Page 20 of The Arrow and the Alder

The woman’s mask turned toward Seph, those empty black eyes unblinking. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the woman curled two fingers.

The mist dissipated. Linnea dropped to her hands, wheezing and gasping, while Lord Massie bent closer to Seph. His cool breath whispered across her skin like a winter breeze, and he held the arrowhead to the soft skin beneath her chin. Seph had never hated anyone more. “Say these words: This coat I freely give…”

Seph’s eyes burned. “This coat I freely give.” She could hardly speak.

“Of my own volition…” Lord Massie continued.

“Of my own volition.”

“And I sever all claim to its power.”

Seph trembled.

“Say it.” Lord Massie’s port tone burned, and the arrowhead dug into Seph’s skin.

Seph winced. “And I…sever all claim…to its…” She swallowed. “Power.”

Lord Massie inhaled deeply, as if he might breathe Seph’s words into his very being. His eyes shuttered closed, but only for a moment before they snapped open and focused on Seph again.

Fire writhed behind the ice, and Seph wondered what she had just done. Whether or not she had just singlehandedly set Milly’s vision in motion.

Lord Massie looked back to the masked woman, who nodded almost imperceptibly, and he held the arrowhead before Seph like a boon. Seph stared at that little piece of collateral—evidence that had damned them all—and she took it from the high lord’s long, pale fingers. Lord Massie regarded Seph a second more and gestured at his kith, who promptly strode to the door and opened it. A cold draft tore into the room, mixed with flakes of snow. The fire fought to stay alive.

Lord Massie gave Seph one last shrewd and condescending glance, and a wicked smile touched his lips. “Give my regards to your grandfather.” His gaze flickered to Grandpa Jake, and then he, the masked woman, and his kith were gone.

Seph couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She was still trapped in the moment she’d given the coat to Lord Massie against the backdrop of Linnea’s slow suffocation.

“We are not done here, girl,” the baron stammered, cutting through her haze of bitter regret as he hurried through the door like a dog after his master. Harbrook and a reluctant Lord Bracey followed, closing the door after them.

Mama whirled on Seph. “Saints, for once in your life, Josephine!”

But Seph only had eyes for Linnea, who now sat upon the floor with her eyes closed, breathing slowly. “Why,Linnie?”Seph’s words fell in despair. She still had not risen from her knees; she didn’t have the strength.

Linnea’s shoulders expanded with a breath, but she did not open her eyes. “You know why.”

Seph shook her head. “I will never know why, and if you can’t admit what they are after they just…” Seph couldn’t even finish the sentence, and her hands curled into fists upon the floor. “Every dayI risk my life in those woods…for you!” It wasn’t that Seph needed to be commended for what she did for their family—she would do it regardless. But to work so tirelessly only to be betrayed by the very ones she did it all for…“I keep the woodpile, I mend the roof, our clothes, and whatever else needs repairing until my hands bleed, and I?—”

“And it is not enough!” Linnea yelled. She opened her eyes, and tears flowed down her cheeks. “I’ve seen our stores, Sephie, same as you. I amnottrying to diminish what you do for us—I swear, I am not. You think I don’t see you, but I do. I always have, better than you know. You are the strong one, and I…I am not. I try, butI am not you! So if I must give my hand to a man I don’t love to help alleviate your burden, then I will do it, because at least then I’ve done something.”

There were words Seph had been about to say. Words that had been building inside of her for two years, but at Linnea’s last confession, they all lodged in her chest, burned to ash, and floated away like chaff in the wind.

Seph stared at her sister, hardly aware of Mama, who watched them, bewildered into silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Seph whispered at last, every word shattered.

Linnea’s shoulders sank as if succumbing to the weight of a burden she’d been holding for too long. She closed her eyes. “Because…you were already carrying enough.”

Seph glanced down, a single tear splashing to the floor.

Linnea crossed the room and pushed through the door that led to Nora’s bedchamber. A second later, the ladder to the loft groaned and creaked. Seph caught her mama’s gaze, but she only shook her head and followed Linnea, closing the door behind her.

Seph dropped her head in her hands.

You are the strong one…

Linnea’s words were like stinging nettle upon her skin.

Strength. Seph wasn’t sure what strength was anymore. She thought she’d known. She’d thought strength was muscle and grit, something loud and defiant—a force that could not be contained by the edicts of man—and Seph had prided herself in that defiance. She’d worn it like armor, skillfully hiding all of the loneliness and despair buried within. Yet the only fruitthatarmor had yielded was attention from those with the power to crush her entire family.

And the baron would crush her for this offense.

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