Page 217 of Fated or Knot

Fal pretended to be enthralled and backed away, lifting me gently by the hips. As he moved to place me down on the steps, a second set of hands seized my upper arms and pulled with desperate strength. I clamped down to suppress a whine when my heel banged on a step and my slipper slid off as I was dragged the rest of the way inside. Cymora slammed the door behind me, but not before I caught a glimpse of Fal’s face creasing with fury. He held my glittery bracelet of diamonds and amethysts hanging from his fist.

Drive now, go fast,Laurel prompted through the siren’s song. The carriage window was open, letting the order filter to the house moth chauffeur. Even though he had one of his ears blocked too, he pushed the horses into motion as swiftly as possible, pushing me back into the padded seat.

Hi Lark. Don’t talk. She’ll know I don’t have you under my control,Laurel sang. I didn’t know everything about how her magic worked, but my stepmother didn’t seem to notice what Laurel had said. My lips twitched, before I caught myself. I’d nearly smiled at her.

A dim essence lamp was activated over our heads, letting me take in the two mermaids sitting across from me. Laurel was propped against the side of the structure, her open lips close to the breeze from the window. She looked exhausted and pale, her teal and blue skin washed out with gray. Nearly depleted. Her clothes were matted with dirt, threads coming loose in some places. I never expected to feel this worried for her, but if she continued singing, she’d exhaust her essence and fall unconscious soon. My stepmother was pushing her too far.

Next to her, Cymora had never looked worse. Her joints were prominent and swollen, sticking out from her undernourished body. I suspected the smell of unwashed skin and filth was from her. It threatened to overpower my nostrils and gag me, ruining the ruse that I was enthralled and pliable before it even began.

She regarded me back with a clear gleam of something like madness in her eyes. “Hello, Dorei.” The laugh that escaped her rose and fell as discordantly as her new speech pattern. “He said you were dead. He said I needed punished for it. Yes. But here you are. Alive. Sweet Dorei. Everyone loves Dorei.”

I regarded her with clear horror. I couldn’t have controlled my face if I tried, even if it gave me away.

“Hahaha. But you’re mine now. Your mind belongs to the song. The song, from my beautiful daughter. Not adisappointment after all. You’re my ticket to safety, Dorei,” she continued. Laurel’s face screwed up in a wince.

“P’nixie. Tell me you’re still okay.”My bond with Marius was distant, but still present enough to hear him.

“I’m fine. Cymora’s completely cracked in the head.”

“Don’t underestimate her, mate. We’re catching up to you now. Kauz is still signaling that he has eyes on you.”

“We’re not going to hurt you. No. You will spend the night. Dirt and leaves. They make a fine nest,” Cymora was saying as my attention diverted to Marius for a moment. “We will give you back. And those alphas, too. Unwanted trash. We will give you all back. And I will walk free. No more…” She twitched and shuddered, hugging herself with her spindly limbs as she moaned. “No more. No more.”

Laurel’s singing face fell with misery, tears glimmering in her eyes. We exchanged a helpless glance as Cymora seemed to go straight back to the torture room in her head. She screamed, “No more! Please! I have her right here. She’s alive. Alive!”

Fal had shared that Rennyn suspected Laurel would move to betray her mother simply to put her out of her misery. Minutes into a carriage ride with her and I completely understood. The cold, scheming female who’d raised me into servanthood was already gone.

I watched her, oddly detached. Even without Fal’s influence, I wasn’t afraid of Cymora like I used to be. But I used to beterrifiedof her, knowing that she could command me to do anything, and I’d be forced to do it with a gritted, “yes, Stepmother.” She’d forced me to sign away my first heat and my father’s fortune. She’d made me forget my own name and the loving godfamily that would’ve adopted me in a heartbeat. And on and on.

Now, I simply pitied her. Ransoming me and Pack Ellisar back to the crown was a terrible plan, one she would’ve nevermade if she was in her right mind. Stealing me away from the revel was a knee-jerk decision at best.

As Fal explained it,“My father had Laurel do what she’s good at. He had her tattle different things to Cymora and the bark brothers to pit them against one another. Cymora expects them to flee to Thelis and steal away Laurel, and is acting to stop them. While they think she’s planning on murdering you tonight to prevent them from gaining their oh-so-coveted grievance. If you’re confused, don’t worry. They are too. But they’ll take the bait, because they’re already paranoid about being fucked over.”

Cymora seemed to return to what wits she had left. “In the morning, we give you back. We tell them where to find Pack Ellisar. They’ve found some distant cabin. They think I don’t know where. Meanwhile, we sleep in the dirt. But soon. Soon. We will be free.”

I shared what she was saying with Marius through our kelpie bond, clinging to it like a lifeline as each minute passed one eternity at a time. He supplied the occasional update to reassure me.

The carriage had transitioned to a road of hard-packed dirt, with the occasional hole causing the insides to jostle violently. We were heading deep into the woods. Where the mermaids had been sleeping, and the barkfolk thought I’d be murdered, so Cymora could stash my body in the middle of nowhere until it fully dissolved into stardust.

“No. I will show her. I will show all of them. She deserves recognition under the waves. She has the song. Thesong,” Cymora muttered. “Which meansIhave the song. We will be great. Greater than them.”

Stars, what was she even talking about? I slowly snuck my hand up to press into my belly. The agony that hit me was like my guts had been twirled around a large fork like pasta. Mystepmother’s discordant murmurings faded into the shrill tone in my ears.

I breathed shallowly through the pain as Marius called my name distantly at the back of my mind.“I’m okay,”I sent back, not that he seemed to believe that.“I just need?—”

A horse screamed as something happened outside the carriage, marked by a great and terriblecrack. Our momentum slowed significantly. “Oh no. Oh no! Stop, stop, stop!” the house moth pretending to be our chauffeur squeaked outside.

Wood groaned and snapped as something heavy bashed to the ground, shaking the whole carriage. It had to be a fallen tree. It sounded like the whole team of horses panicked, snorting and neighing as we jerked to a stumbling stop. In the full dark of night, it was impossible to know what flicked against the carriage, dropping something inside with us before sealing the window shut.

A bulbous glass bottle hit the floor and exploded, wreathing the air with greenish-gray gas that smelled of pepper and vinegar. It assaulted my senses immediately. My eyes watered and I choked on my next breath. Cymora hacked violently.

But Laurel…she stopped singing to cough, and then choked and gagged. She dropped to her knees in the broken glass, bent double and vomiting.

“Tell me what’s happening.”In the midst of everything, and the panic that’d seized my chest, Marius was an unusually calm presence.

Too bad there was no time. The carriage opened from the outside and through watering eyes, I saw something snakelike emerge from the darkness outside. Dirt clods rained from it and a second creeping form before they struck, wrapping around Cymora’s arms and throwing her outside.

So all Marius heard from me was a panicked,“We’re stopped. Smoke bomb. Tree roots!”

---