Chained Soul by Eva Chase
15
Talia
The tension in the border castle’s meeting room thickens with each new arrival. The arch-lords barely speak other than to mutter to their cadres and coteries, but everyone looks grim.
I brace myself on my chair near the head of the table, willing myself to stay focused. Another fit of pain came over me just a couple of hours ago, and I feel exhausted now. I can’t tell how much it’s left over from the curse’s effects and how much it’s the fatigue of early pregnancy.
Sitting next to me, Corwin wraps his fingers around mine with a waft of reassurance through our bond. Every other emotion I can sense from him is unsettled, though. Sylas has taken the head of the table, and frustration seeps through his normally composed expression. Behind him, Whitt’s expression is similarly gloomy.
When the last of the arch-lords, Neve, arrives and takes her seat, gazing around at us as if she isn’t totally sure why she’s there, Laoni clears her throat and leans forward. “So, from what I understand the rat you took into your confidence stayed true to his nature. He led you into a trap, did he?”
My heart skips a beat. “That’s not what happened!” My gaze darts to Sylas. “That isn’t what happened, is it?” He called this meeting so quickly after his return that I’ve barely had a chance to find out what went on after he, Whitt, and Madoc headed to their parlay, but no one said that Madoc betrayed them.
Sylas’s mouth flattens into a taut line before he speaks. “We aren’t entirely sure where things went wrong, but they did go very wrong. Our Murk collaborator may have played a role in that.”
“He appeared to incite the other Murk,” Whitt puts in, his tone even but hard. The flex of his jaw tells me he’s angry with himself as much as anyone else. “And he didn’t return with us. He appeared genuine when we worked out the plan, but I could have made an error in judgment.”
Celia sighs. “It was always going to be a risky move. We have to dismiss everything else he’s told us then too.”
“And send out orders to kill him on sight if he tries to return,” Uzziah adds with a menacing edge to his normally dour voice.
“If his own people don’t take care of that for us,” Celia says. “We can send proof of his duplicity to his king as planned and—"
“Hold on,” I burst out, smacking my free hand on the table for emphasis. “We haven’t even talked about exactly what happened. How did Madoc ‘appear’ to incite anyone? What did the Murk do? What did our warriors do? You all made it back safely.” I fix my gaze on Sylas in an appeal. “We can’t make life and death decisions without knowing the whole story.”
He exhales roughly. “You’re right, we shouldn’t. The account we can give may not clarify the situation all that much, though.”
“Let’s hear it all the same,” Terisse says in a tone I can’t read. She’s sided with my men and their more moderate views recently, but she was loyal to Laoni not long before that. I’m not sure how strongly she resents the Murk.
Sylas folds his hands on the tabletop. “We went out to the fringelands and through a portal to the agreed-upon meeting spot. The Murk woman that Madoc had arranged for us to parlay with did arrive, with what seemed to be a small contingent of her followers. We’d only just started speaking when Madoc, who was with us, made a sudden move, hurrying toward some of our warriors at the back of the formation. The sight seemed to provoke the other Murk, and many more converged on us. They attacked, and we fended them off while making for safety through the portal. None of them followed us—including Madoc. I don’t know whether he stayed with them or went off on his own elsewhere in the human world.”
“Probably running back to his ‘king,’” Donovan growls. Even the normally mild-mannered Seelie arch-lord has his hackles up about this disaster.
I swallow hard, thinking through Sylas’s story, noticing the gaps. I can’t believe Madoc would have set up him and so many others of our people to be attacked. He gave every impression of thinking they might come back with a potential cure for me. I didn’t see the slightest hint of guilt in him when we spoke right before he left.
I might not be as adept at reading people as Whitt, but the spymaster trusted him enough to go through with the plan too. There must be something more to the situation.
“What were the warriors Madoc ran toward doing?” I ask. “Do you have any idea why he reacted like that?”
“They’d stepped a little apart from the rest of us to cast additional spells we’d want to have at the ready in case we were attacked,” Sylas says. “It was only a precaution. They didn’t make a spectacle of it or aim the magic at anyone.”
“Madoc obviously noticed it, though. Didn’t he know they were going to be casting spells?”
Sylas pauses, and Whitt speaks up into his silence. “It didn’t seem wise to inform him of every aspect of our plans ahead of time. If he was conspiring with the other Murk, we’d have lost any potential advantage. But if he was acting in good faith, he should have realized we weren’t about to do harm to anyone who didn’t provoke it.”
“Why?” I have to ask. I don’t like arguing with my mates, but I don’t seem to have much choice. They hate the Murk so much they can’t even see how unfair they’re being. “If you didn’t trust him not to be setting up an ambush, why would you expect him to have more trust in you? It sounds like you’re the ones who made the first unexpected move.”
Whitt opens his mouth and closes it again. He looks briefly chagrinned.
Sylas steps in. “That shouldn’t have been enough reason for the other Murk to attack us. It was as if they were taking their cues from him.”
I shift my gaze back to him. “Why wouldn’t they? He was the only Murk with you—of course they’d be watching him to make sure everything was okay. Did they really attack the second he reacted to the spell-casting?”
Sylas frowns and rubs his temple. “My attention was mainly focused on the supposed sorceress. I saw a sudden surge of rat shifters appear along the ridge behind us—”
“They were all around us,” Whitt puts in. “A huge force they’d been keeping in hiding.”
“—but we’d done something similar,” Sylas acknowledges, glancing back at his strategist. “So I suppose we can’t fault them for that. Our warriors who were present responded to the sudden onslaught by casting shielding spells around us, and it’s a good thing they did, because they got them up just in time to fend off the worst of the initial attack.”
“Had any of the Murk actually tried to hurt our people before ours started conjuring those shields?”
Both Sylas and Whitt appear to consider, the rest of the table watching us in silence as our conversation plays out.
“I don’t believe they had,” Whitt says finally, slowly, “but it was almost simultaneous.”
“Then it’s possible that they were already worried because of Madoc’s obvious concern, and then they saw a whole bunch of you casting more magic and assumed you were about to attack them?”
He grimaces. “I’ll acknowledge that could be true. We can’t know whether that’s the case or they meant to turn to violence all along, though.”
“And since we can’t know, we have to assume the worst for the security of our people,” Celia says, drawing her slim form up even straighter. “We gave them a chance, and they betrayed us.”
“Or they gave us a chance, and as far as they’re concerned, we betrayed them,” I protest.
Laoni scowls. “If that’s the case, then why hasn’t the rat who’s supposedly allied himself with you given any explanation?”
I glare at her. “Maybe because he’s afraid you’ll kill him the second you see him just like it looks like you tried to kill all the other Murk he brought to talk to you—like you were just talking about doing to him a few minutes ago.” A sound of frustration escapes me, and another wave of exhaustion rolls through my body.
Corwin’s hand comes up to grip my shoulder, keeping me steady. “We’re all upset about what happened, and we clearly can’t determine the motivations of anyone other than ourselves,” he says to the table at large. “Talia is speaking from a good place, making sure we consider every factor. But…” He squeezes my shoulder. “I’m not sure how much more risk it’d be reasonable for us to take in the hopes that any of the Murk will really work with us.”
“Exactly,” Uzziah says. “We have the ability to track them down with her blood now. Maybe the first attempt didn’t go perfectly, but we learn from our mistakes. I say we track down every one of those vermin we can and end them, and their Heart too. Then we’ll have peace and all the curses hanging over us will be cured.”
The murmur that goes around the table sounds far too appreciative of that suggestion. Even inside me, there’s a tiny twinge of relief at the thought of taking a simple route, what could be the fastest and surest way to ensure all of us are safe so that I can live on and my child keep growing inside me.
But will it really be that simple? Orion has outmaneuvered us often enough that I can’t believe it.
And even if we could be sure that a widespread massacre of every rat in existence would lead us to victory, it’s not just simple but brutal—so brutal it turns my stomach.
The images from the Murk memories I witnessed flash through my mind—the violence, the bloodshed, the horror. Madoc told me he didn’t want to win Orion’s vicious, sadistic way… and I don’t want us to win that way either. I don’t want to see all the fae around me turn as vicious as the fae who savaged my parents and shoved me into a cage, as the ones who tore apart Madoc’s family or the children in that orphanage long ago.
Shaking off Corwin’s hand, I shove my chair back and push to my feet. Every head around the table snaps toward me.
“No,” I say, as if I can make that call. Maybe if I speak as if I can, that’ll be enough for them to listen to me. “I would rather die than get my cure like that. You think the Murk like Orion and his followers are horrible, vicious animals. What do you think you’ll be if you massacre every fae who happens to have been born a rat shifter? Why should any of them trust you if you jump straight to that solution?”
“Talia,” Sylas says gently, but I’m not done.
“They have some good in them,” I say. “Maybe not Orion, but there are horrible Seelie and Unseelie too. Most of the Murk I talked to were angry, but they felt a lot of other things. They cared about their families and their friends. They supported each other and defended each other. They had hopes for a future where they didn’t have to worry about the fae of the Mists descending on them with claws or talons at any moment.
“Attack Orion and anyone who insists on standing with him. Destroy their Heart. But if you’re going to support killing Murk who won’t ever raise so much as a finger against you, then I’d rather go back to their Refuge than stay here.”
The declaration takes the last of my energy out of me. I slump back into my seat. Everyone is staring at me, Whitt’s face gone sickly pale, horror trickling through my bond with Corwin.
Sylas recovers first. “I agree with Talia that we can’t lower ourselves to the same baseness as the worst of the rats. We owe ourselves and our people more than that. But we obviously can’t stand by and hope any of the Murk will advise us either. We should start sending out more search parties to track down the Refuge.”
Laoni draws in a breath. I wince inwardly in anticipation of a caustic remark, but to my surprise, her voice comes out measured. “There are ways we could draw out the Murk who mean us ill to ensure we stay focused on destroying our primary enemies. They believe they can outsmart us—we can play into their assumptions, lay traps where we look like easy targets but can turn the tables on those who take the opportunity to attack.”
Her fellow Unseelie arch-lords nod, slowly but without argument. Celia wets her lips. “Fine. For now. But we can’t go easy on any intruding on our lands. We imprison and interrogate those we easily can; any who fight back will get what they deserve.”
My hands clench on my lap. They still talk as if the Mists belong only to them, when obviously this is the world all the fae came from. Madoc isn’t wrong that the other fae shoved the Murk out.
“What about Madoc?” I ask quietly, my chest constricting at the thought of him. “If he comes back, shouldn’t we give him the chance to give his side? As far as I can tell, he hasn’t violated the terms of the deal. He didn’t attack anyone, did he?” I look at Sylas and Whitt.
“Not that anyone’s reported witnessing,” Whitt admits. “I lost track of him in the chaos, but I didn’t see him so much as draw a weapon or speak a spell.”
“Then all we know that he’s done is hurry over to see what some of the warriors were doing. We can’t destroy his life over that.”
There’s another silence. Corwin breaks it. “I’d say it depends on how he comes back. If he strikes out at us or joins others doing so, we’d obviously assume the alliance is over. If he makes a show of peacefulness but can’t adequately explain his actions, the same. I do think he’s earned the right to be heard after getting Talia back to us and then warning us of Orion’s new assault on her.”
The faces around the table don’t exactly look happy about his proposal, but one by one, the arch-lords incline their heads. I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I felt more reassured.
I can’t help suspecting that we’re teetering on the edge of becoming monsters ourselves, and I’m afraid of how little it might take to push the rulers around me over that line.
