CHAPTER 1104: THE POWER OF ELEANOR’S GIFT

The lamp in Jocelynn’s cell had gone dark hours ago, fading into nothingness like an echo of Eleanor’s fading light in the final moments of her life.

Jocelynn sat with her back against the cold stone wall of her cell, her wrists bound by iron manacles whose chains were just long enough to allow her to reach the crude wooden table where Inquisitor Percivus and his acolytes had piled the altar cloths he expected her to embroider.

Every day since she’d arrived in this dank, dark cell, Jocelynn had worked at the embroidery, pricking her own fingers in her clumsiness as she tried to make enough progress to earn a meager meal from one of Percivus’s lackeys. Today, however, she’d refused to touch needle or thread.

Her hands belonged to her, and from now on, they would only do what she wanted them to.

When Percivus arrived in her cell the morning after Eleanor’s death, Jocelynn had seen the first crack form in his normally imperturbable facade. Just the night before, she’d been feeble, weak from a meager diet, and shivering in the cold without a blanket. Her fingers bore dozens of pinprick wounds from the embroidery needle, and her wrists and ankles were covered in sores from chafing against the iron manacles that bound her.

Yet when Percivus entered her cell in the morning, the woman he found shackled to the wall was as healthy and whole as the day he’d taken her prisoner. If anything, other than the accumulation of dirt and grime on her body, and the limp disarray that her golden hair hung in, she looked even better than she’d been on the day he took her prisoner.

"So, you’ve decided to reveal your witchcraft at last," Percivus said warily as he struggled to adopt the demeanor of a man who controlled everything that happened within Jocelynn’s world. "You’ll burn for this, you know. Now that you’ve revealed your power, there’s no saving you, or your cousin Eleanor."

When Percivus advanced into her cell, he moved slowly, cautiously, gesturing to Acolytes Niklas and Samlet to fan out to either side of him. Both acolytes raised their hands in a gesture meant to ward against evil, and their lips were pursed, ready to utter prayers that would unleash the power and fury of the Holy Lord of Light the instant it looked like Jocelynn was preparing to use witchcraft against them.

"You’re wrong," Jocelynn said as she stood to face him. Chains clanked with her movements, and she still wore the rough, wool dress of a poor commoner, but when she stood before him, she once again stood with the pride and bearing of a noblewoman, with the strength of generations of Blackwells who had stood upon the decks of sailing ships, refusing to yield to fierce storms or turbulent tides.

"You’re wrong," Jocelynn repeated. "This isn’t witchcraft. It’s a miracle. If you really serve the Holy Lord of Light, you should be able to understand that. You should know that it was a miracle the first time Confessor Eleanor healed me," she said, deliberately using her cousin’s title to force these wicked men to remember that they had tormented one of their own to death.

"I’m protected by a Confessor’s miracle," Jocelynn said, looking down her nose at Percivus, seeing him for the first time as the small and petty man that he truly was. "If you doubt me, then bring me before High Priest Aubin," she said confidently. "He will see the truth of things, and he’ll know that you and your dogs are blind to have missed it."

Whether that was true or not, Jocelynn didn’t know, but she was done bowing down to the casual cruelty of the man who had come very close to breaking her. If he wanted to kill her for speaking out against him, then so be it, but she was confident that he wouldn’t.

She had spent much of the past night in tears, too shattered by Eleanor’s death to do more than sit on the wood and leather cot in her cell and cry, but when the first rays of light filtered into her cell, she’d begun to think. Eleanor had given her a priceless gift, freeing her from the torment of Percivus’s cruelty, and once her mind was free of the shackles of cold and hunger, she’d begun to realize the limits of the Inquisitor’s actions.

On the first day, he’d doused her with water and left her in the cold cell overnight, pushing her to the brink of death to convince her to give up her silks and her jewelry so that he could make her complicit in her own torture. Ever since then, however, he’d shown remarkable restraint in the punishments he inflicted on her.

He made her ’work’ for the privilege of having an oil heater in her cell, and at times, it was taken away from her to ’remind her’ that warmth was a privilege. He was in control, and if she didn’t bend to his will, then she would die from days spent in the cold. That was what he wanted her to think.

But once Jocelynn was able to examine everything that had happened in her prison cell with a clear head, she arrived at a very different conclusion. Percivus had limits that he couldn’t exceed. She was still Jocelynn Blackwell, still the daughter of the wealthiest count in Trevarthen Duchy, and she was still the sister of Owain Lothian’s wife. Even if her sister had ’died’ in the recent attack on the Summer Villa, she was still a woman of significant power and influence.

When she put all of that together with the clear restraint that Percivus and his lapdogs showed in tormenting her, she arrived at a singular conclusion. He couldn’t kill her. He might want to, but his superiors in the Inquisition wouldn’t be able to protect him from the consequences of doing so. For the first time, Percivus wasn’t facing the family of a village knight at the edge of the frontier, or the distant cousin of a local Baron, far removed from the line of succession.

He was like a rabid dog who chased after carriages, and now, he’d finally caught one. A noblewoman from one of the most powerful and influential families outside of the dukes and the royal family itself. And now that he’d caught her and brought her under his thumb, he had to be very, very careful not to crush her, or the consequences he faced could doom not just him, but his entire order.

"You tried this before," Percivus said, frowning as he tried to grasp hold of his dominant position again and failed to see even the slightest hint of fear or wariness in the Blackwell woman’s seafoam eyes. "You call out for the High Priest as if he’ll save you, but he isn’t here, and as far as he knows, you’re only confined to your chambers while I ’investigate’ your crimes. Whatever someone outside this cell might do to help you, the only people that matter..."

"You aren’t someone who matters," Jocelynn said sharply, refusing to let him talk down to her. "You’re just a dog who slipped his leash. But just because Lord Bors let you off the leash, doesn’t mean you aren’t a dog, wagging your tail at him, hoping for scraps from his table, and eager to do his bidding."

"You can bite me," Jocelynn said as she looked down at the small man. "I expect a rabid dog to bite. But you can’t kill me. And if you can’t kill me, then you don’t have any power over me. So go. Go back to your masters and tell them that you couldn’t bend me to your will. Tell them that your attempt to break me cost Confessor Eleanor her life, and watch how your support crumbles."

"You’ve made a mistake, Percivus," Jocelynn said fiercely with hot tears leaking from her eyes. "Cousin Eleanor and I are Blackwells. You can kill us," she said, as her sister’s face flashed through her mind. Her sister, who had endured years of fear, living as a caged bird in order to avoid the sort of fate she would suffer at the hands of men like Percivus if the Inquisition ever discovered her mark.

Ashlynn had endured for her entire life, but she’d still been just as kind and compassionate as Eleanor had been, and she’d still done everything she could to help her younger sister, even Jocelynn herself had failed to recognize it. In the end, only death could extinguish her sister’s light. Nothing short of that could stop her from being the brightest light she could be, lighting the way for her sister to follow. Now, even though it was far too late, Jocelynn vowed that she would be the same.

"You can kill us," Jocelynn repeated after taking a deep, steadying breath. "But nothing short of that will break us. And I don’t believe that your masters will let you kill me. So go," she said, turning her back on the Inquisitor and returning to the cot. "Go and tell your masters that you’ve failed, because I’m done playing your games..."