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“No!” Idonea bucked against the grip on her arms. The cuffs were Lodamante. Her veins still burned from the clash with the daemon, her head pounding, her nose crusted with drying blood.
The Grand Templar knelt, his blade gleaming faintly in the moonlight. His eyes were calm, clinical. “A dangerous display tonight, witch. You would claim you sought to protect us all, but we saw it. Your hand turned the daemon towards us. Toward Alcaeus.”
“That’s a lie!” She spat. “You hid behind your Brothers and let it tear at them. You would've let it kill him.”
His expression didn’t change. “Lies are the weapons of witches. Truth belongs to the Order.” He straightened, signalling with two fingers.
The Templars moved as one, lifting Alcaeus from the snow. He groaned feebly, his head lolling against his chest.
Idonea’s heart seized. She lunged, only to be wrenched back down into the snow, the iron grip bruising her shoulders. “Don’t touch him! He’ll die if you take him.”
“He will be tended,” the Grand Templar said. “We don't entrust our Brothers to heresy.”
“Your mending can’t touch poison!” Her words cracked with desperation, thick with blood and grief. “You’ll let it spread. You’ll let him suffer.”
The Grand Templar tilted his head, studying her as if she were a specimen under glass. “Then his fate will serve as judgement. Whether he rises with the Order’s blessing or falls by the witch’s corruption.”
Idonea’s stomach dropped. He was gambling Alcaeus’s life to prove a point. She writhed against the restraints, snow biting into her knees. Kitsa sobbed, fighting against the Templar that held her, her fists striking uselessly against plate.
“Let her go!” Kitsa’s pitch was frenzied. “She saved you all! She saved him!”
The Grand Templar ignored her. He turned, his cloak sweeping over the snow, and began the march back towards the village. The others followed, carrying Alcaeus’s limp body between them.
Idonea was dragged after, boots scraping ruts into the frost, her arms bound behind her back. None of the Templars met her eyes.
Every breath rasped. Every step stabbed at her ribs. She twisted her head, straining to keep her eyes on Alcaeus as the Templars bore him away. His breath still came, shallow but steady.
Hold on, she begged silently.
Kitsa stumbled behind, her cheeks streaked with tears. When they reached the edge of the village, a Templar shoved her forward and released her.
“Go,” the Grand Templar said flatly. “You are no prisoner.”
Kitsa froze, trembling.
“If you value your life, girl, you will step away from her shadow.”
The words should not have hurt, but they did. Kitsa hovered, long enough for Idonea to feel something inside her lift, and then she turned and fled into the dark.
Idonea watched her go. Rationally, she knew Kitsa chose survival. Emotionally, it cut like a betrayal.
Idonea’s chest tightened. At least she was free, she told herself, clinging to the fragile comfort.
The Templars marched her through the last stretch alone. When they reached her cottage, they opened the door wide and forced her inside. Her knees smacked the floorboards. Someone tore the cuffs from her wrists, her skin throbbed.
The Grand Templar loomed in the doorway. “You will remain here,” he said, voice heavy with command. “And I will figure out who let you out.”
He turned away, his cloak sweeping the threshold, and the door slammed shut.
The cottage swallowed the sound.
Idonea knelt where she'd fallen, chest heaving, wrists raw. The room was too small, the shadows too thick.
Her stomach twisted. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
A faint rustle sounded above her. Idonea lifted her head.
Lance slithered out from the rafters. His eyes fixed on her, full of a knowing she hated being seen with. He wound himself around her shoulders, warmth spreading across her trembling muscles.
