Page 52 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Nothing,’ I said with a tired laugh, though her fussing was oddly comforting. Daethie hovered nearby, that odd little smile she always wore drifting over her mouth as she took me in. ‘And Rhi is trying to help me,’ I continued, answering Goras’s question. ‘But she hasn’t got much sway here either. They’re all wary of her, or they downright hate her. Esario wants her to have her marriage to Draven annulled, and she’s agreed to do it, which might help, but even then…’ I trailed off, glancing around the room at their familiar faces, feeling the sharp sting of gratitude and fear. As Rhi had pointed out, if I couldn’t win myself some authority, then I wouldn’t be able to protect them if someone discovered they weren’t human. I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise to end the blood trade that stole their loved ones and saw them die in cells for the sake of stealing their magic. ‘If she was trained to use her magic, maybe she could act as leverage. Wielding lightning has got to be a powerful weapon in a war.’

The room fell silent. Mae’s hand dropped from my cheek, her expression hardening. Tanathil moved closer, his usual levity replaced with rare seriousness.

‘Gwin…’ Elias began, but surprisingly, it was Daethie’s voice that cut across him.

‘Why don’t we just train her?’ she said. The others all turned to stare at her. ‘She’s going to use it anyway,’ she continued, seeming impervious to their censorship. ‘If we teach her, perhaps we could stop her hurting herself or someone else.’

‘If we teach her, she’ll think she can control it and she’ll never relinquish it,’ Elias turned, expression stony. ‘No amount of teaching will keep it from corroding away at her sanity.’

Daethie offered him an almost pitying smile. ‘She’s never going to relinquish the magic, Elias,’ she said soothingly. ‘You must know that by now. And it’s not our right to safeguard her mind for her. If she decides it’s worth the risk to risk her sanity, then who are we to say she can’t?’

‘Daethie…’ Goras sighed, and she frowned at him, her eyes sharpening.

‘Don’t Daethie me. Did we not come all this way because we put our faith in Gwin’s ability to make the changes she’s promised? And now there is one, simple thing we could do that might help her manage it and we’re refusing?’ She shook her head. ‘I will not go back home to face the loved ones of those captured by binders and left in cells to die knowing that there was a single path we might have tried that we left untrodden.’

The room felt heavy in the silence that followed Daethie’s words. She stood there, her arms crossed, staring down the others with a seriousness that felt uncharacteristic for her usually whimsical demeanor.

Elias sighed. ‘It’s not that simple. We’re not just talking about teaching her to channel lightning or defend herself. This isn’t some minor skill to master. That kind of power…’ He looked at me briefly, then away, his voice tight. ‘I’ll consume her, and we don’t know what she’ll become.”

‘Rhi isn’t some reckless fool,’ Daethie countered, her tone sharp but not unkind. ‘If she’s willing to take the risk, then perhaps we should give her the tools to wield it safely.’

Goras shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his brows knitting together. ‘And if it goes wrong? If she loses herself to it and turns on us? Or if she can’t control it and it kills her? I do not think our wisdom is greater than the Elders who forbid the gifting of magic to humans in the first place.’

Elias ran a hand through his bronze hair, looking at me as though searching for answers I didn’t have. ‘What do you think, Gwin?’

My throat tightened as all their gazes turned to me. What did I think? My mind swirled with doubts, fears, with the weight of all their trust. I couldn’t make myself tell them what my advisors and Esario currently expected of me. I couldn’t bear to tell Elias that the fate I was trying to avoid was a marriage I didn’t want to a man who had always terrified me. But now it felt selfish to have ever entertained the idea of using Rhi’s magic to help me avoid it if it made them all so uneasy. And I’d already seen how sick magic had made Rhi last time she’d used too much of it. I didn’t want her to take that risk.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe I should never have suggested it. I’ll find another way forwards. I should be able to just force them all to listen to me, really. I’m not very good at asserting myself.’ I laughed bitterly, and Elias reached for my hand again, squeezing it.

Mae, who had been leaning against the wall, stepped forward, her expression thoughtful. ‘I don’t think you need to write it off as an option just yet. We’ll talk it over some more and weigh it up properly. Honestly, I’m not sure what teaching Rhi would even look like, so I for one would like to actually explore the possibility thoroughly before dismissing it.’

Elias’s shoulders sagged slightly, his face a mixture of frustration and resignation. ‘Alright,’ he said at last, his voice quiet. ‘But no promises.’

It wasn’t a victory, but it was something. Daethie looked satisfied, her gaze softening as she stepped back, and Mae offered me a small, encouraging smile. Goras grumbled something under his breath but didn’t object further.

Tanathil leaned closer to me, his grin returning as he bumped my shoulder. ‘Stay a while. We’ll feed you something to make you look less peaky and you can watch Goras lose at cards. He can’t keep any of the suites straight and he keeps showing us his hand to ask us which is which.’

I laughed despite myself, the tension in the room easing slightly. But deep down, I knew this was just the beginning of the decisions I’d have to make—and the risks I’d have to take—to keep them safe and see this through.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Breathe.

Calm.

Pull yourself together, you nervous idiot.

What I was about to do shouldn’t have been wrapping me so tightly with tension that my stomach churned and my hands shook. It was just a service at worship. There was no battle to fight, no risk to my life. I just had to walk to an altar and submit.

Perhaps that last part was the bit rattling me.Submit.I was doing far too much of that.

The door opened, letting in a rush of sound. Gwinellyn shut it behind her, washing the antechamber in muffled quiet again.

‘How many people are out there?’ I asked her.

‘Well… it’s hard to tell while they’re all still moving around.’

I swore, cursing the cunning king of Oceatold and his misleadingly benign priest.

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