Within a moment, all fire stopped, and she walked from among the flames. The lovely robe had burned to scraps in the first moments of his fiery onslaught. He reached for something on the chair in the corner of the chamber and tossed it at her.
Shaking from the physical cost of bringing forth such power, she collapsed as her legs gave out. Her father carried her to a chair and reached for a bottle of golden liquid, pulling the stopper from it before handing it to her. When she did nothing, for her body would not obey her now, he wrapped her hand around it and guided it to her mouth.
“Drink. Now,” he ordered, as he pushed the bottle against her mouth until she leaned her head back and took some. The liquid slid down, coursing a molten path down her throat and into her stomach. “It is whisky.” She tried to lift the bottle from her mouth, but he held it fast.
“Again,” he ordered, tipping the bottle more and forcing her to swallow it. She tried again to draw back, but he shook his head.
“More,” he demanded. Another and another mouthful until her stomach eased and the heat of the whisky spread through her. Brienne lost the will to fight him. “Good,” he whispered as she drank once more from the bottle.
Dizzy now from the exhaustion and from the whisky, for she’d never had such a potent drink before, she fell back against the chair and felt her eyes closing. A moment or a minute later—she could not tell—the soft touch of a man’s hand on her cheek woke her, and she forced her eyes to open.
“The goddess is pleased with you, Brienne,” he whispered from in front of her. Crouched down so that their faces were level, he nodded and smiled. “Very pleased, as am I.”
Then he wrapped the cloth around her and scooped her into his arms. Soon they were moving through the hall and down the steps. He carried her in silence. Too dizzy to keep watching, too sleepy to think on much at all, Brienne could feel them making their way in the chilled air of the corridors. One glance into his face and she closed her eyes and let it all fade away as he spoke once more.
“The goddess is very pleased.”
She stumbled through the darkness,seeking a way home and finding endless black. Falling and falling and falling. Brienne called out for help, for Gavin and Fia. She could end this. She could end the darkness. She had the power. All she had to do was to make—
Nay! ’Twas forbidden. ’Twas secret. No one must know.
Dragged back into the nightmare, she fought it, fought its control and the terror. Lord Hugh stood before her then, throwing his fire at her, burning her and burning her until she . . .
She woke up trying to scream. Clutching her burning throat, she looked around and found herself in the middle of her bed in her chambers.
In Yester Castle.
“Here now, Brienne,” said a soft voice. “You have been dreaming.”
Emilie. A cousin. Her companion and maid. “How long have I been here?” she asked.
“All through the night, I suppose,” she said with a soft laugh. “Unless you went off cavorting after I put you to bed last night?” Brienne accepted the cup of cool water and sipped it as she watched the girl tug the bedcovers and smooth them around her.
No matter that she was considered family, she had no doubt that Lord Hugh wanted to keep her fire powers a secret, so she said nothing. Part of her thought she’d dreamed it, for there was no sign that she’d left her bed since she’d climbed in after her bath. Then she noticed Emilie searching for something.
“I cannot find the robe I left here on the bed last evening.” Emilie knelt down and looked beneath the bed now. “Did you . . . put it away? Or pull it under the bedcovers with you?”
The memory of the robe burning off of her flooded her mind, along with the pain and fear. She shivered against it. Had it been real? She looked at her hands, the ones that had taken the full force of the fire, and saw no evidence of injury.
“No matter,” Emilie said, going over to the trunk that held her new garments. “Here is another, though not as heavy as the other.”
The girl held out the robe and waited for her to get out of the bed. Unaccustomed as Brienne was to dressing or undressing or bathing in front of another, she found it difficult to do without hesitation. So, she slid out of the covers, keeping most of her body beneath them until the last moment. Or she would have if Emilie had not pulled the covers off her.
“What? How?” she asked, tugging Brienne aside to look at the sheets. Black streaks marked what had been pristine linens. “This,” Emilie said, rubbing a finger along one of the marks and smelling it, “smells like ashes. What did you do?”
Brienne knew that the ash was from last night, but how could she explain that? Searching for the right words, she was about to try to explain—something—when the door to the chamber opened and Lord Hugh walked in.
“Emilie,” Lord Hugh said without even glancing over at her.
“My lord?”
“Do not ever think to question my daughter. About anything. Do you understand?” he asked. The way he stood with his arms folded across his chest and a very serious expression on his face made Brienne glad that she was not the one to whom he spoke.
“Aye, my lord,” Emilie whispered, bowing to him. “Never.” Now when the girl looked at her, her eyes filled with terror.
“You may leave us now.”
All it took was that and she fled without looking back. Lord Hugh closed the door and faced her.
