Page 17 of A Rising Hope

I knew her.

I knew her.

The girl from the Rock Quarries that was taken alongside me that day.

Though her beauty was only a fraction of what she was even as a slave, I recognized her face, still clouded by the same silent hopelessness.

She didn’t scream, nor even whimper as the Queen, lost in a trance, finished speaking unfamiliar words, then gulped her blood down.

Fuck the plans.

Fuck the elaborate escape.

I was going to burn this place to the ground.

10

GIDEON

The reluctant sunrise turned the previously moody skies into a clean lilac canvas. The relentless night storm was gone, revealing passing stars scattered across the clear horizon.

I wasn’t sure exactly why I trudged down the pebbled, unkempt path leading to the clearing behind the cabin. Why I found myself here, at the edge of the cliff overlooking the harsh rocky mountains. My eyes paused on the heap of smooth white stones—my mother’s grave.

The last time I had been here was the same day I had dug that grave by hand, following the Seers’ burial traditions. I had been the one who placed those smooth stones to mark her passing and who spent the night near it, letting her soul rest.

“Do you miss her?” I asked Godric without turning to see him as he plodded quietly.

“Do I miss the mother that abandoned me when I was barely eight in pursuit of her feverish dreams? For her to go on and birth a cursed child, dooming us all for eternity? No, not really.”

“You speak of her as if she was a villain.”

“To me . . . she was. For a very long time.”

“At times I wish I would’ve found her sooner,” I uttered my confession, my words carried into the world by the chilly wind. “Perhaps she would’ve had a chance.”

“As a Healer, you learn fast that you cannot save everybody. Sometimes their fates are already determined by the gods.” Godric’s voice was calm and lacking its usual bite, conscious of the hidden regret behind my steady voice. “She was a Seer, Gideon. She probably knew of her fate long before any of us did.”

“Do you think her prophecies of endless darkness, of a world lost in infinite terror, were all true?” I questioned him across my shoulder.

“As much as you don’t want to think this way, our mother’s mind was long corrupted by uncontrolled visions when you found her. She couldn’t differentiate her own memories from dreams or dreams from actual visions.” The muscle in my temple twitched at his words. He added, “You know better than anyone that Seers tend to see only a fragment, a piece of the puzzle. Many think they know the future, but they only see a possibility . . . You doing this”—he pointed to the small cut on my palm already healing from the blood oath we’d sworn—“changes the possibilities.”

I glanced at the white stones, saying my last goodbyes; the fleeting moment of emotion floating away like a small dry leaf picked up on a squall.

“Let’s truly hope so,” I said bitterly, marching past him to the lonely cabin without looking back.

11

FINNLEAH

The Queen was a terrible hostess. Or perhaps she no longer needed regular nourishment considering her blood meals. But I had yet to find anything edible in this castle besides green apples.

My stomach gurgled loudly, disrupting the palpable silence that filled the extensive library. The Queen gave me a questionable look before returning to her thick book. I stifled a groan as my stomach twisted in pain, its acid burning all the way to my throat.

I had spent three days with the Mad Queen keeping her company in this lonely castle.

Maybe it was the lack of food, or the absence of sleep, or my aching bones from the shackles that I carried with me everywhere, but I found myself in a particularly piss-poor mood today.

We wasted most of the daylight, sitting in the drawing room or the library together, mostly silent. Occasionally, the Queen would question me about the General and each time I answered as thoroughly as I possibly could, eager to gain her trust.

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