Page 65 of Seduced By Darkness
“I have to believe, Andi. I have to have hope.”
Andraste sighs. “Go,” she whispers, holding the tent flap open. “Enjoy one last night of freedom.”
I stare at her incredulously.
She shrugs. “I know you’re not going to dance, Vi. You’re going to go find your handsome stranger and you’re going to spend the night in his arms. One of us may as well enjoy ourselves.”
She thinks it’s the last chance I have to enjoy another’s pleasures. I can see it in her face.
“I’m not going to stop fighting her,” I tell her.
“I know.” She grimaces. “You never do.”
And then she pauses. “Do you remember the night you set fire to the castle?”
I wince as I draw my hood over my face. “I keep trying to forget it. I can barely look at a candle without flinching.”
“It wasn’t a candle, Vi.” She says it so softly I can barely hear the words.
But a strange stillness seeps through me.
It feels like something inside me is holding its breath.
“She locked your magic away from you, made you forget it.” Andraste fixes the hood of my cloak, even as her gentle words destroy me. Our eyes meet. “She’s afraid of you. She’s afraid of what you could achieve if you were ever to come into your power. You were nearly twelve and you burned half the castle down, Vi. I couldn’t do that. Mother…. Mother could barely even quash the flames and her magic is strong. The only thing that stopped you was Nanny. Even broken and bleeding, she reached for your hand and she begged you to stop before you burned all of us alive.”
The heat drains from my face.
I have magic.
Strong magic.
But no…. I can barely even light a candle. I can barely….
A single memory hammers itself through my brain: Screaming, heat, fire, a gnarled old hand squeezing mine as Nanny spat blood around a mangled, “Stop.”
I flinch away from Andraste, clutching my head. It hurts.
It’s like an ice prick to the brain.
“I… I remember.” I can barely breathe.
My magic has always been weak and intractable, and my mother’s made no secret of the fact she despises me for it.
But what does this mean?
Because if she took those memories away from me, if she took my magic, then why delight in sneering at me for it?
“Mother is going to name me heir once we return from the queensmoot,” Andraste finally says. “Because she’s afraid of you. She’s afraid of what you could do if you ever come into your own. She mocks you and she locks you away, and she makes you believe you’re weak. It’s the same reason she’s shipping you off to Aska.”
“But I…. You….”
“I don’t know if youcanbreak the marriage contract,” she says, “but don’t you ever forget that you don’t have to be afraid of Etan. He should be afraid of you. Enjoy this one last night, Vi, but don’t be afraid of the future. If you’re in Aska, then you have a chance to learn your magic without her watching over your shoulder. Learn it. Burn that fucking little creep alive, if you need to. Become friends with Maren—she’d love a chance to help tear Mother down. Start playing your own game, start making the moves. You don’t have to be the pawn anymore, Vi.”
And then she holds the tent flap open.
I stare at freedom, my heart beating with the sound of Andraste’s confessions.
With fury.
