CAGED (#3, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 113

"Afterward, it was just us. And I grew up without my mother's presence. My father..." The words drifted apart as Ferne paused, mouth tipping up on one side as if considering what she wanted to say. "I don't know what he was like before everything. Caidan talks about what kind of person he'd been, and I see it in the way he's tried his best to raise us, to fill in the void my mother left behind. He tries to hide it, yet even without sight, I can feel how sad, broken, and guilt-ridden he's become. I don't know what he'd been like before all of this. I only have what he is now." She shrugged, toeing the ground with one of her ballet flats. "It only is what it is for me. I think for them, for my brothers—it's harder."

Ferne's life, how she'd grown up in the Keep without a mother, I'd shamefully not given it, or her and her family, much thought, even when I'd learned their mother was dead. Nor when I'd found myself engaged to Graysen either. They were a lower family and deemed unworthy of my curiosity. Deep remorse leadened my limbs and for a moment I wanted to sink through the stone floor, curl into a ball, and weep at my selfish-absorbed entitlement as a Wychthorn princess.

Ferne gave a sweeping gesture of a hand to indicate us all. "And look where we all are now." Indeed it had been a futile effort to believe we'd escape this. Ultimately we would have eventually found ourselves standing where we were right now. Awaiting judgment.

I watched my father's stoic expression crumple with contrition and I was made to feel even worse when I realized Ferne would never see it cross his features.

"My mother was the heart of our family. From what my brothers say, you were her friend, visited with her often, you knew what she was like, Marissa."

"I'm sorry, Ferne," my mother cried, tears streaking down her gaunt cheeks.

"I don't care," Ferne retorted, her mouth pursed petulantly, looking like a sullen, spiteful teenager. It was a contradiction of two opposing sides. She was older than she should be with the weight of responsibility thrust upon her to save her mother, and she was younger at this moment too, as if she were on the verge of stomping a foot and melting into a tantrum. "It's too late for that. You spent most of your time pretending you didn't even know her." She lifted her chin higher, anger feathering lines around her puckered mouth. I didn't need to see her eyes to know that she blazed with righteous fury. "We want something from you and you're going to give it to us."

"It will destroy my family," my father shot back.

"We want it and you will hand it over!"

"Brangwene's Hjarte," my mother breathed, her eyes widening.

"Yes, Brangwene's Hjarte. You'll do this because you owe my mother," Ferne ordered. "You do it and I'll allow you to spend time with your daughter." Her voice grew softer and deeper with a meaning only I could decipher. "A final goodbye if you will."

A final goodbye clanged through me.

This was more for me than my parents. This might very well be the last time I spoke to them. At least, that's what I suspected Ferne thought. She was going to allow me one last moment with my family because, in a few months, I'd be auctioned off at the Witches Ball, and I was going to die.