Thunder rumbled overhead and I wondered if God intended to strike the three of them and their offspring down in penance for their sins. Perhaps once they waded into the water, he would send a bolt to end them all.
A pure people was what He sought. Not the unclean witches that oozed from the Kingdom like spoiled blood from a wound.
Illana’s cries were getting more desperate. She looked sickly pale, her dark hair stuck to her face, sweat the glue holding it there.
Finally, they made it to the riverbank beyond the supposed protection wards the three had conjured in exchange for being allowed to trade within the village.
Illana sank into the water, and all three breathed a sigh of relief.
I crouched behind a nearby tree, my fingers resting on the cool bark. Storm clouds raced across the sky as Illana began to push. She laid back against Isla while Jenna made ready to deliver the babe.
I listened closely, careful not to rustle the leaves. Jenna slipped into a trance of some sort, reciting a terrible curse. Something ominous and awful. “She was born in the water, and in the water will she die.”
Would the babe die tonight? Would the witches finally be punished for wreaking havoc in our quiet village, or for the devil’s work they summoned outside our boundary?
The earth trembled as Illana pushed and strained, screaming as she finally delivered a baby girl. The witches held the babe beneath the water and waited, though for what, I couldn’t tell.
A hot bolt of lightning split the sky, striking the bank near the witches and the new witchling babe. But it wasn’t finished. In time, Illana delivered a second. And finally, a third.
She named them…Omen. Sky. Lyric.
Hateful tears stung my eyes. Heaven and earth bent to the girls. They were powerful. More powerful than their mother or her sisters. And that meant they were dangerous.
Omen
Judith sat in a small, cold room in the Kingdom’s ten-story jail in Sector Two. Twin fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead, their unflattering sheen casting a pale blue glow over her skin. Her once-pristine white dress was torn at the hem and stained with dirt and soot, and her hair had been torn from her usually tidy bun.
She was shackled to a sturdy, wooden chair in a room where the ceiling, floor, and walls were a flat gray concrete, devoid of decoration or comfort. She lifted her hands, tugging at her restraints when I entered.
I did my best to control my emotions so I didn’t bring every stone that held this building upright, down on her.
I didn’t mince words. “I know you killed my mother and her sisters in the river.”
The cursed woman stared at the floor, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Have you avoided me all these years because you felt guilty for what you did to them?” I goaded. She fidgeted against the metal bands clamped around her wrists and ankles. “Or do you avoid me because you’re afraid?”
She pinched her lips together, raising her head and finally looking me in the eye. “Where is my son?” she gritted.
She didn’t know Sebastian was dead. I narrowed my eyes and walked further into the room, my hand clutching the stone I loved for balance, to remind myself to stay steady. It was almost as helpful as holding River’s hand. I imagined him giving my palm a comforting, encouraging squeeze. “I’ll tell you where he is if you tell me how and why you did it.”
“I want leniency,” she demanded.
“I can suggest it – if you earn it by being forthcoming. If you withhold anything, I’ll instead recommend you hang.”
She stared at me for a long moment, unflinching.
“I could always conjure a truth spell. Do not test me, Judith,” I warned.
Her upper lip curled in disgust. “You want to know the truth? Witches brought this down upon themselves!”
“How?” I asked.
“Your kind ruined me!” she spat, her eyes glinting with hatred. “The great King Lucius was too weak to put those who deserved it to death. He believed in second chances, just not within the Kingdom’s pristine borders. Oh, no,” she ranted, “he wanted them to carve a new life in The Wilds. Well, there were already people living outside the Kingdom in those wild places he thought were uninhabitable. Peaceful people. All Lucius did was send murderers and rapists into a land with nothing but the clothes on their backs. And what do you think they did when they came upon homes and farms?” She finally looked at me balefully. “They took whatever they wanted, by force. We never even saw them coming.”
“A Fate witch hurt you.” Another piece clicked into place.
A tear rolled down her cheek even as she vibrated with rage. “He carved out my heart.” It took a moment for her to compose herself, but I waited patiently for her to elaborate. “I’d been married for six months to a boy I’d loved all my life on the day the witch found our farm. I was at the river, washing our clothes when he slaughtered my husband and infant daughter – she was only two months old. When I found their bodies on the front lawn, he heard my cries, dragged me inside, and raped me. Over and over and over. And when he was finally done, he made sure that all I had left were the clothes on my back when he cast me out of my own house. He said I should be grateful that he was giving me a second chance at life – just as mercifully as Lucius had done to him.”
A knot tightened in my throat. As horrible as Judith was, what she’d experienced was more than most would be able to bear.
“Does the witch who hurt you still live?” I asked.
She shook her head with a sly smile playing on her lips. “Sebastian found him.”
I didn’t need to ask what he’d done. I knew the witch was dead and that Sebastian had nullified his magic and took his life. But I still didn’t understand how she’d killed my mother and aunts before Sebastian was born.
I paced to her right. Her eyes tracked me.
“How did you kill my mother and her sisters?”
Judith took a deep breath and held it. When she finally let it out, she admitted, “The potion stunned them, though your mother was more powerful than her sisters – as you are. I had to crack her skull with a branch. She was coming out of that water, and I knew if she reached me, she would kill me. I had no other choice.”
She said it so callously, almost as if the experience was as common as walking to the merchant. But the gleam in her eye, the hatred shining there, had hardened. She was trying to hurt me. I steeled my spine, refusing to allow it. My mother was dead, but she watched over me. River could speak to her, and I could speak to her through River. Judith may have taken her away, but Fate returned her to me.
“Life is full of choices, Judith. On that night, you chose wrong.”
Her lip curled up as she took in the layers of fine, champagne-colored fabric drifting from my waist to the floor. My hair, braided and pinned to the nape of my neck. I straightened, refusing to let her opinion diminish me, and continued my questioning.
“Where did you get the potion?”
She sank back in her chair, exhaling loudly. “In his haste to defile me, the witch had thrown his cloak on the porch. I stole it after he threw me out and slammed the door. There were small pockets sewn into the lining. In the pockets were vials and crystals, herbs. I didn’t know or care what any of it was until much later. I walked for miles, days, and finally collapsed, half-starved. I hadn’t had water since I left my home. Edward found me.”
“How did you know what the potion in his cloak would do?” I prodded.
“There was a small book tucked into one of the pockets,” she admitted proudly.
“You stole his book of shadows,” I breathed.
She sniffled and wiped her nose, the chains from her shackles clanking against the arm rests with the movement. “When I found out I was pregnant, I realized I could never tell Edward that Sebastian was a witch. So, I seduced him. Weeks later, I told him I was with child, we were
hastily married, and Sebastian and I had a stable home and life, under the protection of the Founder himself.”
I smoothed my thumb over the stone, drawing Judith’s attention. Her upper lip curled with distaste.
“Your mother was drawn to the river. The three witches would wash their dresses and lay them out on rocks to dry, and then bask in the sun shamefully for hours. I watched your mother’s stomach swell and listened to the prophecies her sister spoke. You were going to be the most powerful witches born in memoriam. Kissed by Fate himself. Blessed by the Goddess. Above the others, you were special. They called you a protector, and that you were. Your wards were impenetrable. They even stifled Sebastian’s power until he came of age.”
I should have recognized it. The strange chill that would slide over my skin when he was around. But I’d been raised alone and the only magic I knew was my own. I leaned against the wall, still stroking the stone.
If Sebastian sensed my magic, he must have sensed River’s. And told his mother so she could dig and remove the bones near the river’s edge.
She kept her son safe by fueling her husband’s obsession for revenge, while Edward used me and my sisters to conceal the army he built. All while my wards shielded Sebastian from the man who raised him. I shook my head and gave a mirthless laugh.
She leveled me with a hate-filled glare. “So, no, Omen, I didn’t feel guilt when I looked at you. I felt like drowning you myself, the same way I did your wretched mother. She was evil, using her corrupt powers to seduce a good man.”
“Edward?”
She scoffed derisively. “I care nothing for Edward. Your wicked mother beguiled someone who became dear to me. Someone who never would’ve been with a witch if he had his wits about him, I assure you.”
“Who was my father?”
Judith’s teeth ground together, tears shimmering in her eyes anew. “A simple carpenter, but a good man.”
My lashes fluttered. “You cared for him.”
“He was kind, when no one else was,” she defended.
Fate provided another clue and rage glided through my veins, slippery as an eel. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“He would have had rights to raise you if Illana died,” she said. A tear slid down her cheek and I wanted to slap it away. Judith straightened her spine haughtily. “Now, I’ve told you everything. Where is my son?”
But I wasn’t finished. “Your son had his father’s book of shadows, didn’t he?”
She threw her clamped hands up in front of her. “It was all I could give him. He needed it to defend himself from your kind,” she spat bitterly.
I wasn’t sure if she’d ever loved him the way a mother should love her child. Given the circumstances of his conception, perhaps one could excuse her feelings for him, or lack thereof, but somehow in her mind she had separated him from the rest. He was a witch to her, but not like all the others. To her, he was different, perhaps even good.
What Judith failed to realize was that Sebastian and I were the same kind. We were witches. Our magics may have differed, but we were witches, nonetheless.
“Sebastian was a witch.”
Her brows knitted. “I know that.”
Fire roiled through my belly. I pried my teeth apart to answer her question. “He committed a crime against Fate himself. As such, he paid the price for it.”
Judith tried to stand from her metal chair, eyes feral and nostrils flaring. She could only crouch over the seat, but the threat in her eyes was unmistakable. “Are you telling me you killed him?”
Stepping closer, I stood within her reach, daring her to touch me. I would end her in the blink of an eye. She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, but slowly sat back down. I walked across the small space and grabbed the door handle.
“You killed my son!” she shouted, the manacles rattling from her rage.
“I didn’t kill Sebastian, Judith. He did that to himself.” So had Edward. And so had she.
I opened the door as her agonized cry filled the room and spilled into the hall. I could still hear her as I walked out of the nondescript building where River waited for me just outside the door. He clasped my hand. “You didn’t kill her,” he noted, glancing toward the small window of the room where her anguished howls ripped through the air.
I shook my head. “I told her Sebastian is dead. That’s punishment enough for now.”
“We can’t send her into The Wilds again,” he warned.
“I know. She asked for leniency.”
“Do you think she deserves it?”
“I think that if you allow her to live, she will suffer the rest of her life, and if you end her life, you will put her suffering away.”
“Father believes she should be made an example for anyone else who seeks to disrupt the peace of the Kingdom, or to usurp the ruling family.”
I glanced back up at the room from which Judith’s agonized screams still poured, wondering what Tauren would decide and whether I should even care.
River squeezed my hand. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Together, we spirited to the palace.
In my short life, I’d learned there was always a calm after a storm. A time when the earth breathed a sigh of relief and the heavens took a deep breath after pouring out its rage. For now, this calm rested in Nautilus. The sun had set on a different kingdom, and upon different people – witches and non – than it had risen on yesterday.
Living in The Wilds my whole life, I’d never stepped foot within the Kingdom’s borders before River brought me into Sector Thirteen. Now, as River and I spirited to his home, I was transformed. If a kingdom had a heart, it resided in the palace. The heart of Nautilus had been squeezed and threatened, but emerged from the battle stronger because of those who defended her.
The citizens had seen their Queen, her son, and the witches defend them, along with their brave Guard soldiers. They had taken it upon themselves to round up the Purists they knew of, along with Mason Renk, and hold them until the Guard could collect them. Their message was strong and clear: no longer would they tolerate anyone who sought to tear away those who would defend them unto death.
As to Mason’s fate, it rested with Tauren as well.
River smiled as we walked through the polished white marble corridors toward his father’s study. He eased the door open and Tauren waved us in. Knox was inside, leaning back in a sumptuous leather chair.
“Things are quiet this morning,” Knox informed us. “The Purist troublemakers are jailed, and no doubt pondering their own fates,” he quipped.
“Have you found Edward Smith – Renk?” I corrected.
Knox shook his head. “My men believe they found him beneath the rubble of what used to be the great mountain.” Knox glanced at me admiringly. “I’m still amazed you were able to bring it down, and that’s a difficult task after being around Sable and River for so long.”
I raked my sweaty palms down my skirts, thinking better of it and curling them into fists. Mira had made the dress I wore and promised to make more in time. It was white, the color I wore daily where I came from, but at the very bottom, from calf to hem, it faded from ashy gray to solid black.
Mira said it represented the new me, standing in the ashes of the Omen I had been before River came into my life, before I realized what I was capable of. Representative of my death and resurrection. She followed up by saying she would make a gown to put all others to shame, but that I couldn’t wear it until the Winter Solstice celebration in The Gallows. She’d reminded River of a special suit she’d made for the occasion and I grinned as a blush spread up his throat into his cheeks.
Sable suddenly appeared in the room, wearing black from head-to-toe, from her silky blouse and trousers to the pointed toe of her heels. “The witches are rebuilding the wall,” she reported, “and they will begin rebuilding within the Sector
soon.”
“Rebuilding?” I asked, confused.
“The Houses were damaged and now, the structures are no longer sound,” she explained. Guilt skewered me until she spoke again. “Omen, it’s a good thing.”
“What do you mean?” River asked.
“They’re rebuilding as one House, where all witches are welcome, even the Fate-Kissed. Instead of dividing into separate houses, they have chosen to unite and embrace one another’s differences, as well as encouraging the use of spell magic.” Sable smiled.
“What about the station of Priestess and Priest?” River asked with a tilt to his head.
“The Circle is meeting about that later today,” she answered. “It’s for the Goddess to decide how her House should be governed.”
My mind went to Mira and the way she looked at Arron as if he were the breath in her lungs, and the way he was always there to be sure she was safe. If Mira were no longer the Priestess of the House of Water, they could finally be together the way they longed to be.
River’s father stood and wagged a reprimanding finger. “You two should get some rest.”
It was hard to rest after so much had happened, yet I felt exhausted, tired to the core. River asked me to go outside with him and held my hand as he led me to the lake, for all the world looking like a pair of lovers on a mid-day stroll across the lawn. Lying on a hammock beneath the wispy tendrils of a weeping willow, a gentle breeze strummed through the fronds and lulled us to sleep.
34
River
The following day, with the sun at its apex, Brecan, Ethne, Ivy, and Mira gathered on the platform of the gallows at the base of the Center’s pentagram and waited until all the witches assembled.
Brecan raised his voice to be heard over the murmuring crowd. “It is my great pleasure to announce that…Ivy will act as the interim Priestess of the Goddess’s House of Affinities. The Goddess will see who rises from these ashes, who displays knowledge and mastery over all affinities before choosing a permanent representative. But for now, let us congratulate Ivy. She has led the House of Earth well, and I have no doubt she will be a sound influence on everyone.”
The Omen of Stones Page 28
