Dagny: An Inheritance Cycle Fanfiction.

21. The Witch of Teirm

They didn't put her in a cell. No matter what she'd done, she was still Lady of Teirm; they would never humiliate her by making her set foot in her own dungeons.

The dungeons where she left Mama.

She was confined to her private chambers, the doors locked and guarded. She was given every comfort. Arne had laid wards around her rooms, wards that would imprison her more than the guards or the lock. Dagny felt a chill in the air as she passed through them and was surprised by what else she felt. Wards to keep Brigitta confined...and wards to dampen her magic. The elf knew enough to suspect that Brigitta of Teirm was a magic-user.

We should have suspected, she said to Sverrir. The gift was in Mama's blood. And my father's.

She gave you no reason to suspect, he said. She was careful.

He was with the children, Brigitta's children. All three of them were sleeping bundled together between his forelegs. They were safe with him. Dagny wasn't sure she could trust them with anyone else.

Her sister was standing at the window, looking out at the rising sun. Dagny stopped in the doorway. Her Bree. She was so different now, older, fully-grown, a lady where she had been a child, and there were deeper changes than that. Yet there was something well-known and beloved about the way she stood leaning on the windowframe, and the weary way her head tilted. Something Dagny would have recognised instinctively even after a thousand more years.

Brigitta turned from the window. "Dagny," she said softly. "I hoped you would come."

Dagny swallowed. "Did you, Bree? I'm not sure you should have."

The lady of Teirm crossed to one of the high-backed chairs that stood before the fireplace. She sat and indicated the other with one sweeping hand. "You're angry. I knew you would be." There was no apology in the words, only ruefulness. Dagny's hand clenched on her dagger-hilt. She made herself release it and sit down.

"You told me she was dead."

"Yes. I had to. Otherwise you would look for her."

Dagny felt cold all over, and lost. One more thing about this night that didn't make sense. This would never make sense. She was trying so hard to be calm, to hold her anger leashed. There must be a reason, she told herself, and Sverrir, when Láine first explained what Arne and Tornac had found in Emedin's dungeons. What Emedin had denied all knowledge of, blustering with shock, and what his cool, unruffled wife had eventually claimed as her own responsibility. Her doing. They had put her under arrest then, the Prince Tornac's men in Lord Emedin's name. And when Láine told them the tale, Dagny had thought, stunned and shaken, there must be a reason. She had grasped onto that thought and used it to anchor herself. Bree would have a reason.

"But it seems I could have spared you the pain," Bree went on. "You looked for her anyway - or your elf did. How did you find her so quickly? I put her there because that place was impossible to find."

That one phrase, the coldness of it, broke her grasp on self-control. "Bree, why?!" Her shout was like the lash of a whip, breaking the stillness in the room. Bree flinched. Only for an instant, but it was enough. Her calm was a façade and beneath it she was very afraid.

Dagny drew a breath. Shut her eyes. This whole night was madness, every part of it, and it felt like it had lasted years already. I'm losing my mind, she thought. This can't be real. And despite everything, the sight of her little sister flinching in fear of her made her sick to her soul with guilt.

Bree shook her head. "I will try to explain. You may not understand but - I suppose I have no choice?"

"You suppose right," Dagny said. Bree nodded, looking down at her clasped hands.