The Witch Awakening (Book One of the Landers Saga)

by Karen Nilsen

  Somewhere Merius's witch screamed. "Merius, let me go, let me go--she's on him-" Her voice was suddenly cut off.

  Arilea laughed again. We'll have no silly witches here she purred. She brought my hand down, closed my fingers over my dagger hilt. I hesitated, stiffening. Come, Mordric--you know you want it. She began to nibble my neck--when she reached my ear, I groaned. She felt more solid now, less cold. When I looked down, I could see her fingers over mine, transparent but clearly visible, like frosted glass. My hand gripped the dagger.

  Now, draw it out. Her voice was a husky whisper, the way she had spoken in our bed so long ago. Without a thought, I pulled the dagger out, the blade glinting--I had just polished it the other day.

  I stared down at it. No, Arilea--it's the coward's way out.

  It's the honorable way out she retorted. Merius will hang if he kills you. Is that what you want?

  I shook my head. No. God, I'm so tired. I can't see any of them now, even Merius.

  Don't worry with them. Here, let me help you. She guided the dagger up to my chest. Now, you know better than I where it needs to go.

  I found the bottom of my breastbone with my fingertips, touched the ribs to the left. There was a small space between the ribs where my heart was exposed, a space I had learned about in the king's guard. I positioned the dagger over this spot. A drop of blood blossomed red on my shirt. This wasn't so difficult.

  Arilea swirled all around me, her golden hair twining around my neck, the smell of roses thick and intoxicating as it had been between our sheets. Her lips were warm as she kissed my mouth. I kissed her back, and she no longer flowed like water between my fingers but was solid, flesh against my flesh. I could see her clearly now, the sparks of a familiar fire leaping between us.

  Chapter Thirty-Two--Safire

  "Oh God, Father . . . Father, no. No . . ." Merius whispered, his voice broken. His grip loosened on my shoulders, and I tore away from him. I fell to my knees beside Mordric. He lay crumpled on his side across the threshold. My muscles straining, I rolled him over until he was face up, the dagger buried halfway to the hilt in his chest. He should have been dead already. Yet there came the whistle of shallow breaths, faint movement behind his closed eyelids--he was fighting this. Fighting her.

  Get away from him! Arilea's high, thin scream pierced my ears. I ignored her and put my hand to the hilt of the dagger. It vibrated against my fingertips, a rhythmic trembling as his chest rose and fell. I puzzled over this for a precious instant before the bile gnawed at my stomach with sudden, sickening realization. The dagger was beating with his heart. I gagged in my hand at the rusty smell of blood, then turned back to him with a savage determination. I had to do something. I didn't know what, but it would come. Nothing could hurt him now anyway--I might as well try. I grasped the hilt and closed my eyes, concentrating on the blade.

  “Don’t pull it out,” Merius said, kneeling behind me. “Not yet. If it’s missed his heart and lungs, there still might,” he swallowed, “might be a chance.”

  “It hasn’t pierced his heart,” I whispered, “but it’s very close.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can see it, hear it.” As long as I touched the dagger hilt, Mordric‘s heart beat in my mind. I could picture where the tip of the blade had breached his ribcage, a hairsbreadth from his heart, so close that one wrong movement would instantly kill him. I inhaled another deep breath. My own heart pounded in my ears. Mordric’s heartbeat grew fainter, each breath shallower than the last, the breathing of someone dying. I didn’t know what to do. Whenever I healed, I matched my breathing and heartbeat to the breathing and heartbeat of whoever I was healing. I had to follow them, find them, in order to lead them back to being well again. I couldn’t follow Mordric, though, or I might die with him.

  “How dare you die like this,” I hissed, so angry suddenly that I wanted to shake him. “You won’t let anyone help you, even now.”

  Icy fingers suddenly wrapped around my throat, searing my skin with their chill. Witch. This time you die, you and your unborn.

  I choked, clawing at her hands. Dimly, I heard Merius yell my name. Everything went red before my eyes. I reached back blindly, feeling for her. My hands closed around her neck, and with my last remaining strength, I squeezed. She gasped, her ghost skin seeping around my numb fingers. The baby . . . I had to protect the baby from her.

  You protect that drunkard’s seed? she screamed. Merius should be rid of you and your ill-begotten. He deserves a woman who’d slay herself before she’d bear another man’s child.

  Her words echoed my own cruel doubts, and I hesitated. She laughed, her fingers closing around my windpipe. Tears sprang to my eyes as I struggled for breath. My hesitation would kill me. Me and my baby. We would die here, and Merius and the others watching would never know why. They couldn’t sense her. To them, it would look like I had mysteriously choked to death on the steps. She laughed again as if she sensed my thoughts. They can’t help you, witch. As the darkness began to eclipse my sight, the tiny flame of the baby’s aura in my womb flickered as my consciousness flickered. Soon there would be more flickers, flicker upon flicker, until all was dark. I screamed, but no sound emerged from my throat.

  “Safire, please,” Merius said. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? For God‘s sake, breathe. Please . . .” I could no longer see him--all was dark--but I could still hear him, feel his fingers frantically moving over my throat, loosening my laces. His touch was so warm it chased away some of Arilea’s chill, but it wouldn’t be enough. I needed an inferno to get rid of her. An inferno . . .

  I'll make you cross over, Arilea. A white hot force rose inside, something I had never felt before. It flowed through my veins, a molten light that left me reeling. The heat centered around my middle, my womb a furnace. Ripe with new life and fighting to save it, I harnessed a witch power beyond me. Heat to melt her ice--it was so simple. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  Arilea's hands let go of my throat. She hissed, as though burned, and there was a charred smell in the air. I kept my grip on her, the fire in my body traveling through my fingers and into her. I had no control over it. I drew the heat from myself, from the babe growing inside, from Merius, from all the living things around us, and I couldn‘t stop it. Instinct to protect myself and my baby had taken over me. Arilea began to melt, a silvery-white shape that shrank in my hands. She screamed, an unbearably high pitch--all around, I heard windows crack and then smash on the courtyard cobbles. As though from a great distance, I saw Merius and Dagmar on the steps, their hands over their ears. My own ear drums popped.

  "Cross over, damn you." I shook her and then discovered I was shaking air. The scream died in a whimper. She was gone.

  Before the heat left me, I grabbed the dagger still in Mordric's chest. As if the metal had been set in the smith's fire, an orange glow spread from my fingers down the length of the blade. I narrowed my gaze, concentrating my body, my breath, my thoughts, all of me into the hilt.

  "Safire?" Merius put his hand on my back, then swore, snatching his hand away. "Good God, you're burning with fever. Here . . ."

  "Don't touch me." The orange blade turned red, then white. Sparks hissed black against the linen of Mordric's shirt. He stirred and muttered something, fumbling for the dagger. I began to shiver, my focus going blurry.

  "It's no good. He's dying," Merius said dully. "Now stop it--you'll hurt yourself . . ."

  I pulled the blade from the wound, then collapsed on the top step. The dagger clattered to the cobbles, still red hot. It landed in a puddle with a sizzle, steam rising in clouds.

  "Sweetheart?" Merius knelt over me. "Can you hear me?"

  I swallowed, nodded, my eyes slipping closed. "Listen, I'll get you some water. Safire . . ." His voice faded as I fell back, back into the blissfully cool darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Three--Merius

  I slid my arms under Safire's back and lifted her to me. "What is it?" Dagmar asked, leaning over us.
<
br />   "She's fainted, I think." I cradled her in my arms. She still felt feverish, her face flushed, but nothing like before--blisters were already rising on my hand where I'd touched her earlier. I pressed my lips to her forehead, silently praying. It had been a long time, though, and I kept stumbling over the words in my mind, so instead I found myself begging, over and over again God, help her. Just help her, please. I glanced up at Dagmar. "Could you get some water, maybe a little brandy?"

  She nodded and stepped towards the doorway before she halted, her mouth dropping open. "What?" she muttered, gaping in the direction of Father's body.

  I glanced over at him. Father was moving, his hand reaching for the charred hole in his shirt where the wound was. There was hardly any blood, which shocked me almost as much as the fact he was still alive. Then I glimpsed the wound. No, no, it wasn't possible . . . I lunged out and grasped his shirt, ripped the burned linen until his chest was exposed. There was a pale, raised line over his heart, like a wound many months old.

  "She couldn't have, she couldn't . . . How did she do that?" I whispered.

  Dagmar bent down, touched the wound. "It's cauterized, partly healed." We looked at each other, then looked down at Safire.

  "The dagger--when she was holding it, it was like she'd had it in a smithy's fire, white hot. But how did she do that? And how did she not burn herself to death?"

  Dagmar shrugged, resigned. "She's a witch, Merius," she said softly so no one but me heard. And without another word, she straightened and went into the house.

  I rocked Safire a little. She moaned, which I took as a good sign, and stirred, which I took as an even better sign. Perhaps God had heard me after all.

  Father opened his eyes then and glowered at me. "Burns like hell, all the way to my heart--what did she do to me?" he asked hoarsely, coughing and clutching for his chest.

  "She saved your life," I said under my breath.

  He shook himself and glanced around as if he were searching for something. "Your mother was . . . Arilea . . ."

  "What about my mother?"

  His gaze narrowed, returned to its customary gray coolness, opaque as agate. "Nothing. Never mind, Merius." He coughed again as Ebner and Randel rushed up the steps. Evidently Eden had gone to find them, though I wasn’t sure of anything beyond the small world of this threshold anymore.

  Dagmar returned with the water. I propped Safire against me as Dagmar attempted to pour a glass full into her mouth. In the end, more seemed to get on her frock than into her, but at least it was something. "I'd better get her back to the house," I said, glancing at the darkening sky. The gargoyles at the corners of the eaves leered down at us, the fanciful addition of some long dead ancestor. My grasp tightened on Safire as I remembered the spirits, the shattering window panes, that unearthly scream. I shuddered--it had sounded like someone dying. "This place isn't good for her."

  "I'll come with you, at least for tonight." Dagmar stood, her hands on her hips.

  "You can ride Strawberry."

  I gingerly got to my feet, carrying Safire. I spared one last look at Father. With Randel’s and Ebner’s help, he had managed to sit, his shoulder braced against the door jamb. As if he sensed me looking at him, he turned his head then and met my eyes. He nodded once, his expression thoughtful. If he had been another man, he might have looked sad, perhaps even lost, but Father had never been lost in his life. I returned the nod, a brief, final acknowledgement of all he had given me and all he had taken away. Then I started down the steps. I didn't expect I would ever see him again.

  People lingered in the courtyard, Eden, Selwyn, servants, some picking up the broken panes and others whispering and staring. I ignored them, my boots crunching on the glass. Dagmar ran over to Selwyn and started talking to him in a low voice. He nodded impatiently, still gaping after me and Safire, and she ran back up the steps and into the house, likely to pack her things.

  Against his better judgment, Ebner had left Shadowfoot hitched to the pony cart. I had to smile a little at that--the poor horse, a huge, fine stallion, hitched to a little rickety cart. He turned his head and knickered at me.

  "I know, boy--we'll get you away from that contraption soon enough, and it'll all be just a bad memory."

  He wrinkled his lips, showing his teeth, and pawed the ground, impatient to be gone.

  "Merius," Safire murmured then.

  "Shh, don't talk just yet."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Home, sweetheart. We're going home." I carefully laid her across the cart seat.

  She blinked once, smiled a little. "Good."

  Chapter Thirty-Four--Safire

  “There’ll be talk,” Dagmar remarked at breakfast that last day, spooning strawberry jam on her toast with jerky motions.

  “Talk about what?” I asked.

  “About you and Merius leaving so soon after what happened,” she hissed, glancing around as if the walls could listen.

  “You don’t have to whisper, not here.” I tossed my napkin on the table before I raced to the doorway and shouted, “I’m a witch! Do you hear me? A witch!!!!” My voice echoed throughout the halls, all the way to the attic rafters, the eaves outside where robins built their nests.

  “Safire!” Dagmar half rose, ready to do battle. “Sit down right now--you’re acting like a child.”

  I giggled and plucked a peach from the earthenware bowl on the table. Then I went over to the window and looked out at the yard, still shimmering with dewy spider webs, the oaks around the house old friends I had climbed as a child. When I had donned the long skirts of a young lady, I could no longer climb trees (at least not within sight of the house), so I had sat under the oaks instead, my back against the rough bark of their solid trunks as I daydreamed the odd fancies of a fledgling witch. They were the grandparents I had never known, cradling me in their gnarled branches and roots, bathing me in cool green light through sunlit leaves during long summer afternoons, their wisdom so ancient it could not be spoken but only felt. My heart gave an odd dip suddenly as I realized I wouldn’t be looking at, touching these trees again for a whole year, perhaps longer. I couldn’t remember a time I had been so long away from them. Quickly I bit into the soft golden sweetness of the peach.

  “I’ll miss these trees,” I said.

  “The trees around Landers Hall are older and better kept. Boltan should prune these--it‘s been years since they were properly tended.”

  “How would you like to be pruned?” I demanded. “Perhaps you’d look better without a finger or two.”

  “Safire, really.” She sniffed into her porridge. “You can’t let things grow all wild. You’ll not be able to find the house when you come back--it’ll be lost in a thicket.”

  “If Boltan goes near these trees with the pruning shears, I’ll sack him.”

  “Ha--that’ll be the day. That‘d be like sacking Father.”

  “Who’s getting sacked?” Merius asked as he strode through the doorway, wearing his high black riding boots and long cloak. He grabbed a peach and two pears and started juggling them, his eyes on me.

  “You,” Dagmar said.

  He spared a grin in her direction. “Good morn, sister.”

  “What are you? A street jester?” Dagmar might have scoffed, but I noticed she couldn’t help but watch his deft movements, so quick that he indeed rivaled one of the jesters in the market square. All that training at the sword . . .

  “He looks like a highwayman to me.” I took a bite of my peach, returned Merius’s stare as I savored honeyed softness on my tongue. He stopped juggling and returned the fruit to the bowl. Then he came over to me, our eyes still fixed on each other.

  “My lady, since you have no baubles for me to steal, then I demand a kiss.”

  Dagmar snorted, and I giggled as he leaned down and kissed the corner of my mouth, then my lips. He smelled of dew in the first warmth of the morning sunshine. “You’ve been outside,” I murmured.

  “I’ve been to Calcors.” He strai
ghtened, his hand tingling as it came to rest on my shoulder blade.

  “Already? You must’ve rose before dawn,” Dagmar remarked. “What took you to Calcors so early?”

  “I secured our passage on the Valiant.”

  “I would have thought you did that days ago--aren’t you sailing with the tide this evening?”

  “I paid part a week ago to secure our cabin, and the rest this morning,” Merius said lightly, though his fingers tightened over my shoulder blade, stretching the thin cloth of my bodice against my skin.

  “You didn’t pay it all at once?” Dagmar raised one brow, obviously doubtful, and I wanted to smack her.

  “No--I had to plunder several carriages between here and Calcors, make off with the queen’s jewels, before I could afford the second half,” Merius continued in the same light jesting tone, but his hand cupped my shoulder now as if he were afraid to let go of me.

  “I told you I married a highwayman, sister,” I said, savagely taking the last bite of my peach. “Didn’t you believe me?”

  “Safire, I’m only looking out for you,” Dagmar said. “Neither Father nor Mother are here, and it falls to me to see after your welfare. I want to hear from Merius himself that he has the means to support you in Sarneth now that he‘s forsaken his inheritance.”

  “How dare you . . .” I started, Merius’s grip tightening on my shoulder.

  “It’s all right, sweet,” he cut me off. “Dagmar, I wouldn’t be taking her to Sarneth if there was any question that we’d suffer want there. The king’s guard pays enough for us to live comfortably. Perhaps not extravagantly, but comfortably.”

  “Are you satisfied?” I demanded, glaring at her.

  “You know,” she continued with maddening older sister imperturbability, “I still don’t understand why you’re rushing off like this.”

  “Because Merius is in the king’s guard, and Herrod assigned him to a guard post in Sarneth.”