Page 47 of The Poison Daughter
The men freeze, noticing the leader of the city guard for the first time. One of them is holding a bottle with a rag jammed in the top. He’s about to light it, but his eyes go suddenly vacant. He drops the match, carefully sets the bottle to the side. One by one, he and his companions set down their weapons and lie face down on the floor.
“They’ll stay down until the sun rises unless I tell them otherwise,” Kellan says.
I stare at the men on the floor. I knew Kellan Carrenwell was blessed by the Divine of Malice. Compulsion magic is the most feared, and therefore, the most valued among our people. But it’s one thing to know something in theory and another to see someone with a strong enough gift for manipulation that he can make a group of men that large and focused lie down for an entire night.
It makes him well-suited to running the city guard. Men listen tosomeone with Polm’s blessing because they don’t want to find out what happens if they don’t.
Harlow hugs Kellan, her face full of relief. For a moment, she’s not a woman who tried to casually murder me in a boarding house the other night. She’s just a woman who loves her brother. It’s too humanizing.
“Easy, Low. I’m fine,” he says.
“Getting rusty?” Harlow taunts as she draws away.
Kellan shrugs. “There were three of them and I barely got Libby out safely. I wasn’t at my best.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
Harlow is so much calmer now, her voice back to its smooth, steady cadence, her face less pale. Since Kellan’s magic is good in a fight, it’s clear that she’s just more emotionally attached to him than the rest of her family.
I tuck that knowledge away, along with the fact that Kellan’s wife doesn’t have good defensive magic, or else she wouldn’t have been hidden away.
The Carrenwells are notoriously cagey about what magical gifts they each have. It’s another way that they hoard power; that’s only compounded by the fact that they have a record of which of the Divine has blessed every magic wielder in Lunameade. The more information I can gather quickly about each of the magical families in the high houses, the better chance we have of swaying them from supporting the Carrenwells.
Kellan pats my shoulder. “You should go find your parents. No rebels made it past me, but they may have breached a different entrance. If they know who your parents are, they won’t be safe.”
I want to laugh in his face. As if a Carrenwell has ever cared for my family’s safety. For all I know, he put Harlow up to killing me the other night. If I had to gamble on anyone knowing I was in the city, it would have been the captain of the city guard and the most well-connected of the siblings. One fake show of concern will not be enough to put my suspicion to rest.
“I think Mother said they were heading to the library to see a painting of Mountain Haven,” Harlow says.
Paranoia creeps up on me. What if the Carrenwells planned this? What if this was a trap? I have been wondering why exactly they wentalong with my parents’ plan. The biggest point of failure when we sent the proposal was whether they would see value in it. The fact that they do means they want something from us.
Harlow narrows her eyes at me—no, not at me; through me. Panic grips me. She’s seeing something in my aura.
“Are you well? You need to be ready,” she says.
I smile tightly. “Lead the way, lovely.”
Kellan’s brows shoot up at the exchange, but he doesn’t say anything as Harlow starts down the hallway with Gaven at her side. They pause at the corner, listening for footsteps. There’s only the distant sound of fighting and screaming from outside the house. It sounds like the rebels are on their heels.
We round the hallway, and Harlow pauses behind Gaven in front of a tall, ornate wooden door. The bodyguard leans his ear against it for a moment before pushing inside. Harlow follows, and I stride in behind her, the smell of ink and parchment mixing with candle wax and a faint scent of honey. Harlow draws up short when her eyes come to rest on a body on the far side of the room.
I look over her shoulder.
My mother is wounded. Blood pools around her on the library floor. My father crouches over her, trying to staunch the bleeding. Panic descends so quickly, I don’t realize Harlow has already taken action, ripping strips of fabric from the hem of her dress to hand to my father. My mother’s face is twisted in pain.
“They came so quickly, I couldn’t hold them all back,” he says, his voice frantic. “The guards fought them back, but?—”
“Kellan, you have to help,” Harlow says.
My enemy, the head of the city guard, doesn’t hesitate. He kneels next to my mother, places his hand on her shoulder, and the grimace on my mother’s face dissipates into a soft frown.
She blinks up at Kellan. “How did you?—”
He presses a finger to his lips. He somehow took away her pain. I loathe that I owe him more than I can express.
I place my hand over the wound in her shoulder and stitch the tissue back together with my magic. It’s slow work and I’m tired. The more I use this power to heal severe wounds, the harder it gets to weave it together. While Divine blessings are a seemingly endless source ofmagic, their limits are tied to both the wielder’s skill and endurance. For me, it feels like the more I heal people in a short period of time, the more my concentration wanes.
My mother believes that the natural limits of a mortal body are how the Divine ensured that their gifts wouldn’t be abused by any one person. You can condition yourself to stay at peak magical performance, but everyone hits a wall eventually.
