Laughing at those sad, pathetic eyes as he came forward to burn his daughter to death.
Laughing at what she’d let this man do to her and her brothers for so long.
Laughing at how much loathing she had within her.
“She’s crazy.”
“Evil!”
“Listen not to her cackling.”
Henri stood there, two hands grasping the torch when before he would only have needed one. A priest moved to either side of him, each putting an oiled torch into the fire, lighting it, and with a final call to God to have mercy on them, tossed them onto the pyre.
The faggots ignited quickly, and smoke rose to choke her. Heat radiated from below as more sticks burst alight and the branches snapped. Dancing flames leapt at her smock and sweat broke out across her body. She took shallow, rapid breaths.
What if this went wrong?
People punched their hands into the air, chanting for her grisly demise. She couldn’t look at them any longer, couldn’t even look at Henri. She’d wanted to stare into his eyes until the end, and pour all her fiery contempt into him, to make him burn as she did. But vengeance would have to wait. She needed to concentrate.
Fire scorched her ankles and she groaned at the freezing and burning that blasted her body, threatening to make her cry and scream. Her skin blistered.
Fighting back tears, she closed her stinging eyes. Breathing became harder, the smoke scratching her throat, but she compelled herself to relax and chanted under her breath.
Cool air surrounded her body, holding the flames back. She continued her incantation, opening her eyes to see the fire encase her. The people silenced and, in between the flickering, she saw the disbelief on their faces. She was supposed to be screaming, begging God for mercy, or at least whimpering. Anything except standing there whole.
The priests crossed themselves and clasped their hands. She focused on Henri. His mouth hung open, and his eye twitched. The fire rose higher, cutting off more of her view.
She should end this now.
Not for the first time since the soldiers had dragged her from her home, she wondered if this had been the right way to do things. She’d always tried to avoid a spectacle, preferring to work quietly in the background. Her mother had taught her that. Most times it was better to avoid suspicion and not let her power show.
But just this once, she wanted them to see what she was capable of. She wanted them all to know, especially Henri.
What will Mother say?
She recited a short but powerful spell, and energy rose out of the earth to swirl around her and the blazing pyre. No one but her could sense it or see it. It twisted, creating a cone that rose to a point far above her head. The energy took on form and gathered the flames, bursting into an inferno. People leapt back; some ran. The flames churned, spinning and spinning, a conflagration that heaved like waves on rough seas. The energy then worked on her and she sailed into the air, leaving Carcassonne behind and nothing to show she’d even been there.
II
“Christ’s balls!” Hame dropped the bucket, spilling water across the grass. With it went the vision of the burning girl, and he was once more back in the forest, now with wet feet and a return journey to the river to make.
These unprompted visions mocked him, this oracle that couldn’t control his Sight.
At least it wasn’t a premonition, merely a glimpse of something happening far away—something that might be significant. Loic would know.
He grabbed the bucket handle and stalked back down the path to the river. Whenever a vision snuck up on him it only confirmed what he already knew. He was broken. And the pieces within him ground against one another like mismatched cogs in a windmill.
It had been twelve years since his first prophecy. Twelve years since following it across the sea from his home in the Scottish Highlands to find Loic waiting for him and ready to teach.
Twelve years of disappointment.
He clenched his teeth, the pressure boring into his jaw. No matter how Loic had trained him, how many days and weeks and months and years he’d worked, he still had no control over what he saw. The visions tapped him in the head whenever they wished, a game of tag where he was forever “it”.
Well, if the visions weren’t going to play fair, he just wouldn’t play.
He laughed bitterly at that thought, the sound harsh in the quiet woods. He raked his fingers through his unruly hair and grabbed at the roots.
“As if I have any say in it.” He released his hair, smoothed it as best he could, and continued on.
Still, he tried to spite his visions. That was why he was out here collecting water. Why, earlier, he had been chopping more wood than they needed. Why he had been sliding boulders around, the bigger the better.
Loic could enter a trance-like state within seconds, recite and remember prophecies while in them, and send his mind out on both the ether and the astral.
Hame, by comparison, may as well have been a mule.
The path to the river was well worn, taking him through trees that had grown alongside him, trees he’d climbed more times than he could count. Back when he’d first come here, they’d been a bit of fun to balance the training Loic put him through. But as the years wore on without progress, they became an escape. Not from Loic’s disapproval—he never gave that—but from that look of hope.
Loic kept the faith, even when Hame had lost his.
Reaching the river, he stepped off the bank and plunged up to his knees in the cold, rushing water. The chill shot up his body and swept away that streak of self-pity he hated just as much as his failure. His mind turned to what he’d seen—the girl with the raven hair soaring into the sky. He knew who she was; recognized her power.
He thrust the bucket into the water, scooped it up, and climbed out of the river to return to Loic.
“He’ll want to know about this. He sighed. He had a feeling it was going to be important.
III
Henri launched himself clear of the explosion, but others weren’t so lucky. Laurens danced around as his cassock burned, even as Guillaume tried to smother the flames. Others cried or screamed as their skin peeled and blistered. People hurried for buckets of water to hurl at the roofs of the crowded houses around the square.
His gaze shifted over the mayhem to the pyre. The fire had extinguished, leaving behind smoldering blackened sticks at its base. The central pole was untouched, the shackles hanging free and whole.
A burst of light and a rumble of thunder overhead turned his eyes skyward. Dark and heavy clouds galloped in. Then came the downpour.
As townsfolk aided one another, he retreated. It wouldn’t be long before the people of Carcassonne turned their suspicions towards him and wondered what unholy pact he had forged to produce such a daughter.
Let them cast their stones.
He was Henri d’Arjou and the first to speak ill of him would fall beneath his fists and taste his butcher’s blade. He relished the opportunity. These fools would bleed and die.
Unlike Aurelia.
Unlike his sons.
The rain dogged him. The streets turned to mud, and his boots sloshed in the putrid puddles. He shoved aside a man and woman who were moving too slowly, and she fell in the muck. The man cursed him. He swiveled and stalked back. No one talked back to Henri d’Arjou; not his wife, not his children, not these maggots.
He smashed his fist into the cuckold’s face and the man crumbled, falling back over his woman. She screamed, that high-pitched sound that reminded him so of Aurelia when he’d taken her, of Elaine when she’d started acting the slut. He backhanded the woman and knocked her unconscious.
He marched on, noting a few cowering into doorways as he trudged past.
This was all Elaine’s fault. That wife of his had been the wicked one. Three children born of her womb had all been tainted. They probably weren’t his at all but the bastard offspring of some monster the whore had lain with. How else could their—her—spawn
be explained? He hurried on, feeling strong after defending himself, but the oily shame of being unable to fight Aurelia’s magic dribbled down his back. She’d turned her magic on him that night the boys had attacked and tried to bite him. Her touch had burned, burned worse than any cut, any kick from a heifer. It had burrowed into him, made his bones creak and his skin crackle. He’d doubled over and screamed, but nothing came out, the agony so intense he’d forgotten who and where he was. Only later did he remember what had happened. And then he’d plotted his revenge.
Sodden, he arrived at the door to his house, pushed it open and shut himself inside.
Alone at last.
The house sat quiet. Both rooms were bare and simple. The first had a table, hearth and a straw bed in the corner that Olivier and Thierry had shared—curled next to each other in life as they had in the womb. The second was where he’d slept, and made Aurelia lie with him after her mother had disappeared. For now, he felt safe here, even as the walls shook with the storm’s furor. On the table were a candle and his favorite knife, the one he held as he slept, ready to split open anything that came for him.
Three heavy knocks beat at his door, louder than the thunder, so strong that the wood rattled. So strong that his body quaked. His throat jammed as he swallowed.
Three more knocks.
It was probably the soldiers, come to arrest him for sorcery or for thumping that man and his wife. Well, if they wanted him, he’d fight. They weren’t going to see Henri d’Arjou quiver in fear. He’d fight every last one of them and beat them all.
Just the soldiers. It is just the soldiers.
His hand tremored as it hovered over the handle. It was someone else’s hand, not his—not the master butcher’s, not one of the most feared men in Carcassonne. With his right hand bunched into a fist, he turned the handle with his left, pulled the door back and peered through the opening.
A horror waited to come in.
His eyes bulged and his mouth flapped. Sweat mingled with raindrops and trickled down his neck like rats scurrying over him, their sharp nails pricking his skin.
“It can’t be.”
He tried to push the door shut but it wouldn’t close. He rammed his massive frame behind it, and it held for a moment but then it drove him back. Him! He turned to the knife on the table, knowing—as unbelievable as it was—he could not hold the door, and he gave it one final shove then lurched across the room. He grabbed the hilt and skidded around the table, using it as some meagre barrier between him and the now-gaping door.
With the knife brandished in front of him, he trembled as his witch-daughter entered, engulfed in rolling flames.
IV
Aurelia suppressed a smile at seeing Henri cower. For all his bulk, all his once-menacing frame, he shriveled to almost nothing. His hands gripped the knife, but soon he’d clasp them in begging prayer.
She floated into the room, illuminating the small hovel she’d once called home. The door slammed behind her.
Light reflected off his wide eyes. “I don’t…” he said, before his words failed.
She darted forward, and he scurried into the room where she’d been forced to lie with him. Her stomach churned as her body remembered his thick fingers pinching her skin. Her flames intensified.
She’d put up with it until she’d learned how to stop it. A knife to the ribs would have been quicker, but she’d seen the benefit of having a living being on which to practice her craft. Mother had said to make do with the scraps she’d been left. Find the opportunity in everything. And so she had.
Now Henri had no use, except to suffer her wrath.
He scuttled into a corner, slamming his back into the wall and waving that butcher’s knife at her.
“Witch!” he yelled. “You burned at the stake, and now you’re burning in Hell.”
Only then did she allow herself a smile. “Oh, Father, I had to come back for you.”
She opened her hands, releasing fire. With a curl of her fingers, the flames wrapped around his wrists and bound him, forcing him to drop the knife. He grimaced. The smell of sizzling meat made her hungrier for his agony. Still the defiance shone in his eyes, like a condemned murderer spitting on the boot of the executioner.
“Use your magic,” he growled, “but I will not suffer the way you shall suffer.”
His words roped themselves to her heart like a lodestone and dragged it down into the pit of her stomach. He would never understand what he had done to her. He would never repent or apologize. Wanting those things was nothing but childish fancy. Even so she couldn’t let him live. If Mother were here, she’d say Henri was important and should be left unharmed.
But Mother wasn’t here.
She cast away her self-pity and steeled herself.
With a flourish of her hands, the flames encased his fists and climbed his arms. He bit his lip until it bled, then in a spluttering cough his mouth opened, and he released a sniveling bellow. His eyes watered and sweat cascaded from his brow.
Her magic kept him upright while he writhed.
“This is what you wanted for me, Father.” She drew near.
He threw his head back, trying to avoid her gaze.
“Look at me,” she commanded.
His head straightened, and he was unable to avoid her eyes. He shouted, wept.
“It’s only right I should want this for you.”
She sent a spark to his boots, the leather and his hose catching alight. He danced, trying to extinguish the blaze, then screamed anew as the fire scorched the skin on his feet and legs.
“Mercy!” he screamed.
She held her tongue. She made her face calm, as neutral as stone, while he thrashed. That was how she’d survived, having learned crying and pleading only made him more brutal. Instead she had retreated into herself and waited for him to finish.
Soon the fire devoured him, his clothes burned away, and his skin melted. His hair ignited, and before long he was silent. She thought he was dead but looking into the inferno his eyes held hers and something shimmered across them.
Something knowing.
Something mocking.
Her lips pulled back as the consciousness in his eyes died. In a rage, she released a burst of power that disintegrated the body and extinguished the fire.
Her breathing stuttered. She didn’t know how he’d found quiet in that final moment. But there it had been, that condescending look, that triumphant gaze. A ripple started in her belly and expanded out in a wave. She closed her eyes, tipped back her head, and keened. His torture hadn’t been long enough, and now he was gone.
I was too hungry for it.
She sobbed. For herself. For her brothers. For an opportunity she’d never get again.
But then she heard something under her cries.
Laughter.
She took her hands away from her face and screamed.
A winged beast, horned, taloned, and tailed, appeared where Henri had been. It wasn’t corporeal, but she couldn’t deny its glowing presence and the way it pushed against her. It chuckled as it floated towards her, whipping Henri’s ashes into a small whirlwind. She scurried back, her fear and its malevolence shoving her, telling her to run—run forever.
Banish it.
She couldn’t find the strength, couldn’t summon the concentration. Her throat constricted as if he gripped her in those terrifying claws. This thing was worse than Henri, could do worse than Henri. Terror sucked on her marrow as the creature towered over her, and she was herded into the other room. She hit the wall, and the air forced from her lungs.
“Now it’s my turn.” Its voice scraped her bones, and its gnarled hand rose.
She was going to die.
The door shot open, light erupted, and a blazing white pentagram appeared in front of her and repelled the beast. She looked to the doorway.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave Henri alone?”
Mother.
Relief and dread rushed through her.
The
beast shrieked like a serpent of the deep and struck the pentagram with its fist. It connected with the star and light consumed it. The monster vanished but its howl lingered.
Elaine dispelled the star. “Come on, I hate this place.” She turned on her heel.
“How could—”
“Not now,” her mother snapped.
She held her tongue, but she would have answers.
Once outside the house, Elaine grabbed Aurelia’s hand and pulled her into the ether. She had traveled like this before in her mother’s company, but then, the journey had been smooth, going from here to there like an arrow flying to the middle of a target. This time, something was wrong. A wind buffeted them and attempted to throw them off course. The journey was too rapid for normal sight and everything rushed by in a blur.
Her mother tightened her hold and propelled them through with more force to land in the mouth of a cave inside a forest. Aurelia hunched over to catch her breath, feeling as if she’d been dumped then pulled from a river. At least they’d made it out safely.
Elaine placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She shrugged it off. “I will be.”
“How could you be so stupid?”
She reared up to look her mother in the eye. Though Elaine had always been the stronger of the two, Aurelia felt no fear in confronting her. Especially not now.
“If anyone is going to be blamed for stupidity, it’s you.”
“How dare—”
“You left me alone with that thing. And not just me, my brothers as well. Children! What were you thinking?”
“If you’d followed my instructions, you wouldn’t have been in danger,” Elaine said through her teeth.
Blood rushed to her ears. “We’ve always been in danger. The moment you left us behind, you put us in danger. It’s only dumb luck we weren’t killed.”
Burning Blood: Bonds of Blood: Book 2 Page 2
