Page 2 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Alright,’ he agreed with resignation, and he took my hand again as we trod the sandy path through the trees to the glittering lake ahead.

Chapter Two

My fingers were curled, cramped from being clenched and straightened, tendons aching with the strength of my determination, manifesting as tension all through my arms and hands. I stared at those hands as a headache thudded behind my eyes, making my vision slightly blurry. But in the pulse between moments of pain, a tiny spark zinged into existence, crackling up the length of a finger and jumping to the next, vanishing with hardly a tickle against my skin. This would once have made me feel triumphant. But after weeks and weeks of paying for this tiny little zap with the thundering pain in my head and my muscles knotted with strain, my triumph was becoming a little careworn.

Across the shimmering water, Gwinellyn’s winged lizard lounged in a patch of sunlight, snapping at dragonflies and watching me with yellow eyes. He didn’t like me. Ever since I’d dismounted with a near unconscious Gwinellyn next to Baba Yaga’s hut, he’d made that very clear. Hissed at me when I got too close, sometimes tried to snap at me. But he always seemed to show up for watch duty when I practiced, like the crackle of magic between my fingers somehow alerted him and he flew from that forsaken chasm he dwelled in to sit in judgement.

That was fine by me. I was used to being judged. In my previous life as a maisera, then as a queen, and now, as an interloper in this valley full of mild-mannered Yoxvese who were always meticulously polite to me and as cold as the snowdrifts on some of the taller mountains in the Yawn.Welcome,Gwinellyn was so fond of repeating to me. I waswelcomehere among them, where they treated me like I had some sort of disease, giving me a wide berth, dipping out of conversations to avoid me, slamming down every question I asked so courteously that I wasn’t even given the privilege of justified anger in response.

Another thud of pain smacked the back of my eye. I groaned with frustration, momentarily consumed with leashed emotion, shaking out my hands as I took a few deep breaths. I could feel that prickle of static right there, just beneath my skin. So why couldn’t I make it do what I wanted? The fear that I would never be able to hissed away in the back of my mind, but I pushed it away. The smell of magic lingered in the air, smoky and acrid, and for a moment, in my exhaustion, my mind wandered down a path of association. Tousled dark hair. A blade falling to the floor. A pair of grey eyes. With a jolt of awareness, I suffocated the thought, clapping my hands together, rubbing my palms in circles until they were warm with friction and the staticky zing beneath my skin collected into two fine, hot points of pressure. I picked the knob of a gnarled old tree across the lake and flung my hands out before me. Lightning tore out of my hands, leaping across the water in jagged bursts, forking and striking two points on the ground with a rattlingboom! The lizard shrieked and jolted away, wings half flung, frills snapping out. He turned his head to eye the two smoking holes in the bank of the lake, then arched his neck to glare at me, flicking out a forked tongue.

‘I wasn’t aiming for you,’ I snapped. ‘If you don’t want to risk being struck, then go and sit somewhere else.’

He huffed, before sinking back down onto his belly in the warm sand, eyes still narrowed on me.

I sighed as I judged the distance between the gnarled tree I’d been aiming for and where the lightning had actually struck. It wasn’t even close. After all these weeks of sitting here, trying to master and direct tiny sparks and getting rewarded with a throbbing headache, I was getting no better at aiming the magic. It didn’t seem to matter whether I was wielding a lot or a little, I couldn’t bend it with any accuracy. But wielding a lot did give me a swooping sense of dizziness, like I felt now, my head spinning groggily as I hauled in some steadying breaths. But it felt good to throw a bolt like that and know I had that sort of power, even if it didn’t go where I wanted. It was more of a spectacle than chasing little zaps along my fingers.

The sun emerged from behind the clouds for a moment, crackling across the surface of the lake, almost the way the lightning had raced up my fingers moments earlier. I stared at it, thinking.

A cleared throat behind me drew my attention from the water. I closed my eyes as I waited for the approach of footsteps.

‘Rhiandra?’ It was Gwinellyn’s voice, of course. No one else would sneak up on me like that. ‘We’ve come to talk to you.’

We. Wonderful. I supposed that meant lover boy was being hauled up for execution. Remarkable what fluttering a pair of pretty eyes could achieve. When she came into my line of sight, my point was proven by Elias tagging along behind her, staring at the spot where the lightning had hit the bank with a grim frown.

‘Talk about what?’ I asked, suspicious of the beseeching look Gwinellyn shot him. It wasn’t like he would want to talk to me of his own accord. So far, the extent of our interactions had been one-word responses to direct questions. He also had an irritating tendency to place himself between me and Gwinellyn whenever we were in the same space together, like I was some kind of wild animal he needed to protect her from. He didn’t trust me. Whatever Gwinellyn had told him about the apple and what had happened at the palace, he clearly didn’t buy it. And judging by the dewy-eyed way he stared after her whenever she was within sight, he was ready to sacrifice himself to protect her from whatever wickedness he suspected I might stir up.

Elias held her gaze for a moment, before turning to me wearing an expression of resignation. ‘Actually, I’ve come to talk to you.’

Had he, now? Something like anticipation prickled my skin, possibly because he seemed so reluctant to have this conversation. And while that perhaps didn't bode well for me, I was itching for a break in the tense purgatory I was bound in. I gestured to the ground beside me. ‘Then let me offer you a seat.’

Gwinellyn looked between the two of us, chewing on her lip, like we were a couple of dogs she was trying to keep from fighting. She was growing fond of trying to manage my interactions with everyone, and I thought she would sit herself down as well so she could intervene when I inevitably said something she deemed was too offensive. But to my surprise, she made no move to approach.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said instead. Elias sat on the grass beside me and together we watched Gwinellyn tread the banks of the lake, towards an eager Valoric—the name she’d given the winged lizard. A wyvern, she’d told me numerous times. But he looked like a giant lizard to me. He stretched out his neck and pressed a nose into her palm, eyes fluttering closed as she ran that hand up his head, drew in close to his neck. It would never fail to baffle me, seeing her with that creature. I could still hardly comprehend the fact that she’d touched down in the middle of the palace on it, alone and completely vulnerable to the dangers lurking within the walls. A shiver crawled down my spine as I thought of the specifics of those dangers, ofwhohad been waiting for her within the walls, but I violently severed the reflection, smothered it, turning my attention to Elias’s presence beside me with some difficulty.

‘Have you come to turn me out?’ I asked. I’d been waiting for that moment. Waiting for them to tell me I was no longer sowelcome.

‘I wish I had,’ Elias replied, surprising me enough to make me turn more fully towards him. ‘But it’s not that simple, is it? You’ve convinced Gwin to care for you, and I care for her, so I can’t.’

So, we were going to have a real conversation after all. Some of my tension sighed away in relief. I’d readily take the plain speaking, even if it came with hostility. I was so sick and tired of cold courtesy. ‘I could be just as wary of you.’

Confusion deepened his frown. ‘Wary of me?’

‘Yes. Because she is young and beautiful and innocent to the ways of men. I doubt I can trust you to keep your hands off her.’ I enjoyed the way his jaw tightened as he shifted in his seat, enjoyed the way it meant I’d aimed the needle in precisely the right spot.

‘I’m not going to hurt her.’

‘But I don’t know that, do I?’

‘You don’t need to,’ he said. ‘You’ve hurt her yourself. You’ve given up the right to claim you’re watching out for her.’ He turned his gaze back to Gwinellyn. ‘I’m not here to debate that with you, though. Gwin asked me to help you, so I’m going to try.’

Suddenly, I was alert and eager, sitting up straighter and leaning forwards. ‘You’re going to teach me to use magic?’

‘No.’ The word came out sharp. Instant. Like a slap, and I reacted to it with a glower. ‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘I know youwon’tdo that,’ I snapped, sinking back down into a slouch. ‘But I don’t for a moment think youcan’t.’ He was quiet for a long time, and across the lake, Gwinellyn was examining one of Valoric’s huge, clawed feet, running her hands between his toes like she was looking for thorns while he nuzzled at the back of her neck. Baffling. Her relationship with the creature was baffling.

‘I’d like to explain, and then maybe you’ll understand why I won’t. Why none of us will,’ he continued, his voice softer. ‘I suppose I think you deserve that much.’

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