The Star Witch

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “You really shouldn’t—” Isadora began, but Liane spun and ran before she could finish.

  Chasing after Liane would alert Myls, and others, that something was amiss, so Isadora did not leave the tent. She looked to Juliet, who had been silent through most of the long visit. “Will she be all right?”

  Juliet nodded. “If won’t be easy, but she and the boys will be fine.” She cocked her head and smiled. “The one who is so devoted to her, the one who lied...”

  “Ferghus,” Isadora supplied.

  “Ferghus is going to follow her. He’s going to protect her.”

  Isadora felt better, knowing Liane and the babies and Mahri would not be out there all alone.

  “Oh, no, what am I going to do?” Sophie asked in obvious distress.

  “What’s wrong?” Isadora asked.

  “I can’t tell Arik that Liane and the babies are dead.”

  “Why not?” Isadora asked. “You know very well it’s the only chance they have for a safe life.”

  “Yes, I know, but...I can’t lie to Arik. He’s my friend.”

  “I can lie to Arik,” Isadora said pragmatically. “I barely know the man.”

  “So can I,” Juliet said. “Sophie, all you have to do is look sad and keep quiet.”

  Sophie shrugged her shoulders. “In the name of a good cause, I suppose I can do that.”

  Isadora glanced toward the tent opening. There was a small slit she could see beyond. “I wonder if Ferghus is following Liane already?”

  Juliet nodded and smiled. “He’s right behind her.”

  As Thayne had said, there was a blazing fire, and stars above. Two impossibilities had presented themselves, and Sophie had suggested that Liane’s recovery and the safety of her babies was a third miracle, and while it was not technically Isadora’s miracle, it did touch the eldest Fyne sister in an undeniable way. Isadora had sworn to protect Liane and the babies, and she had done so against all odds.

  The Anwyn guards and a handful of rebels who had been instructed by Arik to keep the camp safe remained. Most of the men stayed well away from the women. The rebels knew Sophie to be a witch, and they knew what she could do, but to see three powerful women with their heads together was frightening for them. They knew something was about to happen; they just didn’t know what.

  Myls was gone, and so was Ferghus. Isadora tried to imagine where her friends from the palace might go. Liane and the babies, Mahri, and Ferghus. She wished them a good life, and when the curse was settled she would cast a spell to make it so—if she could. Spells cast over a distance were not always effective, but if nothing else, it would make her feel better to know they had an extra bit of luck to carry with them.

  It was well after dark when they began the ritual. Thayne said they had to believe the curse was powerless before it would be so, and Isadora recognized the seed of uncertainty in her heart. It was too late for her, in any case, but she was still waiting for her miracle. She tried to force out that kernel of doubt for Kane’s sake, for Sophie and Juliet and Ryn.

  She knew the language of the wizards more deeply than her sisters, so it was she who began to chant the spell they had devised last night and today. They stripped the power from the curse, they dismissed it as unimportant and weak. They embraced the futures they and their daughters would have, free of the powerless curse.

  Isadora tilted her head back, and her gaze swept the heavens. A shooting star streaked across the clear sky. An omen, perhaps? A sign from above that they would be successful?

  Juliet had a few words to chant. While the middle sister—so changed and yet still the same Juliet Isadora loved so dearly—did her part, Isadora looked beyond the fire to Ryn, who was such a devoted husband. Juliet swore that because Ryn was not entirely human he would not be affected by the curse no matter what happened, but Isadora was not so sure. Maybe he wasn’t human, but he was a man, and Juliet did love him.

  When it was Sophie’s turn to speak her portion of the spell, her voice trembled. Isadora tried to give her sister strength, courage, and hope. Hope most of all. They could not waver, they could not doubt.

  Movement nearby Ryn, who held his own daughter and Sophie’s Duran in his massive arms, caught Isadora’s eye as Sophie finished her part. For a moment Isadora held her breath. She blinked twice. It couldn’t be. Lucan would not have come back, not after he’d seen the ugliness of destruction in her with his own eyes.

  But he moved slightly forward so that the firelight fell upon his face, and she knew it was not her imagination playing tricks on her. Lucan had returned. He looked tired and a little disheveled, but she saw no hint of the disgust she had witnessed earlier in the day. He stopped a few feet away from the fire, and mouthed the words I love you.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Isadora broke from the circle and ran to Lucan. Without saying a word she threw herself at him, and he caught her. He caught her very well.

  “You came back,” she whispered.

  His arms encircled her, and she held her very own impossibility tight for a moment. Lucan placed her on her feet and kissed her, telling her more with that kiss than he ever could with words. He had seen the worst of her, and he loved her still. Their love was strong enough to withstand the curse and all that came with it. He had fallen victim to the curse and walked away, but he had come back.

  The fire she and her sisters had danced around flamed high. Juliet and Sophie both lifted their heads, and so Isadora did the same. Three shooting stars dashed across the sky together, and as they faded away, Isadora felt the curse lift, as if a weight had been taken from her heart.

  “Is it done?” Sophie asked breathlessly.

  “Yes,” Isadora said confidently. “It is done.”

  Sophie ran for the tent, but before she reached it, her husband stepped into the night. Kane held a hand to his bandaged head; he was pale and none too steady on his feet. But he was alive.

  Sophie squealed in happiness and ran to her husband. Juliet walked toward Ryn and their remarkable daughter with a contented smile on her face.

  Lucan leaned down and whispered, “I’m sorry. I knew it was the curse that caused me to see...and still...”

  “Don’t explain or apologize; it isn’t necessary. You did what had to be done.” She smiled widely. “You came back.”

  “Of course I came back. I was disturbed by what I saw, I was even frightened. But I always loved you, Isadora. Good and bad, dark and light, I always loved you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  He kissed her again, more deeply this time, and ignited a depth of wanting she had never known existed. And when the long kiss was done, he took her hands in his.

  “Isadora, love, will you be my wife?”

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  He grinned at her. “Yes, finally.”

  And so it was done.

  When all was finished and the curse was truly gone, Juliet admitted to her sisters that she had seen more of the future than she’d revealed to them. She’d realized that the curse would be lifted, but she’d been afraid that telling her sisters all she knew would rob them of the passion and power they needed to do what had to be done. She was afraid that her interference would change the future she’d seen.

  The Anwyn Queen and her King had left for their home, The City, the next morning. Keeping in touch would be difficult, but far from impossible. Nothing was impossible.

  Kane and Sophie were headed, with Ariana and Duran in tow, back to the Southern Province. The would build another house on the land where the Fyne cabin had stood for so long, and there they would farm the land and make more babies and live without war. It would make for a good life.

  Lucan and Isadora had returned to Arthes, and even though Isadora had sworn she would never again enter the palace, she and Lucan found themselves on Level One once again, standing before the new emperor in the ballroom. As Lucan had been so helpful in seeing to Sebestyen’s downfall and then bringing the fighting to
an end, Arik had gladly given the Circle Captain two of his finest horses. He had offered the words of a palace priest, when he learned that Lucan and Isadora were to be married, but they declined. They would be married soon...but not in Sebestyen’s palace.

  Isadora told Arik that Liane and the babies were dead, murdered by some unknown assailant as they’d tried to make their escape. Arik had been disturbed to know that someone under his command had murdered women and children, so Isadora twisted the story to clear his conscience and made the murderer a thief who’d stolen the few imperial jewels the empress had on her person.

  Telling that tale, convincingly so, was the reason she’d consented to visit Level One again. Liane and her sons would be safe from any who considered them a threat and from those who would use them to gain power.

  And then they were gone, leaving the rebuilding of a palace—and a country—to the new emperor.

  Franco had been very glad to locate his Captain, but once his fears about Lucan’s safety were assuaged, he traveled well ahead with the other Tryfynians who had fought for Arik. They were in no mood to dawdle, and Lucan and Isadora very much enjoyed dawdling.

  They were married in a small church near the Tryfyn-Columbyana border, with no witness other than the parson’s chubby, pretty wife. Simple gold rings were exchanged, slipped with love onto the middle fingers of their left hands, and then they rented a room in a small inn near the edge of town.

  Even though the bed was soft and they had been resting upon the hard ground lately, they did not get much sleep.

  Isadora had told Lucan that Liane possessed the ring he wanted so desperately, but he seemed not to care. He said perhaps the time for retrieving the Star would come again. Perhaps not. She’d offered to try to cast a spell to locate Liane and her traveling companions, if he desired. She did not want to take the only possession of the emperor’s the woman had left, and Juliet had said there was badly needed good luck attached to that ring. But Liane would need money in the years to come, and Lucan could pay her handsomely for the simple piece. Perhaps that was the good luck Juliet spoke of.

  But again, Lucan did not want her magic to assist him. He loved her as a woman, and he had no desire to use her powers for himself.

  Naked and entangled, they watched the sun rise beyond the rough window frame of their rented room. The sunshine illuminated the land they were leaving behind. Isadora did not know what to expect of what awaited them to the west.

  Well, they knew to expect love, and laughter, and a son sometime in Lucan’s thirty-eighth year.

  “It is amazing that your pursuit of a ring brought you to me, and ultimately brought us to this place. If you knew where it was located, why did you not retrieve it long ago?”

  Lucan wrapped long arms around her. “I did not know it was a ring I sought until I saw it upon your finger and glimpsed the magic. Long ago, the wizards of the Circle told me when the time would be right, and they told me I would know the Star when I saw it. They told me the Star had power I would recognize, and I did.”

  She rolled over to face her husband and ran a finger across his beard-roughened cheek. “A star of power.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did not know it would be a ring.”

  “No. They only said I would retrieve the Star and deliver it to the Circle, and when that was accomplished, I would become Prince of Swords.” He kissed her throat. “I do not wish to speak of my failure, love. I want to make love to you here, one more time, before we renew our journey.”

  “But—” Isadora began as Lucan rolled her onto her back and fit himself above her.

  “No more talking,” he said as he lowered his rough cheek to her neck and nuzzled.

  “But Lucan, it’s important.”

  “So is this.” He touched her intimately, aroused her, then pushed inside her and held himself there where he fit so well.

  Lucan made love to her, and she dismissed what she had been about to say to savor each sensation, each kiss and stroke, every flutter of her body.

  Soon enough her husband would learn that when spoken in the language of the wizards, her middle name, Sinnoch, meant Star.

  * * *

  The End

  * * *

  Read on for an excerpt from the next book in the series, Prince of Magic

  Prince of Magic

  The story continues in the trilogy Children of the Sun.

  * * *

  Chapter One

  * * *

  The emperor was dying.

  Emperor Arik had been on his deathbed for months, but it was a well-kept secret. A few ministers were aware of his condition, as were two of his priests. Other than that handful of trusted men, only one woman knew how grave the situation had become.

  Ariana Kane Varden had been the palace healer for a little more than two years, since just after her twenty-fourth birthday. Against the wishes of her parents, who both had bad memories of the Imperial Palace in Arthes and wished for their daughter to stay far away from the cursed place, she had rebelled and answered the emperor’s call.

  “Drink this, my lord,” she said, offering the thin, aging man a cup of steaming hot liquid.

  Today the emperor felt well enough to sit by the window and look out on his city. It was not a cool day, yet his legs were covered by a thick blanket to ward off the chill he felt. He took the cup with hands too frail for a man of his age. He was years yet from sixty, and yet at the moment he looked as if he might be a hundred.

  “Do you think he’s out there?” the emperor asked before taking a sip of the bitter liquid that was keeping him alive.

  Ariana knew very well of whom he spoke. Arik’s only child, Prince Ciro, had been missing since the first cold night of winter, months ago. Summer approached rapidly, and still there was no sign of the prince and heir. It was for that reason that no one outside the palace could know the emperor was so very ill. If he died without an heir, the country would once again be thrown into the chaos of war, as ministers and warriors and distant relations tried to make a case for taking the throne.

  “I’m sure he is, my lord,” Ariana said kindly.

  Arik turned his head to look up at her. He was very ill, but there were moments when the spark in his lively eyes belied his condition. Now was one of those times. “You lie no better than your mother.”

  Ariana did not care for being compared to her mother, and the man before her knew that well. But he was the emperor, and was therefore entitled to speak his mind. “We cannot know where Prince Ciro is, my lord,” she said honestly.

  She was not the only magical servant in this palace. In the months since Ciro had disappeared, Arik had called to his side many who embraced magic. Thus far, none of them had been able to shed light on the mystery of what had happened to his son.

  Ariana’s gift was not divination, so she could not offer assistance where Prince Ciro’s fate was concerned. She was a healer, taught at her mother’s knee from the age of four to remove pain, prolong life, and restore health. Some of this was accomplished through the use of herbs and magical spells, but there was more to her gift than chanting and mixing potions. There were times when the healing power came alive within her, and all that was needed came from a magical place deep inside.

  She’d tried to heal the emperor in that way, but so far had been unsuccessful. He said that some things were simply meant to be, but she refused to accept that answer. She would try again... and again. Her efforts were barely keeping him alive. She was beginning to suspect there was more to his infirmity than age or a simple, explainable illness. If an unknown dark magic was making him ill, it was no wonder that her healing abilities were insufficient.

  Arik finished his medicine and handed Ariana the empty cup. “You would make a fine daughter.”

  Her heart leapt, but she did her best to hide the reaction. It was not the first time Emperor Arik had mentioned his desire that she marry his son, the heir to the throne. At least the emperor had never commanded that the mat
ch take place. If Ciro was found and Arik so ordered, what would she do? She could not, would not, marry the prince.

  “As I’ve told you, my lord, I will never marry.”

  He smiled wanly. “Yes, you’ve said that many times, but I don’t believe you. When the right man comes along, you will change your mind. You could learn to love Ciro, with time. He might be that right man, Ariana.”

  She had met with Ciro a number of times before he disappeared, usually thrown together by his father, the emperor, whose intent was plain to see. Ariana did not know the prince well, but her instincts were finely honed and she was quite sure she would never be able to love such a spoiled, arrogant boy. Most males could be considered men at twenty-two, but not Ciro Elias Brennus Beckyt. He would forever be a boy. Arik had spoiled his only child, as had everyone else in the palace. Ariana supposed the prince had been doomed from the start.

  “Perhaps Prince Ciro will return to the palace with a fine bride who will become a wonderful daughter to you,” she offered cheerfully.

  “I suppose that’s possible,” the emperor said, and yet he did not sound as if he believed his own words. Something was wrong. They all felt it. “I should’ve married after Cylia died. I should’ve had lots of children, the way your parents did.”

  Ariana shuddered at the thought. There were nine Varden children. Six girls and three boys. As the eldest, Ariana had helped to raise them all. She had tended the younger ones, changed more than her share of diapers, bathed them, fed them, and taught them. When the Fyne sisters had one of their frequent reunions and Aunt Juliet’s six children and Aunt Isadora’s three had been added to the mix, the chaos had been unmanageable. And there Ariana was, the eldest of all the cousins and the one who was held responsible for every spill, prank, and fuss. It was no wonder she so often argued that she did not want children of her own. She’d already had a hand in raising seventeen!