Free Rise of the Seven by Melissa Wright Page A

something
like guilt on a few faces. I stepped forward, narrowing my gaze on
Chevelle.
    “ We did not think it an
issue.”
    I waited.
    “ The girl, Molly. It was
clear she wouldn’t survive to term.”
    I stood stock-still, certain if I moved at
all, it would be to keel over and dispel the contents of my
stomach. I remembered Molly, the days she’d spent with us. She had
irritated me inexplicably, though now I could see that it was
likely because of my childhood, that constant conviction of my
people that humans were detestable. And that we were the same, she
and I, as alike as equally as I was to the elves who surrounded me.
She hadn’t appeared with child to me. But she had been a human
girl, and we had found her with the head of Asher’s guard.
    “ You knew?”
    Chevelle shook his head. “Ruby. The girl had
gotten exceedingly ill.”
    I glanced at Ruby. She looked a little
sheepish. I was finding it hard to breathe, my vest was too
tight.
    “ No one expected her to make
it,” Chevelle continued, “and when Junnie showed up...”
    “ You didn’t want us to kill
her,” Steed said.
    “ Junnie took the girl
without request,” Chevelle put in, not sparing a glance for Steed.
“But it did seem like an acceptable outcome.” He shook his head. “I
never thought she’d allow this.”
    “ It was the child,” Anvil
said. “She said he chose this one. She will not destroy one who can
connect with beasts. She will wait and see.”
    So Junnie thought the child might carry our
ability. And those of the light were morally against destroying it.
But there was no way to know, she was risking it merely because
Asher had believed this one special.
    No .
    My stomach twisted at the thought. “She said
above all others.”
    An image of the small bloodied hands came
unbidden. The hands of a human girl. The ruined bodies of her and
the guard in Asher’s secret grotto near the castle.
    “ We believed them all
destroyed,” Chevelle assured me.
    No one moved, and I had a sudden flash of
memory from when I’d been bound, when they’d all thought at any
moment I could lose it.
    “ How many?” I
asked.
    “ It is not known. Council,
Junnie, your guard have each dealt with their own.” His voice was
gentle, and the “your guard” held a quiet assurance.
    I didn’t stop to ponder the details, to
wonder if he and Steed had found more when searching for Asher’s
guard. There was something else more pressing.
    “ How long has he been doing
this?” I searched the faces of my guard, but I had my own answer.
He had taken Vita, had created Fannie and my mother, had stolen
me.
    “ They’re his.” My voice met
stony silence. “The others, the attacks. They are his.”
    “ They are children,” Anvil
said. “They are not working alone.”
    He was right. But who put them up to it?
     
    We rode straight through the night, and
barely rested the remainder of the journey. When we finally reached
the castle, I fell into bed exhausted, but sleep still wouldn’t
come.
    The attacks had been too odd, silver and ice.
Though we’d not seen the source of the ice to be certain it wasn’t
fey, we had seen the boy. His features were too light, his eyes too
dull. He had pulled silver from the air. He might have been old
enough, might have believed he could defeat me, but why? What would
he gain from it? It was easier to believe that boy didn’t hate me
enough to want to kill me, but that he’d been after the throne.
    Maybe he’d been abandoned. Maybe Asher had
made promises and never returned. Maybe he’d merely come for
revenge, or because he had nothing left. And maybe not. The more
likely scenario was that someone was still out there, pushing the
attempts. Someone had told him he was the rightful heir. Someone
had told him that I’d killed Asher, that all he needed to do was
kill me.
    Was it Junnie? Could she do this to me? Of
course she could, she’d turned against council, slaughtered how
many of them. She’d had years of