Page 60 of The Jester

As she draws the light back into herself, absorbing the prisoners’ anguish, my heart pounds in my chest. The sheer magnitude of her power is astounding.

Not because of what she is doing right now – although, admittedly, doing it for twenty people is a feat most empaths would balk at – but because she is doing it so easily. After two hundred years of not doing anything at all.

When she is thrown back against the wall, her body racked with pain, my knuckles whiten with the force of my clenched fists. She cannot break. Not now.

Not before I have truly understood what she is.

And what she means to my kingdom.

Chapter Twenty-Six

ALANA

TWO WEEKS LATER

For two weeks I hear nothing from Eldrion, and I am not permitted to leave my chamber.

All day I simply watch out of the window as the citadel brightens with the sun and darkens with the moon. Even Finn does not come to see me. Briony tells me he’s too afraid, that the entire castle is on lockdown and terrified of Eldrion’s dark, festering mood.

Last night, I plucked up the nerve to ask her what happened to Kayan’s body.

She told me she didn’t know, but I’m not sure that I believe her.

I asked how the others were and, again, she said she did not know. Now that Henrik is gone, she has no contact down in the cells. And this makes me realise how much harder it’s going to be for me to get access to the others in order to help them.

Despite what happened to Kayan – perhaps because of what happened to him – I am still determined to help them.

For two weeks, I have thought of little else.

When I first arrived, I told myself I had no magic that would be useful in an escape attempt. If I did, why would Eldrion let me walk free?

But what if I was wrong?

I was able to take the grief of twenty people – twenty – and ease it without meaning to.

One hundred years ago, though, I took more than that from Kayan.

What if I learned to take people’s minds, stop their thoughts, steal their thoughts, make it so they cannot chase us?

What if I can do more than absorb feelings?

What if I can manipulate them? Make people trust me? Make them open the cells, open the doors, let us run free?

I don’t for a moment think I could control Eldrion this way.

I still have no true understanding of what his powers are. But I know he is stronger than the entire city of Luminael put together. If I could do it quickly, though, and do it while he is distracted, perhaps there would be a chance.

Outside, it is getting darker.

As has become custom at sunset, Briony enters the room with a tray of food and a glass of wine. She sets them down on the table, goes to the stone bench in front of the fire, and sits down.

Since Henrik’s death, she has not been herself.

“He wants to see you tonight,” she says, looking down at her clasped hands instead of at me.

“Is there to be a feast?” I ask.

“Yes,” she replies, her voice willowy and weak.

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