Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 26 of 30

The soldiers dragged Sienna down a stone hall she had run through as a child. Cecilia walked ahead in her purple gown, gloves clean, humming. At the last door, Cecilia turned and grabbed Sienna's hair in her fist and pulled. Sienna's knees hit the floor. Cecilia dragged her across the threshold into the cell and threw her against the far wall. "You made me look small on my own bridge," Cecilia said. She hit Sienna across the mouth with the back of her gloved hand. "In front of peasants." She hit her again. "In front of a foreign king." Sienna tried to shield her face. Cecilia kicked her ribs. The heel found bone. Sienna coughed and tasted blood. She turned her head toward the barred window above the door. "Clementine," she said. It came out as a whisper. "Aldric." Her voice would not carry. She tried again and her throat closed on it. Cecilia laughed. She kicked her once more and stepped back. "Call all you want. The gate is shut." She smoothed her gown. "Sleep on the stone, sister. I will send a guard to look at you in the morning." The door slammed. The bolt fell. Sienna heard Cecilia's heels move away and fade. She lay on her side and breathed. One eye was already closing. Her ribs burned. She thought of Clementine's hands on her at the mill, the long ache draining out of her fingers, the way Clementine had gone gray after. She thought of the pendant she had pressed into Clementine's palm on the bridge. Then she remembered: Clementine had put it back around her neck that morning before they crossed. She had forgotten. It was still there, warm against her collarbone. Sienna pulled it out. The gold octagon caught the torchlight through the bars. She closed her fist around it and thought of her hands healing in the grove. Heat spread from the pendant into her palm, up her arm, into her jaw. Her split lip pulled closed. Her ribs stopped grinding when she breathed. The swelling under her eye went down. The pendant dimmed. She sat up. She was whole. She looked at her hands and understood what she had. She tucked the pendant back under her collar. Then she thought. The guard would come in the morning to see the beaten princess. He would open the door for a body on the floor, not a woman on her feet. She lay back down on the stone in the same shape Cecilia had left her in. She smeared old blood from her lip across her cheek. She let her arm fall wrong. She made her breath shallow.