Page 74 of The Demon's Delight
“What?”
“Did you notice the healthy new fields on your way in? The way everyone is smiling in town? How nobody looks hungry?”
“I—”
“Idid that.” Her sudden snap of anger, the way her fist went to her chest, was so unlike her, I flinched from the movement.
“I don’t understand.”
“I did my part,” she said quietly, as though she’d repeated the words to herself several times before. “I cared for you well. Thirty years is enough. More than. I did my duty to your mother, I kept my promise.”
Seir shifted his position, but I was rooted to the floor. Ice flowed through my veins as I absorbed her detached tone.
“You did, Sal. And thank you for that. You always did well by me. You taught me everything I know. I thought it went without saying, but I cared for you too. I stayed in this house because you needed me. Because that was the only way to guarantee you’d stay alive?—”
“Butyouwere what was wrong with me!” she barked. “Me and the whole town. When you would go into the mountains, the springs would start to flow freely, like a clog had released upstream. Every fountain in town would go from a little trickle to a full bubble. Fields were irrigated like no other time. Plants, animals, people—all would perk up when you were away from town. Did you know that?”
“There was always talk about the springs being unpredictable, but?—”
“I tracked it. Foryearsafter I first got a hint that there was a pattern. I had to be sure. You were my best friend’s daughter, after all, and I could be signing my own death warrant if I was wrong. But I wasn’t. Something about you is toxic, Hailon. You suck up any magic around you like a black hole.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t be your source any longer. And I needed myown life! I sacrificed my own relationships and youth to tend to you.”
“Sal.” The lump in my throat was hard to swallow over, let alone try to speak over.
“I did everything I could think of to get you to leave on your own, Hailon. Nothing was ever enough to convince you to justgo, even with the whole town torn between fearing and despising you. It wasn’t enough that the town thought you were a whore. Not enough that they thought you were responsible for several people dying under your care. You took the abuse they dished out and stillhelpedthem.” The sour expression on her face made it seem like such a thing was far from her comprehension. “Despite it all, you kept trying. So I had to find a different way. It was common knowledge you periodically went to collect herbs in the mountains, I just had to make sure the right person found out you’d be out there alone.”
Tears prickled, the words like punches. My breath was loud in my ears, the pain that stabbed at my insides every time I breathed reminiscent of the angry bond but much sharper, like I’d inhaled shards of glass. When I opened my eyes after blinking to clear the tears from my vision, Seir had moved from his post near the door. He was leaning over Sal with his horns out and sharp teeth bared, tail wound around her throat and dagger in his hand.
“Beverycareful what your next words are,” he warned, voice low and menacing. Every dish in the kitchen cabinets rattled. “You’re lucky you’re still alive after a confession like that.”
“A demon?” she gasped, eyes and mouth both wide.
I took the few steps separating us and put my hand on Seir’s arm. “It’s alright. Let her go.”
He snarled, the noise aimed at her, not me. He unwound his tail from her throat and took the smallest possible step back from her.
“Do you know where they took me? What they planned to do with me?”
“All I did was casually mention to Gerald when he dropped off the candles that week that you were off on one of your excursions. You went all the time! It’s not like it was a secret. What he did with that information is none of my concern.”
“Did you look for me, Sal?”
“Of course. There was no way to know what happened to you. For all I knew, you ran off or got eaten by a bear in the woods. It was just coincidental timing that a traveling merchant happened to be in town then and had mentioned he was looking for a healer for his town and the neighboring villages down south.”
“But neither of those things happened to me, Sal. I was taken. By that merchant. All because you gossiped with Gerald.”
“None of this was easy for me, Hailon. I felt like I had no other choice.”
“No other choice.” The blood in my veins had frozen solid. “You could have left, Sal. You could havetalked to me. Instead, you sold me out.” The words came out of my mouth in my voice, but I was numb. The shape of them felt wrong on my lips. “You knew that information would end up in the tavern. You all but hand delivered me to men you knew nothing about, including their true intentions.”
She scanned me up and down. “You look no worse for wear.”
Those words made something inside me break. Wild energy pulsed behind my right eye, a rage like I’d never known flooded through me. I put out one arm to bar Seir from surging forward, a wild growl rumbling through him. I understood his motivations, but this was my fight. I reached the other hand forward, Sal’s pulse fast against my thumb as I held her by the throat. She didn’t move. There was a slight flinch at the corner of her eye, but she held steady, staring right back at me.
“Three men snatched me from the woods. For weeks I was bound, hooded, and kept in a wagon.” I took a small step closer so I could keep a grip on her and bend down a bit. I held eye contact with her as I spoke, wanting her to feel every word. “After that, I was kept in a small, cold bedroom in only a thin nightgown. I was chained to the bed by my ankles so I couldn’t escape. I was forced to use my gift over and over. My captor was cruel, and he profited while I suffered.”
She flinched again, what might have been a flash of guilt crossing her face, and it was the fuel to the fire inside me.
“Seven men routinely experimented on me. Sampled everything they could think of. Blood. Hair. Nails. Skin. I was cold, hungry, exhausted, and battered. No sunshine. No happiness. And do you know what I thought of?” Her lips parted the tiniest bit. “You.” Tears prickled again, ones born of anger and disappointment. “I was worried aboutyou. About getting back here, so I could heal you. I calculated the weeks I was being tortured in missed treatments.” I scoffed, voice gone rough from how loud I’d been yelling.
