“Do you think she’d really turn in her own blood?”
The other guard laughs. It’s not a kind sound. “Absolutely. I know I would.”
They move on, their voices fading into the darkness.
I wait until I can no longer hear their footsteps before I allow myself to breathe, then I scale the tower, reaching the open window.
The room inside is warm, lit by the glow of a hearth. I can see the edge of a settee, a table with decanters of what might be wine.
For just a moment, I falter. Would she turn me in? Or would she be happy to see me?
There is only one way to find out.
I slip inside the room, but it quickly becomes apparent that it is occupied by a man. From his helm, I would say that he holds a high position. I might be in the right tower.
I climb higher until I reach windows made of colored glass with swirls of bright yellow, deep red, and midnight blue.
This is a room that belongs to someone of importance. Someone who has been here long enough to commission such windows. My heart beats faster.
I make my way to a smaller window beside the main panels. This one is clear glass rather than colored, likely meant for ventilation. I press my palm against it and reach for my magic.
The lock is simple:, an iron latch on the inside. A thread of shadow slips through the crack between frame and sill, coiling around the mechanism. I feel it click open.
The window swings inward on silent hinges.
I climb through and drop into a crouch on the other side.
The chamber is dark, but warmth radiates from a dying fire in the hearth. I’m in a sitting area with comfortable chairs and a writing desk. Beyond an archway is another space.
Candlelight flickers from within.
I move toward it, my feet quiet on the thick carpet.
The bedchamber is grand but not ostentatious. A large bed with dark curtains. A wardrobe of polished wood. A dressing table with a mirror.
And there, at a small desk in the corner, sits a woman.
Her back is to me. She wears a simple shift of white linen, the kind my mother used to wear when she would brush my hair before bed. Her dark hair falls loose past her shoulders, no longer bound in the severe style of a military commander.
She holds an ink quill in her hand. Papers spread across the desk before her. She’s writing something. The scratching of the nib against parchment is the only sound in the room.
I stand frozen for a long moment, just watching her. She looks so…ordinary. So much like the mother I remember from my childhood.
“Mother,” I say. The word comes out rough and scraped raw.
She drops the quill.
Ink spills across the parchment, spreading in dark tendrils across whatever she was writing. She doesn’t seem to notice. Her whole body goes rigid.
Then she turns.
Her eyes find me immediately, even wrapped as I am in shadow. Her face is older than I remember. Lines around her mouth that weren’t there before. A few strands of gray threading through the dark hair at her temples.
But her eyes are the same. They’re my mother’s eyes, exactly as I remember them.
“Isla,” she chokes out. “It’s you. I didn’t think you’d come. I hoped… I longed…”
For a while, neither of us moves.
