by Renee Wildes
“When Mother died, Rufus and Fanny raised me as their own.”
“Rufus taught you to fight.” A matriarchal family in a patriarchal land. Rufus must have been an extraordinary man, like Hengist. Not so hidebound by tradition as to be blind to what was right and not necessarily proper.
She nodded. “Rufus taught me to be expert with knives. Fanny taught me healing. My mother Sheena taught me the old lore. She would’ve loved meeting you. Mother said Grandmother Lena told the most fascinating stories about Cymry Hall. Grandmother met High King Pari ta Lir afore my mother was born. Your grandfather must’ve been named for him.”
Loren choked. His grandfather Pari had not been high king in five hundred years. Cedric ta Pari was the current high king. That would make Lena Kahn Androcles…but that was impossible. Dara felt entirely mortal. “Dara, when was your grandmother east?”
“Many years ago. Mother didn’t say.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen. I’ll be twenty on the first day of the new year. Maybe someday I’ll visit. Wouldn’t you be surprised to see me walking out of the Great Marsh of the Wyldes?”
So young. She must have begun fight training young indeed to be so skilled now. He wondered what in her past necessitated training a woman to fight in a land where such a thing was not permitted under the harshest of penalties. He knew of but one other woman with such a capability. Moira, an archer without mortal equal. He frowned. “The Wyldes are dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I am not disputing that, but—”
“I did all right by you, didn’t I?”
“Granted.” Loren ran a hand through his hair. “I would be honored.” What would Granther make of Lena’s granddaughter? Why had he never mentioned a prior visit?
“Have you ever seen the king?”
Spoon in his mouth, Loren choked on his soup. “Once,” he wheezed. “From a very great distance.”
“I’ll bet he’s all-powerful, good and kind.”
“He is known as a fair and just ruler.”
“Good thing you have never been exposed to the crown,” Hani`ena commented. “Truth would never let you get through this little fabrication.”
“Thank the Lady that is Deane’s headache, not mine. Justice is enough to handle.” Loren shuddered in horror at the chains attached to that crown: Truth. Justice. Mercy. He would take wings every time: freedom over power. If only Alani understood. They had grown up together, but she knew him not at all.
He leaned over and changed the subject. “So. What is for dessert?” He stiffened. “Someone comes. From the south.”
Chapter Three
Dara sense-cast. The acrid scent of violence clung to blood-still-living about an hour’s brisk walk away. “More injured,” she observed, puzzled.
Loren shook his head, frowning. “This is something else.”
She laid her instruments and medicines across the table. ’Twas nice to be surrounded by the familiar scents and trappings of Fanny’s legacy. For all her skill as a warrior, she took solace in other abilities. After the death and destruction of the last few days, any healing was a victory.
Loren pulled his weapons from beneath the table and strapped them on with the ease of long practice. “I shall scout our visitors. Do not leave. I shall bring them here if it is safe. If not—”
“They come here for help. Don’t interfere. ’Tis what I do.”
His face was a cold mask. “I can allow no harm to you.”
That’s all I need. One kiss did not give him the right to order her about. She wasn’t one of those weak-willed village women. She was not. She’d fought too hard for her independence from such male dominance. “Just go.”
He was gone in the next breath with the white mare alongside. Part of her soul left with him—she felt a strange pull at her heart. Frowning, Dara rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She’d a bad feeling about the newcomers. Injuries from violence were a poisonous vapor on her spirit. The weight of all that need pulled her down. There’d been no recovery time. She must rest, soon.
She glanced outside. Bright and sunny, warm for harvest time. Not the type of day some ominous portent showed. She sense-cast again to the south. Loren’s glowing light of Other snuffed out at her touch like a candle at bedtime. When she tried again, there was no Loren, no mare, no gap in the world. Just the expected—woods, birds, insects, small animals. Hide from a magic search? What a handy ability for a warrior.
The newcomers had no such ability. One, male, hurt but coping. The other, female, broken and bloody. She willed them to hurry. The female’s blood darkened, slowed. Much longer, there’d be no cause to come at all. The irony was not lost on Dara. A full-scale battle sent everything into hiding. A single dying human female troubled the morning sun-dappled autumn woods not at all.
They appeared within the hour. Hani`ena bore a big rawboned man with a ruined face and a bloody wreck of an old woman cradled in his arms. Loren stood watch with a drawn sword at the mare’s shoulder, but sheathed the blade as Hani`ena halted and her new rider handed the woman off to the elven warrior.
“Lady healer,” the stranger gasped. “I come from Safehold. What’s left of it.” No sign of pain showed in his carriage as he slid to the ground, but ’twas a miracle he’d carried his burden so far. Hani`ena stood like a rock while he found his balance.
Dara blanched. He’d been blinded; judging by the ravaged skin, either by hot metal or coals. How had he managed to make it through the woods so far, wounded himself and bearing another? She searched his face as she helped him into the hut and one of the chairs at the table. His name escaped her. “Who—”
“Auger Xavier, Moira’s seer.” He fell into the chair.
A seer. Well, that explained it. He’d compensated for his stolen vision with sight.
She glanced at the woman as Loren swept past her and laid the old woman on the bed. “Mag.” The last time she’d seen Moira’s old nurse and chief lady’s maid, Dara had given her a jar of blended hotroot oil and beeswax for her painful twisted joints. The old woman’s breath gurgled in her chest, and blood frothed at the corners of her pinched mouth. Marks of torture were unmistakable: open burns, the crunch of broken bones. That Mag breathed at all bespoke the old woman’s tenacity. Dara fought nausea as she sent her healing self into Mag’s broken body. That someone could do this to a harmless old woman…
The damage was irreversible. Dara returned to the here-and-now, lunging out of the hut door in time to vomit. When she returned, Loren was giving Xavier a cup of water. Loren’s eyes met her gaze with concern. She shook her head and poured some water for herself. Tears stung. “I’m sorry, Xavier, there’s naught I can do.” She cursed the quaver in her voice, the trembling in her hands. Later, she’d mourn. Now was the time to be strong.
“I couldn’t leave her to those bastards.” Xavier shuddered. “I wanted her to die among friends and be sent off with the Lady Goddess’ blessings.”
Loren’s eyebrows rose. “I had no idea so many followed Her in these lands.”
Xavier turned his face in Loren’s general direction. “She belongs not to just your kind, son of the dawn.”
Loren paled.
The man nodded. “The Lady gave me Her gift of sight, to see both what is as well as what may yet come to be.”
“Xavier, what happened? Who did this?” Dara knelt by Mag and stroked her blood-matted grey hair. Her heart ached. Did Mag even know she was there?
“Jalad. We barely got Moira out afore Safehold fell.”
Dara gasped. “What? How?”
“Someone poisoned the guards’ food and opened the gates. All male servants who resisted and the wounded survivors of the battle found within the keep were put to the sword. Those lost souls who bowed a knee to Jalad were spared. As was I.”
Blood roared in Dara’s ears as she looked over to Loren’s white face. “Because of your gift?”
“Jalad thought foresight useful to
him. It let me warn them to get Moira out, but you know the Goddess’ gifts aren’t always predictable. Jalad tried his mightiest, but we couldn’t tell him what we didn’t know—where Moira went. Mag gave a false location, but Moira wasn’t there. Jalad was…displeased.”
She nodded toward Mag. “I can do naught for her. I can help you.” She tried to tug his shirt up, but Xavier swatted her hand away. “Xavier.” Dara’s voice brooked no argument. “Let me see.”
Xavier clenched his jaw and removed his shirt.
Flogged and burned. Pain without permanent damage. Jalad’s methods of persuasion were brutal. Dara handed Xavier a flask of dreamwine, but the wounded man pushed it away after a single sniff to verify its contents.
“I must stay alert,” he insisted. “Someone must warn Hengist and ensure Moira’s safe. Jalad shan’t stop ’til he finds her.”
“I’m sorry. This will hurt.” Dara cleaned the raw, blood-encrusted wounds with hot water and soft sun-bleached rags. She couldn’t pain-block Xavier while at the same time working with her hands. She ground her teeth at the limitation and looked at Loren. He shook his head, and she remembered he could heal only himself.
She tried to be gentle, but there was no help for it. Xavier hissed, braced against the pain. His knuckles whitened around the cup. His lips moved. Dara felt him withdraw. “’Tis how you resisted?”
Xavier nodded. “I couldn’t give Moira up, not even for Mag’s life.”
Loren’s voice was harsh. “They would have killed her anyway.”
Xavier ran a hand through sweat-matted hair. “Jalad is more than he seems. Something else shares his skin, lives behind his eyes. A cold consciousness without heart. His presence brings hopelessness, utter despair.
“There’s something you need know,” Xavier pressed on. “Moira’s with child. I see a son. Hengist shall have his heir by spring planting.”
Dara’s blood ran cold. “Does Jalad know?”
Xavier swallowed hard and nodded once. “Aye, from Midwife Lacey. Under questioning. Right afore Jalad slit her throat.”
Dara thought of Lacey’s almost grown daughter. “What of Tegan?”
“She lives still. Leastwise she did when we left.”
She cursed as she snatched up a jar of cooling salve. “Jalad will tear this country apart looking for Moira now. Naught will stop him until she, Hengist and their son are dead. He won’t want any challenge to his path to the sea.”
“Now you know why I can’t touch your drugs. I must find Moira.”
“Nay.” Loren rose to his feet. “Moira needs a warrior’s protection to see her to safety. The Goddess can help you ride south for Hengist and Sezeny. Hani`ena and I can take you east to Jakop’s Crossroads.”
“Jakop’s Crossroads is where some of our wounded warriors recover in secret,” Xavier stated. “Jalad knows not of their existence. He believes all resistance crushed.”
Loren nodded. “Get a horse from the relay station. Take a mountain hunter cross-country, ride due south to Sezeny’s.”
“I have Hengist’s seal. It should lure me to him,” Xavier assured him.
Dara applied salve to Xavier’s burns. “What direction would she go?”
“North to the break. The clans would help her east.”
Dara couldn’t imagine the toll of a cross-country flight on a battle shocked, pregnancy-weary body. With Fanny and now Lacey gone, she was the only true healer for three days’ travel in any direction. She must get to Moira herself.
Loren turned to Dara and curled a hand around her upper arm, pulling her toward him. “You must heal him. Sight shall be enough of a burden. He must ride from Jakop’s Crossroads to the high court with all speed.”
She froze at the anguished resolve in his eyes. Healing without recovery…she’d be nigh helpless for days, in a realm overrun by demonspawn. Every ounce of self-preservation rebelled. “You know not what you ask.”
“Aye. I do.” Loren’s features hardened in the filtered sunlight streaming through the shutters. “This is more important than one person. Men tortured, butchered like cattle. Xavier must ride, Sezeny must know what happened here. I cannot heal him. You can. I know you would go to Moira’s aid but Hani`ena and I can get there faster. Xavier cannot intercede on Moira’s behalf with the east. I can. There is none else. As soon as you can, get north. Take Mag’s amulet. It shall identify you as Moira’s to her people. I shall come for you once she is safe. I promise.”
The kingdom was worth her life. She knew that. Jalad’s reign of terror wasn’t an option. It must end soon or Hengist wouldn’t have a land to return to. Dara wrestled down the fear. She bowed her head and closed her eyes, centering on the flame of life within, reaching for the calm, the acceptance. Lady, our need has never been greater. Please guide my spirit and give this man strength for what needs doing.
She sent herself into Xavier’s battered body. Everything was bruised, although Jalad had been careful not to break anything. They were wounds inflicted to drain strength and will, especially one keep-bound as Xavier. He’d never survive a cross-country gallop for days on end and nights sleeping under the stars. She took his pain into herself; the claws of some savage beast dug into her flesh. Ignoring it, she soothed the bruises, the burns, and fed him her own strength. Weakness pervaded her body but she didn’t stop until every trace of hot angry red turned warm gold.
The loss of his eyes was more than she could heal. Sight would have to suffice. She could do no more.
Loren caught her as she crumpled to the floor. Head pounding, she struggled to breathe, to discern which of the four Lorens swimming afore her was real. She watched Xavier rise from the chair without even a stagger, astonishment written in each of his own four faces. She couldn’t speak. Pain and weakness pervaded every limb.
“Amazing. I feel ten years younger. Even my old age aches are gone. Thank you, lady healer.”
“Can you ride?” Loren demanded.
“Like the wind. I should be at court within the week.”
Dara willed her vision to clear. She leaned into Loren’s chest and summoned her strength, wishing she could borrow some of his. “Go. Now. No…time.” So cold. Her spirit was the merest flicker deep within. “Fire…”
“I can do better.” Loren’s voice was harsh, the guilt in his eyes frightening to behold. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her outside. “Forgive me.”
She had to make him understand. “Naught…to forgive. My choice…not yours.”
***
Loren scanned the forest in a single wild gaze and found a gnarled hazel tree, almost as if the tree itself called to him. He laid Dara beneath the bare tattered branches and cradled her close. “Great lady, help your daughter. Do not let her die. This world would miss her were she to depart this life.” As gifted a healer as she was a warrior and as fearless a soul as he had ever encountered. Her…gone…was more than he could bear.
This sprite was a rough-faced grandmotherly soul who radiated compassion. “Just this world?”
“Nay. This is my fault. I made her heal him when she was already weak from healing those from the battle. I cannot bear her death.”
“The child be right. It was her choice. This guilt be not thine to bear. Let this not slow thee down. The danger to Moira be very real. Thou knowest death be not the end. Why dost thou fear so for this young one?”
Loren swallowed. “We are sworn to life-debt. I cannot let her go. We have unfinished business, she and I.”
“Thou hast done more than that, impulsive one. Be she more important than thy mission?” Ageless eyes studied him.
Loren shook deep within. “Do not make me choose. The mission is mine. I accept that. I know you can help her if you wish it. I shall do anything you ask. Just let her live.”
The sprite smiled. “It be not in me to price a life. Go. Thou wilt see her again.”
A mortal hand touched his arm, shaking him back to the forest surroundings. “We must go,” Xavier urged.
&nb
sp; “Thank you, great one.”
“We shall return for you, Hani`ena and I.”
Dara scowled at him. “Go.”
***
Loren and Xavier disappeared from Dara’s view. Moments later hoofbeats faded away.
She willed her body to stop shaking. Mag. She must return to Mag. There was no one else to care for the old woman’s inevitable departure from this life. Too weak to speak the words aloud, she focused until the surrounding world was but a shadow. Lady, let Your daughter hazel speak with me.
The tree rustled. A tattered branch curled around her shoulders. A root wound about her legs. Warmth and peace seeped into her soul. The cold in her side and the weakness in her body fled afore the Light.
“Fear not, little sister. Thy request be granted.” The voice of an old woman sounded in her head. “This world be not done with thee yet, child of earth and fire.”
Dara looked up at the tree trunk. For a moment she saw a time-weathered face within the bark, smiling at her. Her mind played tricks on her. She’d never been able to see the servants of the Lady Goddess afore. She’d never been able to hear them afore, either, but the tree had spoken to her. After all these years, why now?
“Thou art closer to us than thou realize.”
Well, that was clear as a mud-churned river crossing. Amusement brushed the edge of that thought as the tree released her. Dara did a quick scan and rose to her feet. Her full strength was restored. Even the recent burn from the cursed iron-blend blade was gone, without a scar. “Thank You, lady.”
“Thou art welcome. Our other daughter’s time hath come.”
Unworthy sadness clung to her heart as she reentered her small hut and knelt aside Mag. Even knowing death wasn’t the end, she would miss the old woman’s uncommon sense. Lady, release her from this mortal shell. Welcome her home.
Mag drew one last breath. A single, final rattle heralded abrupt silence. Dara dropped to her knees aside the bed. She pulled Moira’s amulet from around Mag’s neck, noting the wolf’s head with an eagle’s wings and curved beak as she placed it over her own head. Mag’s body must be burned in the old way. Only priests of the One Truth desecrated a body by burying it.
