Page 258 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Thanks for that two cents,” Briar snarked at Pete. “Look, Amy, Ihavebeen trying to find you. For months!”
“Why didn’t you just assume I was dead?” I was curious why he’d told Jade from the Thorny Rose Tavern he knew I was still alive.
“I probably would’ve assumed you were dead. If the sluaghs didn’t tell me straight up that they’d been paid to cart me off, so that some harbinger asshole could capture you for Gentian.”
Pete laughed darkly.
Briar shot him a withering glance before continuing. “I’d almost given up hope that we’d ever find you when I got word that part of Lithalaly was on fire. I figured you’d tried to use your powers to escape your captor, and I sent a full battalion into the jungle to find you. It was during that search that we found the message. Half-burnt, I was told, but mostly legible.”
“You didn’t see the message with your own eyes?” Pete’s amusement, stiff though it had been, had fled. “You just took someone’s recounting of it as truth?”
“And who the fuck are you to judge my decisions on trust,harbinger?”
Pete sniffed. “I’m the arsehole who captured the princess for Gentian, as you said.”
Disbelief and hatred wrangled for control of Briar’s face.
I cringed, knowing this hadn’t been the most appropriate time to letthatbomb drop.
“But I’m also the one who wrote that missive you’re referencing. The missive found in a copse of scorched crystal willows? A former kaleidoscope post?”
When Briar’s ears perked, I knew Pete had nabbed his attention.
“Half-burnt it might’ve been,” Pete kept on, growing more irritated with each word. “But it wouldn’t have stated anything about a harbinger outpost. Quite the contrary. It stated that the princess was living in a safe haven from Gentian—a refugee camp, as she calls it.”
Cursing, Briar hung his head.
“Every person residing in Eden is a victim of Gentian’s curses. Victims I’d hoped would be granted asylum after you’d read my message. Not attacked like criminals. Or slain like mongrels before their children, their friends!”
My lip quivered at the pain in Pete’s voice. As we’d only discovered our friend’s death minutes before our meeting with Briar, his grief over Morus hadn’t finished brewing. He was noticeably still in shock.
Thank Danu for that, I thought.Otherwise, he’d have killed Briar on sight.
Briar peered skyward. Asking for absolution? I wondered. “I—I didn’t know,” was his pathetic response.
Anger wormed through my mouth again. “It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know, Briar—if you made a mistake coming here.”
He frowned—at himself, I thought.
“Even if you had the wrong information, you still could’ve stopped all this if you’d just opened your damn eyes and looked around for a hot minute. Didn’t you see all the smiling faces or hear the laughter? Didn’t you see the goddamnchildren? The ones you tried to drown with your tidal wave?”
“I didn’t know what to expect of a harbinger camp, Amy!” Briar shook pleading hands at me. “I’ve never seen one before! Why couldn’t children live there?”
I almost hiccupped. “You think what you did would be acceptable if the children you tried to kill belonged toharbingers?”
“No!” Briar closed his eyes, shook himself. “No, that’s not what I’m saying, Amy. I’m saying that I thought this was a harbinger camp, and that everyone here was complicit in imprisoning you. That the children were as wicked as the rest! Thateveryonewas guilty! I’m not excusing those thoughts. I just—I thought you were in danger! I thought that they were torturing you! Or starving you! Or raping you! And I’d been assured they’d do all three!”
Despite his unmasked prejudices, the fear contorting Briar’s face moved me. Made my guts clench.
What the hell would’ve happened to me had Pete not been the harbinger who’d gotten my ordination?
Myrrdin clicked his tongue, calm as ever while my heart thudded out of control. “Who assured you of that, Briar?”
“Huh?” Briar blinked, returning to himself.
“The people who assured you of the torturing, starving, and raping,” Myrrdin clarified. “Who did the assuring?”
Briar blinked again, bereft as he racked his brain. “I—I can’t remember exactly—”
