Vengeance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 1 by Grace Martin

Author:Grace Martin [Martin, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

I must have fallen into a deep sleep. Someone touched me on the shoulder and I startled awake, crying out and flailing my arms around, knocking the hand away and making Gwen cry out in shock, too.

‘I told you it was a bad idea to wake her up like that,’ someone said in a sardonic tone. Even Aoife didn’t sound as bitter as that. I opened my eyes. Gwen was standing beside my bed, both her hands clasped to her chest, as though she was afraid I’d hit her if she reached out to me again. There was another woman in the room standing near the door. I couldn’t make out her face, it looked like it was patterned with shadows, from the guttering light of the candle beside my bed.

‘This is how I’ve always woken my princesses,’ Gwen snapped back. I’d never heard her sound so tart before. ‘Your Highness, there is someone to see you. A midwife.’ Gwen looked back at the other woman nervously. ‘She, um, she’s here to examine you.’

I sat bolt upright. ‘Examine me?’ I cried. I think I may have even clutched the bedcovers to my chest in shock. ‘No!’

‘You can thank your so-called sister for that,’ the midwife said. Her voice was deep but sharp.

‘My sister? Do you mean Aoife?’

The midwife snorted. ‘Hardly. Dismiss your servant and we can get this over with.’

I sent Gwen out of the room, but I was ready to scream the whole palace awake if need be. I glanced out the window to try and guess the time, but the sky was still ruddy with the glow of the fires, so it was impossible to guess how far we were from sunrise.

‘Do you have a name?’ I asked, trying to break the ice. I felt like we should at least get to know one another’s names if we were going to be as close as all this.

‘Rhiannon,’ she said. She turned away from me a moment to grab a chair. When she turned back to me, carrying the chair to set it down beside the bed, it was all I could do not to gasp. Other people had drawn spirals on their faces with soot to show their grief tonight, this woman had the shapes branded onto her skin. In between the branded spirals were small patterns tattooed onto every square inch of her face. When she blinked, I could see that even her eyelids were patterned.

She smiled. It looked bizarre as parts of the pattern flexed and compressed with the movement. ‘And you are Emer.’ She looked me up and down where I sat on the bed, my legs drawn up and the blankets tight around my chest. I don’t know what I thought she was going to do to my chest. but I was keeping the blankets tight anyway. ‘I don’t bite.’

‘I’d rather not find out the hard way. Look, I never agreed to be examined by anyone. It was the other princess who said she wanted to prove that she wasn’t a virgin.

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