Page 35 of Forged By Heart and Claws
The cost hadn’t simply been sentimentality and my sister’s ire. It had cost the life of a man who had served the royal familywith unshaken loyalty for centuries. A man whose last words to me had been about his desire to celebrate my wedding and coronation.
My eyes shut, and my throat locked with hot rage.
Colm’s vicious face flashed into my mind, those smirking eyes, leathery skin, and artificial claw tips. He’d tortured my beloved, and he would have destroyed her in the most cruel and painful ways imaginable.
If there were a way to ensure that his suffering would be greater than Briar’s and Morlo’s combined, I would do it. Colm would pay. And Morlo would be honored. He’d been a good man who’d deserved none of the suffering and indignity he’d no doubt endured in his final hours.
“Why did no one help him?” Briar whispered. The glow from the vials on the far shelves cast the room in a pale, eerie green and blue light. “How did anyone miss this happening?”
“Silencing sigils.” My fingers brushed one etched into the doorframe. “When the door is closed, no sound can pass through.” I’d never questioned their effectiveness, but there was no doubt of it now.
“Scaffing void.” Thalen dragged a hand over his mouth. “Who did this, and how?”
“Colm Ainle,” I spat.
Thalen’s brows lifted as the truth slammed into him. “Feck. All right. What do we do? Colm’s an even bigger problem now.”
For once, our lack of magic was a good thing. “Colm can’t use his new powers right now. So, we gather what we came for, get back to our allies, and regroup.” I squared my shoulders. The horror still gripped me with cold fingers, but we had to focus on survival.
There were countless dead already, and Morlo wouldn’t be the last. All we could do was make sure their deaths counted for something.
I moved to one of the cabinets and removed a stiff black leather satchel that Physician Morlo had often used. He’d always brought it on his night visits to my father and Elara. It was already stocked with most of the medications, teas, poultices, and treatments Elara needed. Vyraetos had told me what to look for to stop Thalira’s bleeding and other medicines used to treat wounds.
I set the satchel on the small round table near the largest cabinet. “Gather anything that might be useful. Morlo labeled everything. I’ll get the treatments for Elara and Thalira.”
Morlo had been meticulous in both his record-keeping and his labels. Even though Briar wouldn’t be as familiar with the names, she’d be able to determine general categories and find tools.
She went to one of the narrow cabinets and began removing bandages and suture kits, stacking them carefully into the bag.
Thalen began gathering jars of herbs and salts for wounds and poisons, along with several glowing, viscous solutions.
I found the specific antidotes Vyraetos had described and tucked them into the satchel. I also snatched extras of the clotting tincture, in case we encountered more of those venom-coated weapons. We couldn’t be caught unprepared again.
When I finished, I turned my attention to the vials lining the shelf wall. Some of the containers held mushrooms, their bioluminescence the brightest of the bunch of what I assumed were either tinctures or failed experiments. Others contained stones pulsing with dim, fluctuating light. I gathered a few to serve as light sources in case we ran out of oil.
But as I stooped to retrieve a vial holding a black-capped mushroom, something else caught my attention. A thin line of light leaked from a narrow seam behind the shelves. I stepped closer and opened the narrow wooden cabinet.
Inside, several additional vials had been hidden away. Two in particular made my breath hitch.
They sat beside a venom-coated dagger just like the ones used to murder one of Briar’s friends and to wound Briar. The vials held a pale-blue liquid with hair suspended inside.
In one, Rhielle’s magenta hair floated gently with no glow.
In the second, Kaylen’s blonde hair drifted like silk, but three of the eight strands glowed, while the other five did not.
That was concerning.
I wrapped both vials in clean bandages and placed them in the bag. Perhaps Vyraetos or Bryn would know what the difference in hairs signified. Morlo had mentioned that exposing stolen magic could be more time-consuming if the victim had taken steps to mask it. That could explain why some hairs glowed and the rest did not.
But unease twisted my gut. Something feltoff.
Briar’s hand slid over mine, her touch grounding me. “Vad,” she whispered, her eyes wide with concern. “Where’s Elias? You said he was rescued and brought somewhere safe, but what if Colm found him and killed him or took him prisoner? We need to get him if we can.”
Good point. I should’ve already thought of that.
My thumb stroked the back of her hand. “You’re right. He might be able to tell us more about who is involved.”
Of course, I knew Briar’s concern stemmed from compassion for Elias.
