One of us thinks ourself too good for the other. But it’s not me.
He was about to put her words to the test. If they didn’t hold true, he certainly wouldn’t blame her.
“When I told Cressida we were done, that I wanted nothing more to do with her, she warned that if I refused her advances my little sister would suffer my mother’s fate. I was terrified of her by then, and I desperately wanted to spare Tessa. So I did whatever she asked.” He ran a hand roughly through his hair. “She killed Tessa anyway.”
“I thought your sister died of the sweating sickness,” said Rune.
It’s what Alex must have told her.
“Remember the party where I poured you tea? Cress convinced herself that I was cheating on her with a handmaid and wanted to punish me. When she realized that serving tea wasn’t humiliating for me, she changed tactics, telling me I had to prove my devotion by making her three dozen silk roses by sunrise—the kind my father used to make for my mother—and if I failed, something terrible would happen to my little sister.”
He looked down at Rune, who drew her lips in a tight line. “The silk flower I made you took me two hours to sew.”
Rune’s eyes went dark, doing the math.
By the time the sun rose, Gideon had somehow sewn a dozen roses. To Cress, this was further proof that he wasn’t sorry enough. That same day, she used a spell to strike his little sister with the sweating sickness. Cress locked Tessa in her room and refused to let anyone tend to her.
Gideon threw himself at the door—which Cressida had enchanted to hold against all force—beating it with his fists, while Tessa wept and begged from the other side, delirious with fever, calling for their mother. He screamed at Cressida, who only smirked. So he lunged and pinned her down. He had his hands around her throat, prepared to stop squeezing only when she went limp beneath him, but the guards dragged him off and chained him to the floor of a cell.
By the time they let him out, Tessa was dead.
“My mother drowned herself a day later. My father hung himself a few days after that. And still, she wasn’t satisfied.” His hands fisted. “I knew there was one last person she could hurt, if I didn’t do as she asked.”
“Your brother,” murmured Rune.
Gideon nodded. Alex had been the last unspoken threat hanging between him and the witch queen.
He’d started drinking after that. Every day. Sometimes as soon as waking up. It was the only way he could bear crawling back to her bed every night.
Sometimes, it felt like Cressida preferred Gideon unwilling. Like it brought her more pleasure to force him.
He recalled the night she branded him. She’d pinned him to the wall with a spell so he’d be helpless to stop her from searing his flesh. He remembered his body spasming beneath the glowing iron, every muscle tightening at the lightning-hot pain.
It’s a curse, Gideon, she said, pressing harder as he tried not to scream. One I will activate if you betray me again.
“That’s why Alex killed her,” murmured Rune.
Gideon heard the hush of waves in the distance. The smell of the sea was strong here, and when the trees thinned, he saw the gentle roll of the dunes. As they emerged from the woods, he could see the entire shoreline stretched out before them. There was a causeway to the east, separating this shallow bay from the open sea beyond, where the water shimmered turquoise beneath a pink sky.
“I’ve spoiled a perfect evening,” he said, awed by the view.
He wanted to dive in and let the sea wash over the stain he could never scrub clean. But as he started toward the water, Rune grabbed his hand to stop him.
“You’ve spoiled nothing.”
He looked down to find their fingers entwined. When he glanced back, her eyes held a storm so fierce it took his breath away.
“You are not the things that happened to you, Gideon.”
He wished that were true. “None of us can escape our pasts.”
Gideon’s past had shaped him. Haunted him. Ruined him. Everything he did on the eve of the New Dawn—helping Nicolas Creed and the other rebels take the palace, shooting Analise and Elowyn in their beds, hunting down Cressida only to be stopped by Alex, who had found and dealt with her so Gideon didn’t have to—he did it all because of what the witch queens did to him and his family.
It was why he hunted witches still. Because so many had it as bad or worse than him. Harrow was only one example.
Witches were wicked to the core. If given enough power, they would abuse it. To stop them from rising again, to ensure no one was ever at their mercy, every witch needed to be eradicated.