“Help me,” Abbot Crichton sobbed. “I submit to you. I submit.”
Behind Eira, the guards were still screaming. “You submit . . . to me?”
“Yes!” The abbot clawed futilely at the shadow tendrils that snaked around his limbs.
“Enough?” Bosque cast a sidelong glance at her.
Eira paused, watching as the abbot stretched pleading hands toward her. He thrashed on the floor, his agony terrible. And beautiful. Something new and alive with pleasure raced through Eira’s veins.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
The abbot shrieked again and Eira began to smile.
TWENTY-FIVE
THE WATERS WERE so dark that Ember didn’t know if she was swimming to the surface or if she was struggling ever downward, sealing her own doom. She kicked hard, hoping that her efforts would win her light and air. The cold, watery prison clung to her, trying to hold her back. With all the strength she could muster, Ember pushed herself up, up, up.
She was gasping when her eyes opened. Squinting against the sudden light, she tried to sit up but groaned when pain shot through her shoulders and back.
“You’re awake!” A woman in gray robes rushed to the bed where Ember lay. She put her hand on Ember’s forehead. “And the fever is gone. It must have broken in the night.”
“Where am I?” Ember asked. The room was small and well lit, but it wasn’t her cell. Morning light streamed in through tall windows, washing dull stone walls in a buttery hue.
“The manor,” the woman told her. “You’ve been battling an infection for the past two days. We were quite worried, but you pulled through. Your constitution is enviable—many people wouldn’t have overcome the fever you were stricken with.”
Ember’s vision slowly adjusted to the sunlight. She glanced around the room.
Misunderstanding her searching gaze, the nurse said, “Don’t worry, my lady, you haven’t been neglected. I’ve been stretching your arms to keep you from losing a full range of movement. You’ll soon need to use your weapons again, lest you lose all the strength you’d gained.”
Ember began to thank the nurse, but the woman went on. “And he’s watched over you day and night. In fact, I was surprised to find you alone when I arrived this morning.”
“Who, Alistair?” Ember asked. It was a thoughtful enough gesture for him to stay with her through her illness, if a bit possessive.
The healer shook her head. “No, no. I meant Lord Hess. Of course, Lord Hart has visited you too, but it’s Lord Hess who’s most often here.”
“Barrow?” Ember frowned at the healer, more than a little startled by her words. Of course Barrow would be concerned for her welfare, but surely he had better things to do than sit at her sickbed.
At that moment Barrow entered the room, halting when he saw Ember awake.
“And there he is now,” the healer said.
Barrow looked like a rabbit cornered by a fox, unsure whether to fight or flee.
“Does she need attending?” he asked the healer. “I don’t want to disrupt your care.”
“I was just leaving,” she told him. “No walking yet, but she’ll need to stretch her arms and back. She may need your help with that.”
The healer collected the used bandages and her medicines. Barrow waited until she’d left, then came to sit in the chair beside Ember’s bed. She noticed he had a thick, leather-bound volume tucked beneath his arm.
“What’s that for?” she asked, feeling awkward. The knowledge that Barrow had watched over her daily since she’d fainted made her light-headed and her skin strangely warm.
Barrow seemed equally ill at ease. He rubbed the back of his neck, shifting his gaze away from her.
“I’ve been reading to you.”
“Reading to me?”
He set the thick book in his lap. “Herodotus: The Histories.”
Ember frowned at him, which at last garnered his smile.
“I’m supposed to be teaching you,” he told her. “Herodotus has excellent accounts of the Greco-Persian wars. I considered Sun-tzu’s Art of War but thought a narrative better than military philosophy for the moment. And even if you were unconscious, I thought you might . . . be able to hear.”
Her throat closed and she looked down at her hands.
Silence filled the small space between them.
After a few minutes Barrow coughed. “Shall I leave you?”
She shook her head, forcing herself to look at him though her face felt strangely hot.
“I’m grateful for your company, but wouldn’t you rather be out on a mission?”
He sighed. “Our missions are on hold while the Circle determines our best course of action.”
“Our best course of action regarding what?”
When he balked, casting his eyes toward the door, Ember sucked in a sharp breath.
“My father . . . what did he do?” She was desperate for Barrow to look at her again. “What happened? Am I being sent away?”
Her chest cramped at the thought and she couldn’t stop the anxious moan that slipped from her throat.
Barrow’s eyes finally met hers. “Please, Ember—if the healer thinks I’ve caused you pain, she’ll flay me.”
“I won’t go back,” she said. “This is where I belong.”
He didn’t touch her but rested one hand on the edge of her bed. “You’re not being sent away. The abbot has rattled the Circle, something he takes great pleasure in.”
Ember slumped against her pillow. “But it was my father’s complaint that brought the abbot here. He saw through my act.”
“He knew about your calling to the Guard well before your father petitioned him,” he said. “We believe he’s bought off a servant to spy on our order. It’s not surprising, but inconvenient.”
“Maybe I should return home.” She sighed. “If my father will bring this burden on Conatus, my presence risks too much.”
“If it weren’t your father, it would have been something else,” he told her. “Rumor has it that the abbot believes himself worthy of a grander home—and he needs the funds to build a new manor. He took advantage of your father’s complaint because it hits the sisters where they feel most vulnerable. Eira and Cian were the finest knights Conatus has seen. They want to ensure that other women can follow the same path they did, even women of noble birth. You’re the first of what they hope will be many.”