Agatha pushed him forwards, firmly.
‘You asked her to come. Now tell her what she’s doing here.’
Steeling himself, he raised his head and looked Iris in the eye.
‘How are you?’ he said sheepishly. Before he had the chance to blink, Iris had crossed the room and slapped him hard across the face.
‘That’s enough!’ Agatha said, stepping between them and pointing a crooked finger at Iris. ‘The boy came to make amends. Strike him again and—’
‘It’s alright, Agatha. Leave her,’ he said. A red welt had begun to appear on his cheek and it burned like fire. He blinked away a tear and faced Iris again. But, when he saw that she was crying, he dropped his gaze to the floor.
‘It’s been four years. Four years and I’ve heard nothing. Why now?’ she said in a choked voice.
Alexander shrugged. The rope was coarse in his hand. He brought it round to his side. He needed to do it. Now.
‘You’re everything they say you are, you know,’ Iris said suddenly. He froze. ‘You’re cold-blooded. You don’t care about me or our daughter, only yourself.’
‘That’s not true!’ he said hotly. ‘I care! Of course I care!’
‘Liar,’ she said. She tried to move past him to the door but he clutched her arm and pulled her back. ‘Let go!’ she said.
‘I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see her. You could have come and you didn’t!’ he shouted, tightening his grip on her arm.
‘Come? So you could kill her? Do you think I’m a fool?’ she said, wrenching her arm free. And then a strange look came over her face, the anger seeped away, leaving an expression of calm resignation in its place. ‘You’ll get your wish soon enough. She’s going to die tomorrow. My father has given the order.’
Alexander’s stomach lurched. ‘What?’ he said, staring at her in disbelief.
When he first heard that his daughter had been born, he had felt a rush of relief he hadn’t expected to feel. He asked anyone he came across in the Dark Forest for information about her – what did she look like? Was she being cared for? He felt vulnerable, too, as though another part of him were living just out of reach, out of his protection. But those fears were lessened somewhat because he knew Iris would look after her and fight for her, as she had done the last time they had met, when he had told her to kill their unborn child.
‘Iris, you can’t! Don’t let him kill her. You’re her mother!’
‘You don’t know what she’s like,’ she said.
‘You’re her mother!’ he repeated. ‘Protect her. Hide her away. Take her away! Bring her here!’
Iris shook her head and a few tears slipped out, dropping onto her cloak. ‘I tried to love her. I did. I tried and tried for years,’ she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes. ‘But she’s a monster. I didn’t want to believe it but she is. See for yourself if you want. Come tonight. There won’t be another time. Come tonight and see.’
‘Come where?’
‘The castle.’
‘I can’t come to the castle.’
‘You can,’ she said.
‘If I cross the border, I’ll—’
‘It’s no longer bewitched. The spell ran its course.’
There was a loud clatter as Agatha, who had moved back to the fire, knocked her cup off the mantelpiece, spilling silvery liquid all over the rug on the floor. She stared at Iris, aghast.
Alexander let go of the rope; it fell to the floor with a soft thump. He looked at Agatha and then Iris.
‘You’re sure?’ he said.
‘My father said so himself. That’s why it’s guarded,’ she said. ‘Will you come?’
He nodded. ‘Do you still have the stone I gave you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hide it somewhere out of sight. I can transport myself to wherever it is.’
Iris’s eyes lit up. She nodded vigorously. ‘I’ll go on ahead!’ She hurried to the door and paused briefly to turn and look at William, who was sitting on the stairs, peering through the gaps in the railing. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
The moment the door closed behind her, Alexander pulled it open and ran out after her.
‘Iris! Wait!’ he shouted. Iris stopped further along the path and looked around. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She stared at him for a moment and then her face softened and she smiled sadly.
‘So am I,’ she said.
When she had gone, Alexander turned back for the house and saw Agatha standing on the path in the light of the doorway, holding the rope.
‘Is there something you need to tell me, boy?’
‘No,’ he said, and he began to walk past her into the house.
‘You have never been any good at lying,’ she said. ‘Listen to me. Don’t go over there alone. It could be a trap.’
Alexander stopped and looked at her over his shoulder.
‘I’m not going alone,’ he said.
*
Enola was fast asleep in her bed when Iris entered the chamber. Maid Morgan was snoozing on a chair by the fire. Iris went straight to the bed, drew back the covers and gathered Enola in her arms. As she turned to leave, she was startled to find Maid Morgan awake and standing in front of the doorway with a fierce look on her face.
‘Your service is no longer needed,’ said Iris.
Maid Morgan looked affronted. She straightened up and unfolded her arms.
‘It is my duty to look after her,’ she said.
‘Your service is no longer needed,’ Iris said again, pushing past her and leaving through the open door.
She climbed the back staircase to her own rooms and went to the small chamber adjoining the children’s nursery. There, she tucked Enola into a narrow bed and listened to the fire crackle comfortingly in the hearth. She wondered if she should wake her but decided against it for now.
As she watched Enola and smoothed out her hair, she noticed a small bump in the breast pocket of her nightgown. Slowly, she slipped her fingers into the pocket and pulled out the blue stone. She stared at it in the firelight. She hadn’t noticed it was missing. How long had Enola had it for? The stone was warm. As she turned it over in her hands, it grew warmer still. Soon it was hot, so hot that she dropped it on the floor. She rose from the bed and bent over the stone, watching, as it began to judder and glow from within. She stepped away quickly as light burst from the stone, illuminating the room. She covered her eyes. The light faded in an instant and, when she brought her hands down, Alexander was standing in front of her. He didn’t seem real. When she thought of him, she thought of the forest, of Agatha’s house. Here, he looked out of place. He stared about the room in wonder, like a boy who had found his way into a full pantry.
‘It’s nice here. No damp,’ he said, running his fingers over the gold candlestick on the mantelpiece.
Iris reached out and clasped his hand tightly. Then, she glanced over at the bed. Alexander fell completely still. He stared at the little mound beneath the blankets in silence.
‘Come,’ she whispered, leading him across the room. His hand began to tremble in hers when they stopped beside the bed and looked down at Enola. Iris smiled up at him, suddenly overcome with emotion. This would be the first and last time he saw his daughter. She almost didn’t want to wake her because, in that moment, Enola was a perfect little girl, sleeping peacefully, the picture of innocence.
Suddenly, the nursery door opened and Jacobi appeared behind it. He looked afraid when he saw Alexander.
‘Mama?’ he said. Iris rushed over to him and picked him up.
‘Shhh,’ she said soothingly, kissing his head. ‘Back to bed.’ She left the room with Jacobi in her arms. He stared at Alexander over her shoulder as she went.
When Iris returned, she walked to the door by the fireplace and opened it a fraction, peering through the gap into the corridor beyond. When she was sure no one was there, she closed it and walked back over to the bed, perching on the edge to stroke Enola’s hair again. She would have to wa
ke her. Alexander needed to see what she was truly like. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then, filling with dread, she tapped Enola once, twice, three times on the shoulder. Her eyes opened. With sorrow in her heart, Iris turned to Alexander – and gasped. He was gone.
She rushed to the door, which stood ajar, threw it back on its hinges and burst into the corridor, looking all about. She ran to the gallery and looked down from the balcony. Panic seized her as she saw Alexander disappearing along the corridor below.
‘Alexander!’ she hissed, running down the staircase after him. She caught a glimpse of his shadow as he turned the corner at the end of the passage. ‘Stop!’
*
In the dining hall, the feast was well underway. The Vandemeres had arrived at Mortenstone Castle that very day, as well as the Doldons of Draxvar. Matthew had invited the Doldons to the castle to reprimand them for a severe punishment they had issued upon a Draxvarian sheep farmer. It was their right, as stewards of Draxvar, to punish law breakers, but this particular sentence was too severe in his opinion. It was said that life in the cold North hardened a man’s heart and, hearing of what they had done, he believed it. No crime was worthy of such a barbaric punishment, no man deserved to be used as bait on a dragon hunt. No, they would need to be spoken to – but tactfully so. They were not an exceptionally intelligent family, nor were their powers as advanced as the Vandemeres’, but even he did not think he would be quick enough to duck Alastair Doldon’s fist in the heat of the moment, and brute force could kill a man just as well as magic. Subtlety was key. He had another plan to ensure that the family remained loyal, too. He was going to promise Thomas to one of Alastair Doldon’s three girls. He thought he would let Thomas decide which one. But the announcement could wait.
The Vandemeres were in good spirits. They ate and drank heartily and regaled the table with tales from the Low Lands. The mood was contagious. Josephine had smiled twice before the second course had been served. Matthew looked at her fondly. It pleased him when she was like this, and he suspected it had a lot to do with Iris’s absence.
He sat back in his chair and sighed. Iris. She was always there, in the back of his mind. How would she react, he wondered, when her daughter was sent away in the morning, never to return? He suspected she knew what was going to happen, but she hadn’t come to speak to him or to beg for Enola’s life.
He had made many mistakes as a father, but the one thing he did not regret was the chance he had given Iris to bond with her child. Surely, she would not forget that. He had allowed her more freedoms than most fathers, allowed her to realise for herself that Enola was beyond love and help. And he had lived, ever since, knowing that his advisors, his family, his people thought him weak. But it was worth it. For Iris.
*
The voices from the dining hall grew louder and more boisterous as Alexander approached. He stopped outside the doors. His body shook with anger. He clenched his teeth. Matthew Mortenstone had given the order to kill his child. And Iris was going to let him do it.
He saw Iris from the corner of his eye, running towards him along the corridor.
A sudden bout of raucous laughter erupted from the dining hall. He held out his dagger.
‘Stop! No!’ Iris screamed.
In one swift motion, he threw open the doors and stormed into the dining hall. He ran straight to the head of the table, raised his dagger and plunged it into Matthew Mortenstone’s heart.
Iris burst into the room and screamed when she saw her father in his chair, the knife buried deep in his chest. Alexander looked at her coldly and then folded his arms over his chest and vanished.
He felt the wind on his face and opened his eyes. He was at the border. Without looking back, he ran into the forest, all the way to the Hang Man, where Vrax and his men were waiting, ready to receive their hostage.
‘Where is she?’ Vrax hissed.
‘I don’t have her,’ said Alexander.
Vrax stared at him incredulously. ‘What do you mean? What about the plan? Why—’
‘We don’t need her. The border isn’t enchanted. Just go!’
14. INTO DARKNESS
Iris sank to the floor in despair as her father’s head fell back against his chair, eyes vacant, and blood began to seep through his tunic. In the candlelight, the silver serpent on the dagger’s handle glinted.
There was a moment of complete stillness. The fire in the great hearth roared, the food on the table steamed, but no one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed. They all stared at the space where Alexander had stood in stunned silence. Matthew Mortenstone was dead.
‘Mordarks,’ Josephine said in a strangled whisper, turning to the horrified faces around the table. Then, clutching her chest, she sprang from her seat, wild-eyed, and screamed the name at the top of her lungs. ‘MORDARKS!’
The hall exploded into life. Guards poured in and began to shout, disappearing back through the doorway, some vanishing into thin air. Alastair Doldon launched himself across the table, growling with rage. Plates and glasses smashed as he landed heavily on the other side.
‘Find him!’ he bellowed and, whipping a knife from his belt, bolted from the hall. Gregory Vandemere followed him.
Eric Vandemere rose from his chair in a daze, staring first at Matthew and then Eve, who was clawing at her own face, her screams shrill and piercing, scratching until her skin turned red with blood. But no one tried to stop her.
Iris watched them, watched as Thomas walked to the head of the table and touched their father’s lifeless arm, watched as Edward Vandemere rushed towards her, knocking a chair aside as he came. He was saying something but his voice seemed far-off. He fell to his knees, grasped her shoulders and said it again, shaking her, but his words were no clearer. She stared at him blankly, until a guttural cry rang out, filling the room, overpowering even Eve’s screams. Lucian. Iris looked past Edward to her brother as he pushed himself to his feet and began to stagger around the table, drawing rasping half-breaths, holding onto the backs of the chairs as he went. He stopped beside their mother and stabbed a finger at Iris from across the table.
‘Seize her!’ he shrieked, his chest heaving as he summoned the strength to repeat his order. ‘Seize her now! She let him in. She led him here!’
Suddenly, hands were grabbing at her, dragging her up from the floor, while others held Edward back. Iris didn’t struggle. And, when Edward had been restrained, she went without protest.
Two guards took her across the courtyard to a black, studded iron door. While one of them heaved it open, the other took a torch from a bracket on the wall. Then, they led her down to the dungeons, into darkness.
Faint moans disturbed the quiet as the prisoners were roused by the heavy thud of the guards’ boots. Iris saw their withered forms in the glow of the torchlight, their outstretched hands grasping feebly at nothing as they reached through the bars. She wasn’t afraid of them. She felt only numb, the image of her father, dead in his chair, fixed in her mind. Alexander had betrayed her.
The guards flung her into an empty cell at the end of the passage. She fell to the straw-strewn ground with a gasp of pain and clutched her crushed wrist as the door clanged shut behind her.
Suddenly, the castle bells began to ring. The guards exchanged an ominous look and hastily locked the cell door before clambering back up the steps, drawing their weapons. As they opened the door at the top, Iris heard the screams from the courtyard and the distant roar of men. And then the door slammed shut and the cries were silenced.
Heart racing, she got to her feet and tried to force the cell door open with her mind, willing the lock to break, the door to collapse, seeing it before her eyes as if it had already happened. When that did not work, she shook the bars in desperation.
‘Let me out! Please, let me out!’ she shouted. But she knew no one would come. And she knew that whatever was happening out there was entirely her fault.
*
Hundreds of men in black armour surged across the Gras
sland from the Dark Forest. Screams filled the night as they reached Stone Lane and townspeople fled in terror towards the castle.
Vrax Mordark moved with purpose, obliterating everyone in his path as he stormed the lane ahead of his men. With the mere swipe of his arm, townspeople were snatched off their feet and thrown with bone-shattering force into buildings, their broken bodies falling to the ground motionless.
Lucian erupted from the castle with his mother close behind him. People were flooding through the gates, trampling the guards who were posted there, swarming the courtyard. He watched them, aghast; an endless stream, clambering over one another as they raced towards the castle doors.
‘Close the doors!’ he shouted to his mother. As Josephine turned back, he raced down the steps, fighting his way through the people until he was at the gates. He thrust his arms forward with all his strength and felt a cold wave rise up through him. The people pushing their way into the courtyard were suddenly flung backwards across the square, knocking others down as they fell. Lucian drew his arms in tight against his chest and the gates swung shut with a screech of metal. He stared as people got to their feet and rushed forwards again, the whites of their eyes shining in the moonlight. They clung to the gates; some began to climb in desperation.
‘Help us! Help us!’
‘They’re coming!’
‘…Mordarks!’
‘Please… Open the gates!’
Lucian turned his back on them and looked around the courtyard for Eric Vandemere. The cries behind him became more frantic. When he saw Eric, stumbling around by the foot of the castle steps, he began to run, barging through a group of hysterical women and children.
The White Witch (The Serpent and The Sorcerer Trilogy Book 1) Page 14
