Envious Deception

by Katie Keller-Nieman

  A shiver raced through me, and I felt something I thought I’d never feel again. Fear.

  Alone, there was nothing to fear. If I lived or died hadn’t mattered, but now living meant everything. The chance for a life with Cassandra made this risk necessary. I had nothing of value to offer. There was no hope to convince her father that I could be enough for her, not unless I made a name for myself.

  I heard the sweep of Aurora’s silk dress brush softly over the grass. “You are early,” she said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. She wore the deep hood of her velvet cloak to conceal her identity, as if anyone but her would wear something so fine, trimmed with patterns of gold threads. Two horses flanked her, calmly sniffing the night air.

  “And you are late, princess.”

  Amusement sparkled in her eyes, bright despite the shadows masking her face. I brushed dirt from my clothing as I stood. She offered a horse to me and patted its neck affectionately.

  We mounted our horses and I followed her into the dark woods. The ride stretched on. We rode swiftly, cutting through the blanket of night. She led us on a path along a dry streambed that eventually brought us to a hill smothered by thick forest. A small opening in the undergrowth led us inside the canopy.

  At the edge of a small clearing stood a dilapidated cabin webbed in vines. Part of the roof had collapsed, and a small hole had been punched through the wooden wall, nearly masked by gnarled, thorny bushes. It appeared to have been abandoned long ago.

  “Here.” She dismounted, silently urging me to follow. I did, but stopped suddenly at the cabin’s threshold. Herbs were strung from the ceiling to dry. A pot hung over an empty fireplace. Clay jars and bottled concoctions lined the shelves on the wall. Heaps of roots were piled on a small, tattered bed in the corner.

  “I think I will practice here, far from my father’s shadow.”

  “This home is not yours,” I reminded her.

  “Soon the crone will be executed. Then it will belong to no one.”

  My stomach sank at her words, and to avoid them, I stepped inside. The hairs on my arms rose instantly. The air felt thick, heavy with intent. I perused the bottles, sniffing the contents curiously.

  “Do you know what they are?” Aurora asked.

  I nodded. “This was a place of magic for many generations. Energy is layered. It’s thick. Any magic worked here will be multiplied by it.” I looked sharply to her. “Keep that in mind before claiming the place,” I warned.

  She bowed her head in understanding.

  I looked back to the shelves. Moonlight streamed through the broken roof, lighting the single room. Excitement ebbed through me. “These are ancient.” I dusted grime from a bottle before opening the cork. “This is quail blood. It’s dry now, but it has many uses. And this,” I reached for another bottle. “This is the eye of a wolf.”

  “A wolf’s eye?” she asked, scrunching her nose with distaste.

  “For protection. Keep this close and lesser animals will fear you. You could walk the woods without threat from dogs, or…” A small pouch hanging from a hook caught my attention, and my explanation trailed off. I loosed the laces and shook three small stones into my palm.

  “What did you find?” Aurora asked, leaning in curiously.

  “Bird stones. If a man puts one of these beneath his tongue and kisses a woman, she’ll fall in love with him,” I informed her haughtily.

  Her eyes widened in awe. “Truly? Does it work?”

  I grinned in answer. She snatched them from my hand. “What if I put one under my tongue and I kissed you?” she dared, batting her long eyelashes at me.

  “I doubt your husband would approve. Freyr would flay me.”

  “Nonsense. I would never allow it,” she said with a smile.

  “Nevertheless…” I replied, holding my hand out. She reluctantly returned them to my fist, and I tossed them into the hearth. They disappeared in the ash.

  “That’s hardly fair,” she said.

  “Claims she with a power none can withstand,” I teased. “Such tricks are beneath you.”

  She grinned proudly. “Nights we have spent digging herbs and roots together, yet your knowledge continues to astound me,” she said, watching me with rapt attention. Her eyes weighed her understanding of me, the balance tipping. “Your mother taught you well,” she surmised.

  “She did not teach me. I spied her teaching my sisters.”

  “Of course,” she said, giving me that look again. “Only the women.”

  I nodded.

  “Though not Eldri,” she added.

  I smiled slightly. “Yes. Not Eldri.”

  “Eric and Eldri, always left behind,” she teased.

  Though she meant well, the tease ached. We were left behind.

  “Did your mother teach them anything of fertility?” Aurora asked. The confidence in her gaze faltered, and she looked down with shame. “I have tried whatever our physician suggests. Freyr begins to lose faith in me.”

  Watching her mood dissolve, I felt pity for the princess. “It may not be you. Sometimes the problem lies with the man.”

  “Do you know of a solution?”

  “There is someone who may.” I hedged before tentatively adding, “I will ask for you.”

  “May I meet them?”

  My brow furrowed. “You seek a new tutor?”

  “In trade. I am willing to share what I learned from my nursemaid. Morna was of the west. Magic is vastly different across the sea,” she suggested hopefully.

  “Aurora, there are none who would teach you, the daughter of the king.”

  She took offense, her lips pursing with annoyance. “I was born with a spark. I cannot ignore what I am, nor choose who bore me,” she argued.

  I sighed heavily and set a hand on her arm, guiding her to the small cot. I cleared roots and herbs away for us to sit. She watched my face with rapt attention, hurt lingering in her eyes.

  “You are a natural witch,” I explained gently. “One whose power has always existed and always will. It is rare to find someone like you. But even so, even if you weren’t the king’s daughter, they would shun a power like yours.” I looked down apologetically. “Your gift is strong, but it is also dangerous. And even within circles of magic, you would be cast out for it.”

  She swallowed slowly, confusion evident in her tense brow. “They would fear my gift?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t?” she asked.

  I hesitated to be sure, then looked her in the eye. “I do not,” I admitted.

  “Why?” she asked, her eyes wide and searching mine. “Eric, there is something anew aflame in your eyes.”

  I looked down, and she took my trembling hands. “Trust in me, as I have trusted in you, dear Eric.”

  I looked into the empty hearth, to ash and soot, to the bones of a tree long since spent, waiting for a spark to alight.

  ***

  My face tightened. Crushing pain punched above my brow. It pressed down so heavily that it dragged me out of the vision, yanking me out down a long dark tunnel to blinding florescent lighting.

  The cabin!

  I’d fallen asleep in Eric’s arms, and we’d somehow had another memory, this time of the cabin where he’d died. Aurora’s cabin.

  I blinked, startled by the sudden, harsh light. It was painful, ripping through my head. A shiver raced over my body, prickling with a feeling like a thousand tiny pins pressed into my skin. My ears rang like I’d spent the night beside the speakers at a dance club. My eyes felt waxy, my head muffled, and the pain in my head changed direction, shifting to my scars, stabbing at my brain. Pain erupted in the place where my tumor had been removed. Sparks of color shot through my vision.

  I tore away from Eric, the pain nailing me down to his pillow. I held my aching head, terrified it might explode without my grip, mind screaming from the agony. So enwrapped by pain, my body could do nothing. I couldn’t speak, or even whimper.

  My eyes clamped clo
sed and I breathed in and out, willing my body to ease its tension. The pain began to rein back slowly, enough for me to lift my eyes again.

  “Eric…” I called shakily.

  Through spotty, blackened vision I saw that his eyes were open, but he wasn’t looking at me. He lay limp, oblivious to the horrendous pain I was in, that I wasn’t holding his hands and wasn’t giving him a vision. He didn’t notice because… he was still in the vision. Without me.

  Eric’s blue eyes were wide, his brow tight, yet he looked at nothing at all. Emotions played across his face, changing softly, shifting from fear, to doubt, to relief. I watched in horrified awe. He’d confessed to having visions he couldn’t remember while he slept. But this? This was new. It was odd, and it felt like I was getting left behind. Like he and Aurora were skipping off to the cabin without me.

  His expression grew tortured.

  “Eric,” I called again. I forced myself to move through the pain in my head and latched back onto him. I squeezed his hands hard, trying to force his subconscious to understand that he needed me for this, that I needed to see just as much as he did.

  I was sucked back under. Like an undertow in the ocean, I was dragged into his memory.

  Blackness shifted, and Aurora’s face appeared before me. This time, the vision wasn’t clear. She was speaking, but all that I could hear was static popping sounds. The color was dull and faded. It was like my earliest visions, the ones I’d had before I met Eric. It was like watching an old film reel. The sound was gone, replaced by wonky warbling, and the images stuttered, blacked out, and faded back in, as if the depth of the air itself was thickening and thinning.

  “Svá vel,” Aurora’s mouth moved to the odd, muffled sounds. “Ek skil eigi.”

  She took my-Eric’s—hands, and her tears wet his skin.

  Like with old reels, it was as if we slowly approached a clean, untouched area of tape, and everything started to come back into place. Color brightened, and the depth of the world thickened. The sweet smell of fresh air filled my nose but immediately began to change, mixing with the scent of burning wood. Ash. Darkness and flickering flame.

  1204, ERIC

  My body seized with dread. I tossed my blanket off and left my room. I hurried down the empty corridor, rushing as quickly and quietly as I could, praying I would not wake the sleeping guards. Flames danced in metal braziers, caught in the gust of my speedy pace.

  I felt her call cutting into my skin, sinking into the bone, down to the marrow. Her plea pulled me onward, deeper into the castle.

  A yellow glow beckoned. She stood outside a door left partway open, casting a thin shaft of light from within and wreathing her in burning orange. Within her dark silhouette, I beheld a chilling look of terror.

  “Eric,” she called aloud in a choked, desperate gasp. She rushed into my arms, sobbing into my shirt. Her trembling hands grasped my clothing. Face pressed to my chest, she screamed in horror, her voice a stifled screech buried in my shirt. Something horrendous had occurred.

  “Show me.” I shook her and she looked up at me, her tearful face white with terror. “Aurora, show me,” I urged.

  She trembled more in answer, slowly losing her grip on me. I ducked into the room and inhaled a sharp, cutting breath at the gruesome sight before me. Freyr, the great warrior, husband to the golden princess, lay dead in a pool of blood. His eyes had gone pale, his face stark white against his dark tangled hair. Aurora’s golden dagger was clutched in his lifeless hand, smeared with his lifeblood. A gaping gash had been carved deep across his neck from ear to ear, a sickening smile beneath the chin that oozed a sea of crimson.

  “Aurora…” I gasped. “What have you done?”

  I wildly searched her stunned eyes. She slowly entered the room, stepping numbly through the pool of blood on her floor. I checked the hall quickly before I secured the heavy wooden door behind her. Freyr, her husband. His blood was splattered up the back of the door, painting the aged wood in violent red.

  “What have you done?” I repeated, my voice a fretful quaver.

  “He…” she began with a gasp. “He suspected. He spied us sneaking away.”

  I shook my head, dismayed. “That is not possible.”

  “He found the crone’s cabin. He knows.”

  She slumped down to their marriage bed. The blankets and furs were in disarray, scattered across the mattress and floor. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of her thin, white night dress. Pale, she shivered in the amber light of the fire.

  “He threatened to inform my father. He was going to tell the king,” she continued in a soft, crying plea.

  “Tell him what?” I pressed, my teeth grinding tight.

  Her chin lowered and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks with a sob. “That I’m a witch. And that you…”

  No… All these years, all that I’d lost. “Aurora… no…” I gasped.

  “He searched the shack. He was furious. He called me a monster. He looked to me with such vile hatred. Such cold menace. Never before… he’d never…” She sank to her knees on the floor beside Freyr’s body, sobbing.

  “You used your power over him,” I stated.

  She nodded, sniffling. “I could see no other way.” Her fingers wove through his dark hair, trembling as they softly raked his scalp. “I forced his hand,” she admitted with a weeping sob. “I’ve killed my own husband,” she whispered. Her hands caressed him. She tugged limply at him, as if to cradle him close, and the gash on his neck sloshed and pulled.

  I knelt in the blood beside her, and gently drew her hands from him, holding them still in mine. “No one need know. You will spin a tale and I will aid you. This will be our secret. Yet another.”

  “How can I spin this web anew? He is dead! I killed him, Eric,” she stressed. Her icy eyes cut into mine, piercing from the redness surrounding them. “We would have burned. The both of us.”

  “We won’t. You saved us.”

  “By slaying my husband.” She bit her bottom lip and tears rolled heavily down her cheeks. “I loved him, and I killed him. I truly am a monster, just as he said,” she cried.

  “You did what my family could not. You protected yourself. This does not make you a monster.”

  “But it does. A siren is what you called me. I am a monster of legend,” she moaned.

  “You are a powerful witch with a spark of deep magic. It is a great gift,” I firmly reminded her.

  “It is no gift, but a curse. What use is it?” she snarled, her lips curling back with bitter, broken fury. “It is a spotty trick, an illusion of power that vanishes like the wind. What might happen the next time? Who will be the next to die? You see what I’ve done. I could not change his intent, not this time. I tried, but he would not yield to me. His heart closed to me, but his body did not. And this… this is the result. His end.”

  I looked down guiltily and took her hand in mine. “You are no monster.” She began to sob hard again, and I held her steady. “I promise you that.”

  ***

  I rode swiftly. Grindelf’s hooves pounded the parched earth, lifting clouds of swirling dust on the path behind us. The castle was a haze of shadow in the distance, quickly growing closer, and Cassandra’s empty cottage disappeared behind me. Ache at the missed opportunity dragged my movements, but Grindelf sped onward.

  I slowed my horse as we approached the castle gate. In a lofted window, I spied a flash of golden light. The princess had spotted me. Guards circled as I entered the gate and steadied my horse as I dismounted.

  Aurora emerged from a staircase near the gate. She ran to me but stopped short. Anxious, she watched my eyes. Last I’d seen her face, it was slick with mournful tears. I offered her a small smile, and she leapt into my arms. Her bright jewels slapped and clanged against my mail shirt at her excitement.

  “You’ve returned!” she squealed in delight.

  “Halfdan, I have a message for the king!” I called to the closest guard. I handed him the paper, rolled, tied, and sealed.
<
br />   Aurora drew back, touching my face, masking my scarred cheek beneath a gentle hand. “How I have missed you,” she gushed. “Months spent without sight of your face, it is more painful than any blade.” She grasped my right arm, leading me inside the walls.

  “You must be incredibly bored to greet me in such a manner,” I teased.

  “Very much so,” she laughed. “Might you stay?” she asked, stopping our procession, her eyes pleading.

  “I must return to the Western front. Frestheow will have a message.”

  “I could delay him on that,” she offered.

  Tempted, I felt the beginnings of a smile on my face. “A few days would be welcome.”

  “Done,” she declared. “You are mine for three days.”

  I laughed. “Your voice promises mischief.”

  “And you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

  ***

  I drew my hand from Eric’s. It seemed I could enter and exit his visions at will now.

  This was insane. Completely wild. He was living out his past life in his sleep. Was this happening every night?

  I rubbed at my forehead. The ache was still there, strong and relentless, but it had dulled to a more typical hammering.

  They seemed so intimate. Eric and Aurora.

  I apprehensively watched Eric. Still asleep, he gave a small groan and rolled me closer to him. I felt the tingle of memory weaving its way into me from every place our bodies touched. I couldn’t deny the need to know more. Like the sick feeling of watching a highway pileup, I was consumed by the morbid need to see the gruesome details. To learn if Aurora had been lying to me about their first kiss. To see if she hadn’t been.

  The memory burned within our touch, a feeling I couldn’t ignore. I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t peek into his memories without his knowledge. It was snooping on the most intimate level. But his hand was like a diary lying open before me, with Aurora’s name written in glaringly noticeable writing. It was a promise of answers and buried secrets that might set my fears to rest or dredge up feelings and betrayals I never could have imagined.

  I couldn’t resist…