Water cascades over my face, soaking my pillow, filling my mouth as I open it to gasp. I try to swallow it down, but it fights me. Like a thousand clawing fingers, it pushes its way back up, churning in my throat until I’m choking for air.
My eyes dart around in panic, taking in the open window and the figure standing above me, an empty jug in his hand. Bede’s vicious smile sends my whole body rolling with dread, but I can’t scream; I can only breathe in desperate snatches of air through my nose as the water rises and falls. He sets the jug down and climbs on top of me.
My hands scrabble underneath me and my fingers brush across the knife handle. I grip it like a lifeline.
Remembering Will’s teachings, I whip the blade out. I slash at his forearm, the blade cutting through his uniform in a jagged tear. For a second, all I can do is stare in fascination as blood pools, staining his sleeve. In all the years I’d trained with Will, I’d never managed to cause him any harm. But after a beat, I remember to swing again. This time, though, Bede blocks me, slamming the flat of his hand down on my wrist and causing me to drop the knife with a gasp.
“Bitch!” Bede backhands me with his injured arm and I can feel wetness on my cheek from his blood as my face whips to the side. His knees tighten painfully against my hips as he presses down on me, his weight crushing me into the mattress.
I let out a tortured gargle as I attempt to yank my body up and away from him, but I might as well be trying to wriggle out from under a boulder. I reach out to slap him but he easily catches my wrists, pinning my forearms under his knees. If my mattress wasn’t so soft, he’d probably have snapped the bones.
I’m trapped. I can’t move, all because I’m too fucking weak.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to have you underneath me like this?” Bede asks. I glare at him, my fury making me emotional. I can’t let him do this to me, but he’s so much bigger than me. A tear rolls down my already soaked face. It only makes Bede’s eyes brighten with excitement as he lets his hands roam. I ram my eyelids shut, trying to escape into my mind, but it only brings the awful sensations into more focus—his hands mauling my body, dragging downward toward the edge of my nightdress.
In his eagerness, his control on his magic slips, and the water bubbles up high and stays there, no longer allowing me the precious slivers of air I was snatching before. I jerk beneath him, my body silently screaming for oxygen, but he doesn’t notice. My heartbeat thuds in my head, and I know I don’t have long before I lose consciousness altogether.
Will he let me die, suffocating beneath him as he takes his fill of me? Would he care if he left a corpse behind, as long as he got what he wanted? Maybe he would, if only for the trouble he might get in if I’m found dead. But beyond that? Of course he wouldn’t care. I’m only a body to him.
It would be so easy to let go. To let the water overtake me and put an end to my years of captivity. But I realize that I’m not ready to die. Not today, and not by his hand. Not when there’s so much of life I haven’t yet lived. The thought of having that chance taken from me, having my story blotted out before it’s even been written, burns through my despair.
Something else is burning too—my blood in my veins is boiling like molten lava. I’ve been angry before, and it’s never felt like this—but then I’ve never beenthisangry.Thisterrified.Thiscertain that I’m only moments away from my own death. The darkness of unconsciousness presses in around me, but before it can swallow me up, I look Bede straight in the eyes.
I imagine that heat surging straight out of me, consuming every inch of his hateful flesh. I want to wipe that damn smirk off his face and have him feel real fear for once.
The whites of Bede’s eyes widen for an instant, then I’m blinded by a light so bright I think the room might have exploded. The weight on my arms releases in a rush, and the frothing water stills in my throat, soaking me as I spit it out at last. It’s the scream I can’t miss though—a strangled howl of agony echoing in my ears as the heat courses through me. The weight of his body on me disappears and I draw in huge, gasping breaths.
My hands are numb from being crushed under Bede, but as soon as I’m able, I use them to pull myself upright. They brush against the cotton of my sheets, now in singed shreds, and I look down over the end of my bed to see the man who’s been terrorizing me for three long months.
He’s unrecognizable. All that’s left is a blackened mass of charred flesh with bits of bone shining through seared muscle in horrible flashes of white. My nose is still burning from struggling to breathe, but I can smell him nonetheless, an acrid smokiness wafting over to me.
He’s dead. Of course he is. No one could’ve survived whatever hit him.
Not whatever.Whoever.
Idid that to him.
It’s impossible. My entire life I’ve never shown so much as a glimpse of power, no matter how many times I stayed up at night trying to summon something, anything—begging the gods to make me normal so I could be allowed to go to my real home. To meet my parents at last, no longer too fragile to be loved.
So how could I have had fire-magic all this time and not even known? Is it possible it only sparked to life now? Has it been hiding away, half formed all these years, waiting for the moment when my life was truly threatened to come out and save me?
My head whirls with so many possibilities, still unbalanced from being starved of air, that at first I don’t notice the footsteps in the corridor. Soon though, they become impossible to ignore, drumming down the hallways like a death march. Someone must’ve heard Bede’s scream, and now they’re coming to check on me. But no, that doesn’t make sense. If that was true, the guards on my door would’ve heard it too and tried to come immediately.
Whatever their reason, they’re coming now. They’ll be here in moments.
I realize the true consequence of what I’ve done.
I’ve just murdered a man. Even if I did it in self-defense, Bede is dead by my hand. I shouldn’t celebrate taking a life.
I scramble out of bed, looking around for an answer I know I won’t find. I wonder if I might be able to hide the body, but the smell is too strong to ignore, and my burned bedsheets will be just as conspicuous if they’re missing. Will my own guards arrest me for this? Or call on the local militia to do it? I suck in big gulps of air at the thought of being taken from one prison to another.
The feet are outside my door, a key rattling in the lock. I jump at the bang of the door opening as it hits the armoire I pushed in front of it.
“Morgana?” Etusca’s voice is raised in concern. “Morgana, are you alright? Something’s blocking the door.”
I try to speak, but my words only come out as a rasp.
“Get this door open,” Etusca demands of the guards, sounding more alert than she has in years. “Hurry. Something’s wrong.”
