The Deceiver's Heart (The Traitor's Game 2)

With that thought, that defiance, Endrick must’ve squeezed on my heart so fiercely that I nearly fainted. Simon rushed to my side. “What’s happening to you?” he asked. “Please tell me!”

I barely heard him as Endrick’s order echoed again in my head: Find the Corack boy who brought you into Woodcourt and kill him. Fail to do this, and you will die.

“No!” I shouted. Not that it mattered. What I heard was an echo of my past. A memory I wasn’t meant to remember until now.

Simon held up his hands, looking utterly helpless. “Tell me how to help you.”

“You can’t …” I struggled for words. “Why did it have to be you who forced me to retrieve the Olden Blade? Why did it have to be you, Simon?”

He reached for me. When I gasped for air, his eyes grew wild with panic. “Is it the necklace?”

“It’s you. I won’t hurt you again!”

“What are you talking about? Kestra, you’re not making sense.”

I stumbled to my feet. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

Then, from outside the gap, a

dog began barking. Tillie’s dog. My attention flew to Rutherhouse, and without words, without any reason for the fear that suddenly swept through me, I knew what had raised the dog’s alarm.

As fast as I could run, I burst out of the gap, blinded by everything but the few lights still burning inside the home and the shadows that passed in front of them, numb to everything but the barking dog and the high-pitched, fluttering call of oropods.

The Dominion had come.

If I could get there first, I had a chance to convince them that I was alone. Whatever happened to me afterward didn’t matter. My fate was already sealed.

Except I wasn’t there first. Tillie was inside, with them. I was too late.

Kestra had nearly escaped the slot before I realized why she was running.

The dog’s barking.

Normally, that wouldn’t have alarmed me, but after Kestra’s strange behavior just now, I knew something was terribly wrong. And despite still recovering from the poisoning, I found a new strength in me to follow her.

The back side of Rutherhouse came into view and my gut instantly knotted. A prison wagon with green and black markings was parked at the side of the home. I counted eight oropods total. Horror sent a chill through my bones. The Dominion was here.

“No, no!” I breathed.

If this was the Dominion, then why was Kestra running toward them? Would she try to attack?

No, she intended to surrender.

I finally caught up to her when we were within a few paces of Rutherhouse. I put my arms around her waist and pulled her to the ground, then clamped a hand over her mouth as I dragged her behind a tree, almost directly beneath an open window at the back of the house. It became all too easy to hear what was happening inside.

“This is your last chance, woman!” a man shouted. “Where are Kestra Dallisor and your son?”

Kestra locked her widened eyes on mine, asking for a confirmation of what she’d just overheard, and shaking her head in hopes that the soldier was wrong. But I nodded back at her, already feeling the wound splitting my heart. Yes, Tillie was my mother.

Kestra tried to get up, but I kept one arm around her waist and locked her legs down with mine. As I did, I felt my breaths coming in harsh bursts.

What was I supposed to do?

Tillie answered the soldiers, “I’m alone here—” Her voice was cut short by a piercing cry, and I flinched. What had they done?

Kestra struggled again and I tightened my grip on her, though my hands trembled and this moonlit night was blurring in my vision. In my entire life, nothing had ever hurt the way this pain was swelling within me.

“Stop,” I hissed in Kestra’s ear, not sure whether I meant for her to stop, or if it was a prayer that the soldiers would stop whatever they were doing. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know. All I had with me was a knife, and a body in no condition to fight off eight or more Ironhearts.