"Every creature is loyal to something," Seteta answered.
"And every lesson you claim to have taught him through violence could have been taught through love and patience."
When she felt Oor's magic begin to counter hers, laughter bubbled up inside her. More accurately, to
try to counter hers. He was the master of the house, yes, but she did not call on the magic of the house. She called on the magic of the earth, and no amount of spells would be able to override the innate magic and nature of the earth from which the very stone had been formed.
Besides, she wasn't trying to gain control of the house. She was just trying to
see and in his anger and his rush to make sure he stayed in control, Oor missed the tendrils of magic that delved deep beneath Witherhold and spread out into the earth around it.
There. She had him, but she let none of her triumph show on his face, and she didn't change the way she touched the magic.
I am his husband. He snarled. We have taken the fae rites, and he remains bound to me by that magic. You think you can claim what I have already stolen? Your marriage will be a mockery from here to the Silent Court!
"The fact that you had to steal him in the first place makes the magic binding the two of you weaker!" Seteta did finally laugh.
"I do not need vows and bindings to cleave him to me at all. If he were coming here cowed and submissive, you would not be so frightened."
And in that moment, as she kept touching the magic, felt
Chaceledon's presence, she knew beyond all else, that her dragon was coming
for her. Even if he had no fire, even if he was growing colder and colder with each step, he was willing to face this wraith despite all the magic working against him, to free her. And in that moment, despite her spot on the floor, she sat tall and regal like a queen.
But any further words she might have said were stolen away when the magic was wrenched away from her control, and the image of an ornate wooden box was shoved into her head, and where it sat in the closet. It hit her with such force that her breath caught in her throat, and she remembered what Chaceledon had said the night they met Gaal.
“By fae laws and dragon laws...we’re married until I destroy the robes we wore for the ceremony.” he said carefully. “But you’re right. He doesn’t deserve that title. None of that was voluntary, I can assure you.”
She looked at Oor, at last allowing the triumph she felt to show in her gaze.
He is mine, and he will be mine until this house crumbles down around me! Oor got up and made to backhand her. Hard. His hand was narrow and bony, and without any flesh to cushion it would hit very hard.
I was going to release you, you rotten, brazen cunt of a woman. But now I think I’ll have Klaus eat you alive.
Seteta did not cringe when Oor stood. When he raised his hand, her gaze never faltered, and she did not flinch when his hand struck her face, leaving a red, smarting bruise behind and a cut along her cheek.
When Oor slammed the doors, not even the shattered glass and the cuts it left behind on her exposed skin made her cower, though she did squeeze her eyes shut and turn away. When the last of the glass had finished falling, she watched Oor's retreating form in the garden, and if he looked back he would see a strange smile curling at the corners of her mouth.
As soon as he was out of sight, she moved. She retrieved the half-eaten
gnathi, and tore chunks of it off, setting a piece before each of the stone dogs and affectionately patting their heads before she set her unfinished plate of food on the table next to the pitcher of water and headed into the closet.
This was too important to wait, and Oor would not expect something like
this of her
now. She doubted he even realized he'd shown her where the robes were.
She didn't dare use magic yet, since Oor would obviously be able sense it, and so she had to shove shelving around until she found the spot she'd seen in her mind. A large piece of stone had been cut out of the wall and put back in place, and she knew the robes lay behind it. Gently, she laid her hand against it, and she almost sobbed with relief when she realized it was not Oor's magic she felt, but Chaceledon's own wards.
Unlike Oor's... warped spells and magic maintaining the manor, Chaceledon's magic worked with the stone, with its innate magic, and she barely had to do anything to reach out and coax the piece to move. She shattered it with barely a thought, turning the solid block into infinitesimal grains of sand and quickly reached in--though she had to stretch up on her toes--to retrieve the box, then she returned to the bedroom and crouched before the fire.
As she opened the box, she faltered for just a moment. Should she wait? Try to take the robes to Chaceledon and allow him to burn them himself? But she didn't know how she would be able to take them with her, especially without Oor noticing, and with barely another thought she emptied the robes into the fire.
This way, even if she died here, he would be free.
Chaceledon
