Page 175 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“We’re all yours,” someone said behind Nore—Brit or Eron, she thought.

Terlo nodded. “Your Majesty, if you will, please come here and sit comfortably…” They guided Locke to a clear patch of grass, then directed Kier to sit across from her. To Kier’s right, Terlo placed Leonie, then Nore and Brit, then Ola and Eron, to close the circle that had formed around Locke.

Nore glanced up from where she sat on the cold ground to watch Caspian as he withdrew the inks from his pocket. He unbuttoned his coat and discarded it, then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Carefully, he began to draw the runes on his arms. These were not Nadiran, but they hoped that the combined magic of the ink and the Auldlochan would merge, powering Cas through the ritual since they didn’t have another of Lochan blood.

“Whenever you’re ready, Caspian,” Terlo said.

“Begin to send them,” he murmured. “I’ll be with you momentarily.”

Terlo nodded. They drew a breath, then pulled on some sort of confidence Nore had not seen before. They took up the book in one hand and the light in the other and then began chanting.

It was not a language Nore knew. Auldlochan, the old language of the Isle, was an odd, slanted tongue that sounded almost like a blur between High Idistran, old Lindle, and the archaic tongue of the northern territories. It sounded like something Nore should have been able to understand, but her brain just couldn’t wrap itself around the syllables.

Nore felt that odd wooziness again, her heart beating too fast, her blood too loud in her ears. She glanced over to see the others shifting as if they felt similar discomfort. Only Locke was still, her head bowed, her eyes closed. She looked, Nore thought, as if she was listening for something.

Nore saw, too, when Caspian came close to the outside of the circle. The runes on his arms glowed gold. “Reveal it, please,” he said to Terlo.

Nore only just caught the shift in Terlo’s speech as they wove a new enchantment into the old ritual—and then the light was searing for just a moment before it settled.

At first, Nore was not sure what she was looking at. There were thin lines of gold crisscrossing all over, thousands and thousands of them, all like tiny threads… all leading to the High Lady. Nore drew a breath, hearing the others as they, too, looked over at Locke.

She glowed, head bowed, as if she were aflame.

Nore saw the thousands of threads wrapped around her, constricting around her heart, threading around her lungs, twined through her brain. There was the impression of skull and bone, of flesh and blood—but just the impression. Everything else was golden, inhuman power.

There were other small threads, too: Nore could trace the ones that went from Locke to Ola and Leonie, then a thread between Ola and Brit. A strong rope ran between Locke and the Viper, and offshoots from the Viper went… well, everywhere across the Isle, Nore imagined. Then there was another rope, not gold, but silver, that tied Kier to the Isle itself, an offshoot of it linking Kier and the medallion.

“Grey,” Kier said, his voice weighted with pain. Nore looked back over at the High Lady, who still had not moved. Slowly, slowly Locke looked up, and Nore saw as all of the power of Idistra tightened around the High Lady’s throat.

“This is the part of the ritual that’s experimental,” Caspian cautioned. “Your Highness, if you feel at all—”

“Do it,” Locke said. Her voice was changed—echoing. Terrifying.

Caspian stepped between Nore and Kier. She felt the tension in all of them as he knelt, carefully, in front of Locke. The runes on his arms burned even brighter as he reached for the High Lady—

“Wait,” the commander said, his voice ragged. “Wait.”

Caspian stilled.

“I need to know it won’t hurt her.”

He glanced over his shoulder, and the light from the High Lady aflame was reflected in the dark brown of his irises. “I can’t promise that,” Caspian said.

“Do it,” Locke said again, and this time, it sounded to Nore like she was begging.

Caspian looked back at the High Lady. She made a small, harsh noise as he reached for her, then through her, and pulled out some of that wrangling mass of gold. She choked on something, gritting her teeth against whatever pain she felt—

And it was horrible. Horrible to watch, horrible to experience. Nore tried to look at anything else, but the horror was reflected on everyone else’s faces, too, and that only made it worse.

“Ola,” Caspian said. As they had discussed, Ola opened her hand. Caspian put the mass into it, and Ola flinched but did not recoil. Nore watched as her palm glowed gold.

Caspian turned back to Locke. She was breathing hard, her shoulders sagging, her head bowed again. Caspian reached within her again, withdrawing another knot of gold. “Eron,” he said this time, and Eron obeyed. Nore’s turn was next, and when she opened her hands for the knotted coil of power, she trembled.

Caspian placed it in her hands. It was heavy—heavy and too hot, squirming, uncomfortable. Nore felt the weight of it, like she was trying to both pick up something far too heavy for her and keep it from exploding, all at once.

And if this was what the High Lady felt all the time, magnified…

Brit was next, then Leonie; and the High Lady glowed dimmer with every moment, her breathing growing easier. Now, she almost looked like a woman again, rather than a monster.