Who would be as eager to the task as Yemir had been at the idea of taking her captive for murders she didn’t commit?

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to try to flee. Eira closed her eyes, finding it was hardly any different from having them open.

Darkness within, darkness around.

Time passed. The minutes slipped by, pouring into hours. Eira drowned in them just like she should have drowned in that cold abyss where Marcus had taken his last breath. Her numbed senses were beginning to sharpen. Thoughts of her brother returned in full, as though a dam had been broken.

Her eyes shot open.

“Hello?” she called timidly. “May I have some light?”

The darkness she’d once relished was suddenly oppressive. It closed in around her from every corner. Shadows lived in it, ready to make her weary mind into their shattered plaything.

Dark, just like the water of the lake they’d fallen into. Dark like the forests Ferro had emerged from, the forests she hoped her clenched fist still kept him captive in. Dark as the depths she’d pulled Marcus from too late.

Too late.

“Please?” she cried, louder. “May I have some light? Please?”

If anyone heard her, they didn’t come. Eira curled into a ball, arms still bound behind her back. She’d begun using her other hand to hold her fingers and magic in place.

Pressing her face into her knees, Eira drew deep, shuddering breaths. Ferro was her prisoner. He was captured. He wouldn’t harm her, and she could breathe. She wasn’t underneath the water and ice anymore.

But Marcus was.

Oh, Marcus.

“Someone, please, light!” she begged with a sob.

Light suddenly appeared, brighter than she expected. Eira bounced away from it with a yelp, tumbling, scrambling backward uncomfortably. At least until she realized that the light didn’t come from Lightspinning.

The empress stood, a lit torch hovering over her shoulder, magically supported by invisible currents of air around its base. Vhalla quickly unlocked the door and stepped inside.

“I’m so very sorry,” the empress murmured. Eira panted softly, her nerves calming. Feelings returned, though still somewhat detached and surreal, as the empress of all of Solaris knelt behind her and unlocked her shackles. “I came as fast as I could. Can you stand?”

“Are you…are you a dream?” Maybe she had died with Marcus. Maybe this torture was the Father’s realms beyond. Eira was being punished for her crimes—for the apprentice she’d killed and for the apprentices who had died because of the information she’d given to Ferro.

“No, I’m not,” the empress said kindly. “I’m here to help. Now, are you able to stand?”

“I…I think so.” Eira nodded.

“Good, let’s go somewhere more comfortable. You’ve had a hard enough day as it is.”

“But the senators—”

“The senate answers to the crown,” Vhalla said sharply. Then her expression softened into something more pained, tortured even. “But we have to do a dance around the fact sometimes to keep the peace. Politics can be…complicated. I didn’t understand it myself when I was in your shoes.”

“In my shoes?” Eira asked as Vhalla helped her to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but somehow still supported her weight.

“Yes, a long time ago…” Vhalla’s gaze swung around the cell. Her nose scrunched in disgust. “I’ll tell you on the way. I have no interest in lingering here.”

The empress left and the torch followed her. A very confused Eira hobbled behind, trying to keep up. It was that, or stay in the darkness of the cell forever.

The empress led her up a stair and down a hallway, where she returned the torch to a rung on the wall. She then lifted a tapestry to reveal a door that they passed through. Farther along, there were two more hidden passages, three more stairways, and several switchbacks, to the point that Eira was well and truly lost.

This all has to be a dream, her mind continued trying to insist.

No, dreams don’t hurt this badly, her heart retorted.

Nightmares do, and you will never have a pleasant dream again.

Behind a locked door was one last hall that led to another locked door and, finally, into a lavish parlor. Vhalla closed the door—no, painting, it was a painting on this side—behind them and locked it once more. She said, “You’ll be safe here.”

“Where…” Eira was high up in the palace now, based on the view from the windows, in a room that dripped gold. Beyond that and all the finery, she didn’t have a clue as to where she was.

“You’re in the Imperial apartments. No one but my family, most trusted friends, and hand-picked guards are permitted here. You’ll be safe.” Vhalla crossed over to a low table between the sofas, where a pile of blankets was set out. “Come, sit by the fire and get warm.”

“I’m not cold.”

“No…” Vhalla paused, the blanket she’d