Page 19 of The Seven Rings
“I think she does. I think she has to.”
“Has to?”
“For it all to hold, Sonya, for her to keep her grip on this place. Maybe she wasn’t mad when she bespelled Collin Poole back then. Maybe she was only half-mad when she killed Arthur Poole.”
Turning, he nudged Sonya back to the bed.
“She was sure as hell crazy when she killed Astrid and laid the curse. And coming back here, to seal that curse with her own blood? There’s no sanity left.”
“You think she wants to feel it, every night. Over and over.”
In bed, he drew her to him. “Yeah, I do.”
“Because, in her madness, she sees it as power. Her choice, herblood. And through it, she remains in the manor. In her madness, that’s all that matters. That’s all there is for her. Mistress of the manor, forever.”
“But she’s not.” He brushed a kiss on her forehead that struck her as both soothing and confident. “And she never will be.”
“No, she won’t. It’s quiet again. The house is quiet again.”
“Can you sleep?”
“Yes.”
Closing her eyes, she slid into the quiet.
In the morning, Sonya’s decision to use the gym came partly from a need for routine, and partly from simple defiance.
But she found herself grateful Yoda and Pye wanted to come with her.
When she opened the servants’ door, they walked through with her, and down the stairs. She angled off from storage areas, from the home theater, and into the well-equipped gym.
Her uncle, she thought, had known how to perfectly design the manor, making it his own all while respecting its history.
“And that’s just what I’m doing.”
She looked over at the rack of free weights, nodded.
“We’re going to keep the muscles in tune. This battle may be more mental than physical, but it’s all connected, right? At least that’s what that overly perky and impossibly ripped trainer keeps saying. So I’m going with an advanced session today.”
She switched on the TV, chose the app, the program.
“Fifty-six minutes? Well, Jesus! Maybe that’s a little ambitious for—”
As she spoke, the servants’ bell began to ring, and kept ringing.
The Gold Room.
“Go ahead,” she called out. “Go ahead and waste your time and energy. Me, I’m putting mine to good use.”
She started the session.
“I may regret it,” she muttered, “but I’m doing it.”
Twenty minutes in, slicked with sweat, she regretted it. But she kept going. Part of it, she could admit as her muscles burned, was that incessant ringing.
A half hour in, she took a break to guzzle water like a camel, to towel off some sweat. And noticed the ringing had stopped.
Bolstered by the fact she’d outlasted Dobbs, she pushed play, dug down, and finished the routine.
