Eden Riverwallow's Arc

Chapter 8 of 18

Kane was on his feet, one hand braced on the wall. Blood had soaked through the fresh bandage. "You promised him you'd go," he said again. "You don't know what the seat does. Once you sit it, you're his to instruct." Eden set the salt jar on the table. The black cat was gone. Willow drifted closer, lace hem passing through the chair. "Then tell me what it does," Eden said. "I don't know the whole of it," Kane said. "I know the woman before you didn't come back out of that keep the same. She answered to him after." Eden opened the cupboard she had never opened before. She did not decide to. Her hand went to the latch and the latch lifted. Inside sat a triangular vial, corked and sealed, the liquid inside layered dark red over something paler that caught the lamp. It had not been there yesterday. The cottage had put it out for her. Willow leaned in. "That's blood. And something else under it." "His blood," Eden said. She knew it the way she knew a room had held a death. "Mixed with holy water. The house wants me to have it." Kane stared at the vial. "Where did you—" "It gave it to me." She turned the glass. Pale threads moved through the red. "He can't lie when I make him answer. I'll make him answer before I sit anything." She pulled her coat from the hook. Kane pushed off the wall and nearly went down. "Stay," Eden said. "You'll bleed out on the path. I'm going to the keep now. On my feet. In daylight coming. Not as his guest." "Eden." "If I wait, he sets the terms." She pocketed the vial. "If I walk up while he's weakest and ask the question at the door, he has to answer. That's the only way I know what I'm agreeing to." Willow said, "I'll go with her. He can't touch me." Eden crossed the moss line before dawn. The woods thinned uphill. Past the ridge the keep rose out of the trees, a cathedral of dark stone with broken spires and ivy crawling the cracked windows. The front doors stood open. She had expected them locked. She stopped at the threshold. She did not step through. "Maleficit," she said. "Answer me from where you are. What does the seat require of the one who takes it?" His voice came from inside, close and tired. "Blood oath. Yearly. To me. Once given, it cannot be unspoken." Eden's stomach dropped. She had almost walked in blind. "Then I don't take it," she said. "Not tonight. Not on those terms." She turned and started back down the slope. The vial was warm in her pocket. She had her answer, and she had something of his in glass. She was not bound. Not yet. But he knew now that she had come to the door and refused it, and that changed what he would do next.