Horror gripped her heart at a sudden thought: had the monster blinded Nimue to keep her at his side? All seeresses were cursed to face the loss of their sight one day, but Nimue was far too young to have reached the end of her Path already … unless she had been forced to overuse her powers, and then …
She shuddered at the most likely possibility. “Forgive me for the intrusion, sister,” she said softly. “My name is Sem—”
“Semras of the Yore Coven, formerly of Adastra. I know,” Nimue replied curtly. She lifted her head, then stood there completely still, eyes darkened as she peered into the Unseen Arras and its immediate future.
Dismayed, Semras sloped her shoulders down.
She wasn’t a threat. Not to Nimue, and certainly not to the innocent child wrapped in muslin in her arms. What lies had the monster told about her to the other witch?
A light shake of the head brought the seeress back to the present. “Welcome,” she said, voice guarded. “I am Nimue of No Coven. It’s good to meet another one of the Fair Folk after so long. I haven’t called another witch ‘sister’ for a long, long while. You, we shall yet see.”
Semras hadn’t expected to be welcomed as a true coven sister by a witch she’d never met before, but this veiled contempt still destabilized her.
“I … understand.” Semras approached cautiously, searching for something to say. Her eyes fell on the newborn. “Congratulations on the birth of your baby. He looks very …”
Fine black hair dusted the little head peeking from the blankets—black hair likehis.
“… young,” she finished, then added, scrambling for a compliment, “and—and adorable.”
Dropping her attention to her baby, Nimue smiled tenderly. “Thank you. It hasn’t been easy taking care of a two-month-old boy alone, but maids come by to help every day. His father does too, when he can. It’s not as often as either of us wishes for, though.” The mother lifted her chin and straightened her back. “You might imagine just how busy he’s being kept. By you, mostly.”
“I’d rather he wasn’t,” Semras replied, swallowing back her bitterness. “He … he looks like his father. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone who he is. I’d never put the bloodline of witches in danger.”
Nimue let out a small, curt laugh. “He sure doesn’t look like he has much ofmyblood. It’s better this way.” Her smile faded slowly. “I hope he’ll inherit nothing from me.”
Semras’ heart constricted for her. Seeing the future counted among the rarest and most dangerous gifts of their fey ancestry. Seeresses perceived much further than the few seconds of past and future that other witches could see while peering into the Unseen Arras—and they all paid a terrible price for it. Making sense of the chaotic, overlapping threads of potential timelines strained their eyesight. Each time a seeress looked at the past and future, total blindness crept closer.
Only everlasting darkness awaited Nimue at the end of her Path.
“It’s very improbable that your baby will be able to perceive the Unseen Arras,” Semras said. “I have never heard of male children—”
“Youhaven’t, but I have,” Nimue snapped. “Improbable doesn’t mean impossible. If he becomes a seer, I … I do not know what I’d do.”
“Are you …” Semras shuffled on her feet. She dared not ask directly if the monster held her prisoner too, fearing the answer she’d get—or the one she wouldn’t. “Did you consider raising him on a coven’s grounds? Out here in the city, you are so far from all of us. If harm were to befall you or your baby …”
The seeress frowned. “I’ll never go back to a coven. I’ve rejected their ways and left that life behind me long ago. And I have no wish to subject my little Jaqhen to it either.”
“You can’t possibly mean to remain here forever? In this—this pit of tar they call a city? This place is a cage!”
Semras’ heart wept for Nimue. The monster had twisted her into rejecting her own kin.
“You can’t understand,” Nimue replied, sneering. “You don’t know what it’s like to be born a seeress. To live with pitying stares constantly reminding you that one day you’ll go blind. I do! So I left. Trust me, living in the gutters of Castereina was still better than staying with my Coven. When Inquisitor Velten found me and offered me to be one of his people, I accepted, knowing what he’d ask me to do in return. I served him well, and now I am retired in comfort, with my little one to care for and the love and devotion of a man I never thought I’d deserve. And all that with no damnpity.”
Semras paled. “… He forced you to use your sight for him until you went blind?” She reeled back, stricken by uncontrollable shudders. “How much more of a monster can he be?”
“Inquisitor Velten is no monster! He saved me; he gave me purpose!”
Jaqhen stirred and started wailing.
Nimue’s anger disappeared at once. Turning her attention to her child, she rocked him in her arms. “Mama is sorry, my baby. I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you,” she said, shushing him. “It’s alright; your papa will be back soon. Mama saw it. He will be back, and we’ll spend time together just like before he left for the Anderas …”
Semras walked away to the nearest window. Rancour simmered at the back of her throat, and the view outside did nothing to soothe her temper. Everything out there was a monument to the power and shamelessness of her captor.
How despicable that man was. He had used Nimue shamefully, making her use her power until she went blind, then leaving her to rot here in a city far away from her true kin. Worse, she had fallen for him so much she believed he’d been good to her. Devoted!
As if the madman even knew the word.
Semras bit her lip. Was that the fate awaiting her too? To become just another tool, discarded in a corner of his fancy mansion and given baubles to decorate her cage with? To have her heart twisted by his manipulative attention until she could no longer tell right from wrong?
