Hidden Huntress
Page 51

When I was comfortable I could accurately visualize the map, I set a basin between it and me. Then I opened the chicken’s cage and pulled her out. She clucked quietly in my arms, used to being handled. Chris handed me a knife, and I swallowed a wave of nausea. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“You’ve killed chickens before, Cécile. Lots of them.” Chris’s words were steady, but his face was ghostly pale.
“For eating,” I muttered. “Not for… this.” I petted the hen on her head and she clucked at me. No amount of farm living could prepare me for this.
“I could pluck her after and we could, umm, roast her up?”
I gagged and shook my head. The idea of eating my ritual sacrifice was too much.
“Or, or, I could pluck her, and give her to someone who needs the food.” He nodded encouragingly at me.
“Yes,” I said, swallowing down what had threatened to rise up. “We can do that.”
My grip on the knife was slick with sweat. The chicken started to struggle in my grip, as though sensing my tension. “I can’t hold her steady,” I muttered, the knife and the chicken sliding in my grasp.
“Just get it over with,” Chris said. “Do it now.”
“I can’t, I can’t,” I said, struggling to get the angle right. My hands knew what they were doing, but my mind was at war with itself. Walking down this path would change everything for me. It would change who I was.
Do it! The voice in my head was full of wicked glee. Was it me, or was it the King?
“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rush as I sliced the knife across the chicken’s neck. Blood splattered everywhere, adding to the wetness of tears already dripping down my cheeks. I held the dying creature over the basin with shaking hands, letting the blood flow even as power flooded into me, then handed her to Chris.
Retrieving the candle, I held the flame to the crimson contents of the basin, part of me praying that it would go out and the spell would fail, even as I knew it wouldn’t. Fire leapt up in the bowl and we both jerked back. I could feel magic rising all around us, but it had a dark, malignant edge to it. What I was doing was a corruption of the earth’s power. What I was doing was evil.
“I can’t go back,” I whispered. And before I could lose my nerve, I plunged my hand into the flaming mixture. It was hot, but it didn’t burn. Slowly, I lifted my hand from the basin, flames licking out from my fingers. With the grimoire in my free hand, I held my bloody hand over the map and closed my eyes, visualizing the city.
“Tell me where Anushka is,” I said loudly, and focused my thoughts. I felt power gush from my fingers, filling the air with heat. The blood splattered loudly against the paper, but I kept my focus. “Tell me where Anushka is.” The magic surged, and I smelled a faint hint of smoke, then it was over.
I opened my eyes. Chris was on the far side of the kitchen, his back against a cupboard. He stared at me with wild eyes, the dead chicken clutched to his chest. “Did it work?” His words were shaky, and I could tell he didn’t want to come closer. He was afraid of me. I was afraid of myself.
Wiping my hand on my stained dress, I picked up the candle and leaned over to look at the map.
There were tiny burn marks on the parchment, barely more than pinpricks. But where I had expected one, there were nineteen. “I don’t think it worked,” I said, my breath coming in escalating pants as I stared at the blood-spattered map. “It didn’t work.” I slammed my fist into the floor, skinning my knuckles. “How could it not have worked?”
Chris was at my side in an instant, his eyes raking over the results of the spell. “Bloody stones and sky,” he swore. “All that for nothing!”
“What am I doing? What have I become?” I sobbed, unable to contain the flood of disappointment and disgust I felt toward myself. “How did I become a chicken-killing practitioner of the dark arts? An agent for a king set on conquering the whole world? How did I get here? How did I become so evil?” The questions poured out of my mouth until the need to breathe silenced them.
“You’re not evil, Cécile,” Chris said softly, patting me on the shoulder.
“Then why am I doing this?” I demanded.
“Because you love Tristan,” he said. “And you couldn’t stand to see him hurt.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No.” He sighed heavily. “It doesn’t make it right, but I’m not sure that it’s entirely wrong either.” He moved in front of me so that we could see each other’s faces. “I’m just a farmer with a good eye for horses. I’m not a scholar or a philosopher, or any of those sorts, but if you ask me, most people aren’t tough enough to put a bunch of strangers ahead of their loved ones. And quite frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to know the sort of person who would.”
“Tristan would,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “It’s what he wanted me to do.”
Chris gave me a little shake. “He put your life ahead of everything and everyone – I know for a fact that he sent lots of those half-bloods to their deaths in order to get you out of Trollus alive. And rightly or wrongly, he did it because he loved you too much to let you die.”
Pulling a slightly grimy handkerchief out of his pocket, he wiped my face. It came away bloody. “It seems to me, that no matter what we do, no matter what choices we make, there isn’t a happy ending waiting for us at the end of the long road.” He squared his shoulders and pushed me upright. “But that doesn’t mean we give up. It doesn’t mean we stop fighting.”