Page 19 of The Enemy's Daughter

“Take her to my room.”

Tristan.

“I thought you wanted her to see Henshaw.” It’s the deep voice again. What was his name? Vador?

“Bring him here.”

A heaviness threatens to pull me back down. Then it does.

“Yes, sir.” It’s a woman. Where did she come from?

Snip.

Cool air kisses my feverish stomach. Someone is cutting away my shirt. My hand flutters to stop them and I find my jacket is already missing. No. Leave it. I’d rather die covered, thank you. The scissors stop moving.

Darkness.

Voices return. They whisper above me.

My eyelids peel back like they’ve been glued shut, and I find a wall. An impossibly white and flat wall. I study the shade. Marvel at its brilliance.

Fingers touch me. Scratchy fingers that are ice against my skin. They probe my arm, my lower back. They dig into my neck roughly, checking my pulse, and tap my stomach. Something bright is brought close to shine on my eyes.

“She’s too far gone. There’s nothing I can do,” says a new male voice, matter-of-factly.

“How long?” Tristan asks.

“It’s difficult to say. Minutes. Hours. Maybe a day or two if she’s lucky.”

So they don’t have the antidote. My pain intensifies as reality settles in. This is how I’m going to die.

“Lula, run and get Shepherd Noreen.”

“Why?” Vador’s baritone voice asks. “You’re not—Tristan, no!” Vador’s tone turns pleading. “Think about this. What you’re about to do, this isn’t something you can revoke. The ramifications to Kingsland, to you personally, could be devastating. She is the White Rabbit, for Kingdom’s sake. Our enemy.”

“That’s an order, Lula. Go,” Tristan commands.

A calloused hand shakes me. Light shines through my eyelids.

“Isadora.”

Tristan again. I feel oddly relieved to hear his voice. Considering what I’ve done to him, it makes no sense that he’s still here.

“Isadora, can you hear me?”

A sound leaks from my throat in acknowledgment.

“I can help you. We have... something... I don’t know how to describe it—a custom? A ritual? No, it’s more than that.” He grunts. “It doesn’t matter. You need this. It’s your only chance. But you have to become one of us—part of Kingsland—for it to work.”

Become one of them?

No.

If I denounce the clans and survive, I won’t live for long. I might even be killed by my own father for treason.

Pain hijacks my attention and spreads like a grassfire across the nerves of my skin. I gulp air. I’m getting worse. Poison is a wretched way to die. “Just k-kill me,” I whisper.

His face moves closer until his lips brush my ear. “No.”

---