The Star Witch

by Linda Winstead Jones

  While Franco set up camp for the night and Lucan went into the wooded area nearby to hunt for the evening meal, Isadora sought out the wizard and drew him aside, so no one else could hear their conversation. Bannon and Laren had built a small fire, and Thayne had already cast a protection spell that would keep the soldiers away—at least for tonight. The other men, the prisoners who had been in Level Thirteen for such a long time, were no stronger than the empresses, and were no help at all in securing the camp.

  Tonight they could all sleep in peace, under the stars and in relative safety. The air was cool and wonderfully fresh, and the night was not too cold.

  “What do you wish to know?” Thayne asked pragmatically.

  “Did you love my mother?” It was not the question she had intended to ask, but it was the one that sprang from her mouth.

  “I cared for Lucinda very much, and she liked me well enough. Even if we had been so inclined, love was impossible, due to the curse.”

  “You know of the curse?”

  “Of course. Lucinda told me all about it. Have you broken it yet?”

  Her heart thudded. He asked the question so casually. “No. Can it be broken?”

  Thayne waved his hand dismissively. “Curses are low magic, easily broken. I told your mother as much, but she shook her pretty head and rejected my advice. She wasn’t ready.” He turned dark eyes to hers. “I suspect you are, daughter.”

  “How can the curse be broken?”

  The old man shrugged. “The question isn’t so much how can it be broken, but why has it been kept alive for so long.”

  “What do you mean, kept alive?”

  He took her arm and led her to an outcropping of rocks, where he sat tiredly on an oddly shaped boulder. When he indicated that she was to sit beside him on the cold rock, she did so.

  “When a curse is first cast, it has little power. It’s an annoyance. A flea. A bit of bad luck and ill wishes that take form and buzz about like a pesky fly.”

  Isadora felt her ire rise swiftly to the surface. “Many Fyne witches have buried men they loved, or watched them run away in horror. I buried my husband, whom I loved very much.” And she was beginning to accept that she loved Lucan, in a different way but just as strongly as she had loved Will. He would walk away when he found a woman he liked better, or worse, when he learned she was a witch. “You dare to compare that suffering to a pesky fly?

  Thayne shook a bony finger at her. “I said a curse begins in that fashion. They can grow much stronger, and often do.”

  “How?”

  “Fed by the fear of those who are cursed.”

  Her anger grew. “Are you trying to tell me that my own fear is what keeps the curse alive?”

  Thayne shrugged. “Yours. Your sisters’. Your ancestors’.” His brow wrinkled as he puzzled over the situation. “There’s more in this case; I can feel it. Was the curse penned? Did past Fyne witches write of their heartache and the power of the curse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are those papers?”

  “Burned,” she said softly. Would they need those letters to break the curse? If so, then all was lost. “When the emperor’s soldiers set fire to the cabin, the letters were inside, stored in a box.”

  Thayne tsked loudly. “In a special box, I imagine, feeding the curse the power of grief with every passing year.” He waved a hand. “It is good that they are burned. That is helpful.”

  Isadora breathed a sigh of relief. “Does that mean the curse is ended?”

  “Oh, no,” Thayne said. “You and your sisters still keep it alive. No three ordinary women would be able to feed the curse such power, but you and your sisters are extraordinary in the power you supply. The three of you will have to release the curse once and for all, together.”

  Her anger and fear did not disappear, but they were now mitigated with something new: hope. Did she dare? “I don’t even know where my sisters are,” she said.

  Thayne looked at her squarely and took her chin in his hand. “I suggest you find them.”

  It seemed so simple. Too simple. Isadora shifted her head so that it was free of the wizard’s grasp. Hope alone would not end the curse. She needed specific answers. “Once I find Sophie and Juliet, how do we go about ending the curse once and for all?”

  Thayne looked up into the night sky, studying the stars that sparkled above. He seemed lost in the sight for a moment, and then he answered, “Before the curse is broken, what you believe to be impossible will become possible before your very eyes. One, two, three. Nothing stays the same forever, and sometimes a miracle is just the first sign of a coming change, but it seems like a miracle at the time because it is so rare and unexpected. One, two, three,” he said again.

  “We all must see these miracles, is that what you’re saying?”

  “You and your sisters will each experience something you once thought impossible. When that is done you will clasp your sisters’ hands and together the three of you will cast the curse into a faraway place of insignificance, where it belongs. To do this you will need fire, starlight, and the possession of those things which you believed to be impossible.” He looked at her and smiled. “And hope. I see the beginnings of hope inside you, but it isn’t enough. You must each have a steadfast belief that the end of the curse is not only feasible, but in your hands.”

  It sounded simple, and yet...not so simple. “You are a seer as well as a wizard.”

  “Yes,” he said harshly, “for all the good it has done me.”

  “You told of the Emperor Sebestyen’s fall after the sun touched his face. How long after?”

  “Within hours, perhaps even minutes.”

  She wanted to believe the old man who told her that the curse could be ended, but how could she, when he was obviously flawed in his predictions? “You’re wrong,” she said gently. “Sophie brought sunlight into the palace months ago, and Sebestyen is still alive and well.”

  The old man, her father, smiled. “I have never felt the need to explain my prophecies, especially not to a man as ungrateful and selfish and cruel as that paivanti emperor.”

  “What could there be to explain?”

  “Sebestyen never needed to fear sunlight, Isadora.” Thayne lifted a wrinkled hand to his own cheek and let the fingers barely lay upon the skin. “His fall will follow the touch of his son.”

  Impossible. No one had ever escaped from Level Thirteen, and now the sentinels were telling him that the place had been emptied.

  Sebestyen considered personally killing the guard who delivered the news, but he couldn’t afford to lose a single man. Not now.

  “Were there women among the dead prisoners?”

  “No, my lord,” the gray-faced sentinel answered.

  It was always possible that Isadora had died in the pit. He could certainly hope that was the case, but she had never struck him as the sort of woman who would die easily and quickly.

  “How did they get past the armed guards on Level Ten?” Sebestyen snapped.

  The sentinel’s gray face went white. “There were too many of them, my lord, and they took us by surprise.” The man swallowed hard. “And they were not all unarmed.” Sebestyen took a step toward the young soldier. “Stop dancing around the facts of the matter and tell me what happened!”

  “It was the Tryfynian captain,” the sentinel said. “And his manservant. They had swords and wielded them quite well as they led some of the prisoners out of the palace. There were women among that group of escapees, my lord.”

  Women? As in...more than one? Impossible. Someone had mistaken a long-haired, weakened prisoner for a woman, perhaps. And if she’d survived, Isadora was certainly one of those Hern had rescued.

  So much for his alliance with the Circle of Bacwyr. It was Isadora’s fault that Hern had turned. If Hern and his men joined with the rebels...if Isadora survived and told the world that there were two heirs to the throne...

  “I want a doubled guard on the empress and on the baby wh
o is being cared for on Level Two. Preserve them with your lives. Nothing else matters.”

  “Your guard will be doubled as well, my lord,” the sentinel said with a curt and respectful bow. Some small hint of color had returned to his face. Apparently he was grateful to find himself still alive.

  “That’s not necessary.” Sebestyen touched the knife that was sheathed at his waist, and the sentinel’s eyes flitted there with a touch of fear.

  But he did not draw the knife, and the sentinel left to do as he had been instructed.

  Sebestyen chased his personal guards from the room, slamming the doors behind them. He bolted the door and crossed the room at a run, tearing a tapestry from the wall to reveal the hidden doorway beneath. It swung open, and he ran down two flights of dimly lit stairs. The door he found his way to opened on a small interior room that was not easy to find from the hallways of Level Three.

  Mahri lifted her head as the door swung open. Skittish girl, she had not been happy with her new confinement. She’d actually found her way out of this room once, and had wandered the halls looking for someone to help her. But of course, no one had dared to offer assistance.

  He had planned to do away with her, too, as he had done away with Isadora. The nosy girl had found her way into the chamber where the twins had been born, and she knew too much. But apparently he’d lost his heart for handling such matters. Isadora was different. She was a witch, and she was dangerous, and she had killed. She deserved Level Thirteen.

  Mahri did not.

  The other woman sat in the comer, rocking and knitting. As usual, she did not even lift her head.

  Sebestyen crossed the room to the cradle that had been placed against one wall.

  “He is sleeping,” Mahri said in a soft voice.

  “He’s well?” Sebestyen asked as he glanced into the cradle. His second-born was healthy, and he was quite sure the baby looked much as he had as a child. Alixandyr had a healthy smattering of dark hair and remarkable blue eyes. Sebestyen reached down into the cradle to touch the baby’s head.

  “Very well, my lord,” Mahri answered.

  He should have killed the baby, and if the priests knew there were two, that’s what they would do. But Sebestyen had not been able even to conceive of doing such a thing or allowing it to be done. This child was his and Liane’s. Alixandyr was a miracle, and miracles should not be lightly undone.

  “There are those who would harm him just for being who he is,” Sebestyen said, reluctantly withdrawing his hand from the cradle. “I know you do not want to be here.”

  Mahri swallowed hard. “I do not like being a prisoner, my lord.”

  “No one does.” The nursemaid who continued to knit did not so much as lift her eyes or fumble in her stitching, though she was as much a prisoner as Mahri. Sebestyen needed the wet nurse, but he did not trust her. She had dead eyes, and he had never heard her speak a word of protest or submission. She just existed, and fed his child, and knitted. Did she have a hidden allegiance with someone in the palace? Someone who would do Alix harm? Even though she was his servant, anything was possible.

  Mahri, at least, had been loyal to Liane. Mahri, a servant who had been invisible to his eyes until that night when all had changed, had the courage to protest her imprisonment.

  He drew his knife; a startled Mahri jumped back and gasped.

  “I’m not going to harm you,” Sebestyen said, flipping the knife and catching it by the blade to offer it to the girl. “Take it.”

  Mahri was reluctant. How foolish was it to offer a sharp blade to a prisoner? Very. Still, what choice did he have? After a moment of studying the bejeweled handle, she took the weapon.

  “Guard my son,” Sebestyen said. “Can you do that?”

  Mahri studied the blade. “I don’t know if I can stab...”

  “If someone means harm to an innocent child, would you not do whatever you could to protect him?”

  The girl studied the blade a while longer, turning it this way and that. Eventually, her grip grew steadier. Sebestyen wondered for a moment if she was about to stab him.

  But she did not. “I will, my lord,” Mahri said, a touch of vigor in her normally weak voice.

  When everyone had been fed, and all but a handful of the campers were asleep, Lucan took Isadora’s hand and led her away from the campfire and into the wood. The former empresses and the wizard—Isadora’s father—slept, as did most of the others. Franco and Bannon would keep watch for now.

  He had come very close to losing Isadora. How odd that the very thought of losing a woman he had known for such a short time had the power to cut him to the core. He had never been in love; in fact, he had often claimed that love was for women and old men. But surely this was love.

  If he returned to Tryfyn without the Star of Bacwyr, he would not be Prince of Swords. If he were not Prince, he would be free to choose his own wife.

  And the strife in Tryfyn would continue until another was called to be Prince. How long? A few years, a hundred, more...he could not put his own happiness above the needs of an entire country. But when it came to Isadora’s happiness...

  When they were deep into the woods, he stopped walking, turned, and took Isadora in his arms. She fell against him and rested there, fitting well as she always did, burrowing into him as if only he could protect her.

  “I should have known that you would find me,” she whispered against his chest. He felt her warm breath there, and her steady heartbeat in the chest he held so close, and the desperation of the small, warm hands at his back.

  “Yes, you should have,” he said.

  “For a while, I thought...” She choked on the words.

  “You thought that I would leave you there,” he finished in a low voice.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He smoothed a strand of dark hair away from her cheek. “For a few terrible days, I thought you had truly left me. I mourned, and I was angry, and I was hurt. And then I saw the ring you always wore on Emperor Sebestyen’s finger, and I knew he had taken it from you.” He did not tell her that he had reached for her and found her. He did not tell her that they were connected in a way that went beyond the needs of their bodies. “What happened?”

  At first she was reluctant to speak, but soon the story was pouring out of her. Twins. A sentinel’s death. The witch Gadhra. A newborn baby disposed of because it was inconvenient to have two heirs. He’d wondered if he had the right to break his word of allegiance to Sebestyen, but the story Isadora told made it clear that he had no choice.

  “Sebestyen locked you away because you knew what he’d done.”

  “Yes.”

  The Circle wizards had said Lucan would have a son during his thirty-eighth year. He wanted Isadora to be that child’s mother, and he wanted to save his country from the war that had torn it asunder for so very long. Why could he not have both?

  “Marry me,” he said, the words pouring out of him.

  She kept her head down so he could not see even a glimpse of the expression on her face. “You said you could not marry me,” she said softly.

  “And you said that you did not want to be my wife,” he countered. “All things can change. If the path of our lives is not to our liking, we can make the path we desire by the decisions that we make.” If he were wed to Isadora when he returned to the Circle wizards, they could not undo what had already been done. And if he returned as the rightful Prince of Swords, no one but those most highly placed in the Circle would dare to say a word. The wizards would complain, and they would try to convince him to undo the marriage, but they could not command him to follow their edicts. “Marry me,” he said again.

  “I don’t know that I can,” she whispered so softly he could barely make out her words.

  “Of course you can. What can stop you?”

  Her hands slipped beneath his vest and settled on bare skin. “Can we talk about this in the morning? My head is spinning. I’m tired. Right now all I want is for you to make love to
me.”

  “Here?” He searched the ground for a soft spot, but saw nothing suitable for a bed for the woman he loved to lie upon.

  “Here, Lucan. I don’t need a soft mattress and fine sheets and scented candles. I never have. What I need is you. Your arms around me, your mouth on mine, your body and mine linked...that is what I need.” She laid her hand over his erection and stroked, and pressed her mouth to his throat. “Please don’t ask me to think beyond tonight,” she whispered against his skin.

  He would not lay the woman he loved in the cold dirt, so he raised her skirt and lifted her off the ground, and in the broken shafts of moonlight that slanted through the trees, he gave her what she needed. They had been apart too long, and they reached fulfillment quickly, and with a power that brought tears to Isadora’s eyes. As she quaked around him, Lucan muttered the words he had never thought to speak.

  “I love you.”

  It would be right and proper for her to answer in kind, and he wanted to hear those words more than he should want anything in this life. But with their bodies still joined and broken moonlight shining down upon them, she remained silent.

  Juliet stood on the gentle rise of the hill, one hand resting over her swollen stomach, the other caught in Ryn’s. The body heat that came with being Anwyn caused her to dress much as her husband did: in little or nothing, depending on who else was present. Tonight she wore a sleeveless and thin gold frock that was generously cut to allow for her pregnancy. The hem—torn by her own hands on a particularly warm day—did not quite touch her knees. Such a garment would be considered scandalous in Shandley, but she was nowhere near that small village, and she no longer cared what anyone in Shandley thought of her.

  “They are so close,” she said, excitement creeping into her heart. “Sophie is to the south, just a few days’ march away. Isadora is west just a day or two beyond Sophie. They do not realize that they are so near to one another.”