But she needed reserves for the Cheval onslaught of which she played over and over in her mind. And she needed time to allow the boy to continue falling in love with her, and if not her, then the idea of her if she was to revel in her stolen youth once more. But several days later, Bedivere still made no attempt to kiss her, and instead, side-eyed her when he thought she wouldn't notice, and watched her with cool curiosity when she did.
“We will be there by dawn,” Emrysa said, and suppressed the urge to send a soothing spell to the boy. She could not have a hand in changing his moods with the use of magic and seal nature’s deal.
The low sun cast shards of gold across the emerald forest and Emrysa sighed. “I am tired,” she added, feigning a suppressed yawn, hoping to get close to the boy around the campfire.
“As you wish,” Bedivere said, matter of fact.
Emrysa’s fingers clenched around the Angelfire’s reins, and he came to an abrupt halt, throwing his head in the air when the bit pulled against his gums. “Oh, stand still,” she commanded, and the little red horse obliged. The witch narrowed her eyes and watched as Bedivere pulled his steed to a halt, dismounted, and began setting up camp.
He doubts me, she feared, and then aloud, “It seems the closer we get to my homestead, the more sullen you become.”
He looked at her, incredulous. “And what do you expect?” he spat.
Emrysa swallowed her frustration, watching as he removed Kay from his steed with the gentleness of a father carrying a child. He placed the sleeping knight on a blanket of furs, his jaw clenched.
That marionette is more trouble than he’s worth. Emrysa wondered how she could deal with Kay without disrupting her plan to get her body, revenge, and, she thought with a surprising amount of desire, the boy.
She dismounted, giving Angelfire an antagonizing pat, knowing he could do nothing but accept it as she tethered him. She knelt beside Kay, placing her hand on his forehead and risked a little magic to seep from her fingers.
Breathe more life into his skin
Let his wake from slumber begin
Take it slow to you I pray
And only wake when I say.
As she thought the words Kay’s pale complexion blossomed, the apples of his cheeks turning pink, his lips reddening. His eyes flickered behind his closed lids.
“Did you see that?” Bedivere said. He smiled like a child at Emrysa then squeezed Kay’s shoulder. “Kay, can you hear me?”
Kay’s eyes flicked once more, opening for a breath, and closed again, a gentle snore escaping him.
“He’s waking,” Bedivere said, but instead of jubilance, he collapsed to the ground, rubbing his temples and taking deep breaths. “I thought I had lost him,” he muttered.
Emrysa softened, taking hold of Bedivere’s arm. “He looks so healthy now, perhaps he will wake before dawn.”
Bedivere’s face crumpled, his dark eyes rimmed with red and tears. Emrysa took the opportunity, and his face, in her hands. “He will be fine. I know it, and—” she looked down, feigning bashfulness, allowing the blood to rise at her cheeks before looking back at the boy through her eyelashes. “—I’m sure, we will be fine, too.”
Bedivere smiled then, the relief in his face softening his features and Emrysa smiled back at him, truly smiling, from the half-heart thudding in her chest. Bedivere thumped his own chest three times, then reached for her hand, pulling her closer.
Emrysa’s breath pulled short, spellbound by the look in the knight’s eyes as he stared at her. His fingers traced her jaw line, her lips, and she felt herself shudder, forgetting the centuries of darkness, forgetting the living nightmare of cursed bindings and unfair accusations. Her lips trembled now as he moved close, his warm breath on her skin, his hand lost in the cascade of her red curls tumbling down her back.
“Kiss me,” he whispered, his face inches from her own. His eyes stared into her soul.
Emrysa prayed to a God she did not believe in, reveling in the purity of love and lust and mortal desire. And like a secret promise, their lips touched, and Emrysa melted, whisked away by another form of magic altogether. In the midst of blissful pleasure, Emrysa felt a change from within. Her heart beat a little louder now, a little stronger. And she smiled because she knew Morganne’s heart was weakening in the process and the transformation was taking place. And within a rushing heartbeat, she forgot all about the girl and revenge, and lost herself entirely to the kiss.
19
Putrid Puddles
Morganne stared at her hands.
“No, no!” she cried with the pitiful amount of strength she had left in her body.
Her skin grew old like a page from a forgotten book, and she could not help but think of the grimoire she wished she had never found. Her nails crumbled and cracked, yellowing as they grew and stretched into talons. Age spots leaked from her fingers up her forearms. She trembled, feeling the ancient world within her brittling bones.
“What’s happening to me?” Morganne cried, but she knew.
Which was why she feared for her heart the most—and not only because it weakened, its dull single beat quieting still. She felt the pain in the knowing, the knowing that Bedivere had failed to recognize the deceit—fooled by the witch Emrysa with her red locks and redder silken dress. Which only meant one thing; he was never truly in love with her, but only with her appearance. She felt sickened and hopeless and doomed. While somewhere out there, near home and loved ones, the knight continued to kiss the witch. Morganne's world collapsed as she dropped to her knees in the darkness, heaving deep and heavy sobs into the putrid puddles surrounding her.
20
Questions
Emrysa cast her eyes to the knight sleeping bedside her as the campfire crackled. She rose with stealth, holding her breath and keeping her eyes pinned on Bedivere to ensure she did not wake him. The flames gave her enough light to see, yet hid her in shadows as she tiptoed around the fire to Kay. She knelt and spat a silent curse into the night for the magic she would lose for this wasteful spell, and placed a hand on Kay's forehead, Emrysa spoke to the nature of things within her mind once more.
Wake the boy but not his thoughts
As he gallops home to Camelot Court
All my secrets — force him to keep
While his memories will be out of reach
He’ll seem himself in his own land
But his body I shall command
To do exactly as I say
So wake him now, without delay.
Kay rubbed his eyes, then stretched his arms above his head, producing a huge wide-mouthed yawn and sigh. Emrysa put her fingers to her lips to quiet him, and he obliged. Rising stiffly, he ran a hand through his blond hair that stuck up in all directions and looked around himself, confused and dazed. He opened his lips to speak, but Emrysa shook her head.
Leave. You will write a note to your dear friend telling him you have returned to Camelot to convalesce, and that he should continue on his quest. Say not a word, and you leave, now, with haste.
He raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and rummaged through Bedivere’s saddlebags stacked on the forest floor beside him. With a smile that split his sharp face, he produced a small set of scrolls, a tiny inkwell and a quill, whose feathers sat as askew as his messy hair. Emrysa stifled a laugh, his mannerisms reminding her of a compliant puppy.
Leaning against a tree, Kay paused, staring at the quill and scroll in turn, then wrote, his writing scraggly with the bark beneath the paper. He folded it, placed it next to Bedivere with a self-congratulating smirk, and saddled his horse in silence.
Emrysa watched on, nodding in cool approval until he turned and rode away into the shadows. Then, she returned to her own knight with the smugness of a woman who has a man’s undivided attention. Nothing could distract dearest Bedivere now. Nothing could stop the transformation taking place. She curled up next to the boy, and, content with the knowledge she would finally get everything she always wanted, Emrysa fell fast asleep.
Several hours later, Bedivere awoke and watched the beautiful redhead sleep beside the fireside; the flickering flames danced from her pale skin in patterns. She breathed softly, and almost looked to smile in her sleep. Yet this sight did not make Bedivere’s heart burst as it should.
Something’s different. He cocked his head in study, as if seeing her from a different angle could stir his stagnant emotions. He had kissed her, and yet for all the promise their almost kiss had brought before she went into the witch’s cave, this kiss was just… wet and empty. There was no passion, no need, and though he did not wish to acknowledge it, certainly no love.
Which was queer indeed.
Because Bedivere was head over heels in love with Morganne.
Eyes wide, he stared into the fire that seemed to burn a warning in his heart and soul. Behind him, Angelfire snorted, and another curiosity crossed his mind. The softness with which Morganne usually rode, as if she were not commanding the horse at all, had been different riding back from the cave. Angelfire had been subdued, he had blamed this on the horse’s need to recover from his exhaustion. But there was something else too. Bedivere rose, striding toward the horse tethered to a tree.
Tethered.
Morganne had never before tied her horse, trusting him to graze and stay close by, not like his own steed who would bolt back to the comfort of his warm Camelot stable and a bucket of warm oats with only half a chance. He smoothed Angelfire’s broad forehead, looking over toward his own horse in the darkness.
“Wait…” His hand dropped from Angelfire’s head. He shook his head. Bloody horses. Where has Kay’s steed got to?
He checked the area for signs of the horse’s escape, he wouldn’t go far from his companions. Still, he’d rather not go chasing horses in the pitch darkness of midnight. Strange. He didn’t see a broken rope from the horse pulling back. In fact, he saw nothing at all. He turned to the shadows where Kay lay, next to the saddlery and packs. His brow creased, and he walked closer to better see.
“He’s gone?”
“Bedivere,” a voice as sweet as sugar called him and somehow, it made his teeth itch. “Come back to the fireside with me, keep me warm.”
“Morganne, get up,” he pressed, scuttling to her side. “It’s Kay, he’s gone!”
That’s when his eyes fell upon the scroll nestled against fallen leaves and the forest loam. He grabbed it, nearly tearing the paper with the force in which he opened it. His eyes scanned the words, and the paper fluttered to the ground.
“He says he has gone back to Camelot.” Bedivere stared into the flames.
The witch sat up, smiling. “Is that not good news? This means we can make haste to my homestead to check my family without worrying about Kay’s health. If he managed to write and saddle his horse whilst we slept, he must be better. Come on, come here next to me and let us rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.”
Bedivere watched her for a few thoughtful moments—the thick, lush red curls cascading down her shoulders to the curve of her waist. Her red silk dress clinging to her skin, the furs he had offered her to lie on soft and warm.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, and wandered back to her side, nestling into thick furs and curls.
“That’s better,” she said, leaning into his chest. Within moments, her soft purring snores confirmed she was asleep.
Bedivere closed his eyes, but for him, sleep did not come. He lay there, feeling like a fly caught in a spider’s web as questions formed and reformed in his mind. And the biggest one of all, was the lie on the note. Kay could not have written it. Because Kay, for all his intelligence and valor, could not read or write.
He only hoped this inner truth had not surfaced too late…
21
Inner Truth
Morganne gasped, a sudden strength swelling within her weak pulse. She sat up, dizzy in the darkness. She held her withered and aged hands close to her face and watched the decay flaking her skin up to her elbows. But as Morganne stared at her arms in the gloom, she noticed that slowly, as slowly as the unseen moon moves throughout the day, the rot was beginning to recede. She took a breath as the softness of her skin returned—feeling it rather than seeing it in the utter blackness—and she sighed with the sleekness of her blood as it flowed in her veins, the lightness of her bones deep within.
“He knows,” Morganne said, daring to hope. “He knows it is the witch Emrysa, not me.”
Inside the secret chamber of her half-beating heart, Morganne pleaded for this hope to be true. Then his words came back to her, somehow bounding from the walls from the deep, dark cavern.
Magic lives inside…
An image flashed in front of her closed eyes. The hilt of a sword, a flash of a smile, a fist pounding at his heart.
Morganne mimicked the gesture, thumping her own heart three times and for want of company, called out into the darkness. “Magic lives inside my heart.”
Her voice bounced back to her from all directions, a symphony, a song swelling from truth. Rising to her knees, Morganne thrust her head backward, yelling, “Magic lives within my heart!”
The song louder now, like a drumming beat or galloping hooves. Somehow the thoughts, the song, brought her strength. Power pulsed through her blood and she found the strength to stagger to her feet.
Hands splayed at her sides, her fingers parted, pointing toward the depths of the earth. She called for the power from Mother Earth and the roots of the world's trees that tangled and twisted beneath the surface of the world. Head tilted back, she called to the wind and air that first rippled through her sodden curls, then whipped around her like a frenzied God. The constant drip, drip, drip of stagnant water started to flow—a cascading waterfall in the depth of the darkness.
Fireheart, she called unto herself.
“I am Fireheart!” Morganne yelled, and with the words upon her lips, a flickering heat raged within her heart. Sweat formed at her temples, life pulsed in her veins. And she knew now, she knew where the magic of the world resided, and it had resided inside her all along.
Morganne screamed into the darkness with every ounce of energy she possessed. She screamed for her sisters, for her mother, for poor, brave Kay, and for her horse. She screamed for Bedivere. She screamed loudly for Bedivere, finding extra strength in his name and heart, but mostly, Morganne screamed for herself.
And she began to glow.
Ice yellow, like the sun’s own rays, burst from her heart lighting the cavern and the surrounding chasm. Her thrumming heart beat to the rhythm of galloping hooves. She looked ahead, her emerald eyes dancing like green flames, and though no ground stretched beneath her feet, she charged forward regardless.
The ground appeared as she ran, cracking and thundering together as she raced forward in her new belief, white flames shimmering in her footsteps' wake. A shimmering heat full of impossible possibilities. She made her own light as she reached the exit of the hellhole. Her heart thrumming louder and louder with each step.
She breached the threshold, gasping at the fresh air filling her lungs, and she halted.
It was not just the sound of her heart thrumming, but Angelfire’s hooves pounding the ground toward her too. And as the fire horse bounded closer, mane dancing like wildfire in the winds, it was his rider that stopped her heart.
“Bedivere!” she called, her hands clasping her flaming heart.
Angelfire reared to a stop in front of her, Bedivere slid from his back. And in one swift moment, he grabbed his witch around the waist and wrapped her in a tight embrace. Morganne sobbed, happiness and relief tied together in one overwhelming emotion.
“You knew!” she sobbed. Bedivere pulled away, wiping her tears with the pad of his thumb. He did not return her smile, his brow a knot of angst between his dark eyebrows. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Bedivere hesitated.
But it was Angelfire who spoke into her mind, a voice she had always longed to hear. But his first words chilled her burning heart.
<
br /> It’s our family. She intends to kill them. All of them.
Morganne gritted her teeth. It was time to finish what she started.
22
An Empty Space
She paced a circle around the smoldering campfire, watching the smoke swirl in shapes against the wind. Sunbeams broke through the forest canopy, which did nothing to warm Emrysa’s cold half-heart—for she knew the truth of things.
“I have until nightfall for my body to return.”
The witch snarled, staring at the place where Bedivere had slept, nothing but an empty space now, which she felt as deeply as a freshly-dug grave the boy may as well have hand-dug for himself.
He would pay.
They all would.
Yet, with the return of her ancient form wrapping around her soul, would also bring forth her unlimited well of magic once again—not the once-used-and-gone shallow depths her host’s mortal body offered. And though the thought of her cold, hard frame returning, with the thick glug of blood in her veins cramping her stomach and clenching her half-heart, she would at least be free from her incarceration. If not her curse.
For the deal was done.
The oath sealed.
And Emrysa would stop at nothing to get to the truth of things, and that started with the death of the entire Cheval family.
“Onwards,” Emrysa called, staring to the touchstone that welcomed her home.
And in an instant, she was gone, and the sun hid its face behind the clouds.
23
Kill the Witch
Fireheart slowed to a stilted, worried trot, tossing his head in agitation.
I must check Shadowind and Moonglow, the horse thought into Morganne's mind as he stared into the paddocks surrounding the cottage. He could not see his fellow horses and Morganne felt the panic rising in his blood.
Fire Heart (Magic and Mage Series Book 2) Page 7
