The Star Witch

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “You are young still, my lord. When you’re well, you can find yourself a young bride who will give you all the children you desire.”

  The emperor didn’t answer. He knew, as she did, that this illness was killing him. Besides, if he’d had the inclination to remarry, he would’ve done so long ago, when his young wife had died. He must’ve loved his Empress Cylia very much, to grieve for so long.

  They did not discuss the blatant lie that the emperor was young enough to breed another heir before death claimed him, as Ariana laid her hands on his shoulders. She attempted once more, again in vain, to draw out the illness which was slowly and surely killing him.

  Sian paced impatiently, boot heels clacking loudly against the stone floor. His eyes remained focused on the closed doors of the emperor’s suite. If not for the presence of half a dozen armed guards, he would storm the suite in spite of the sentinels’ insistence that the emperor was not to be disturbed. He could make his way inside no matter how diligently they tried to stop him, but it might get his visit off to a bad start.

  “This is quite important,” he said under his breath.

  “So you have said, sir,” one sentinel responded calmly. “When the emperor is finished with his business, we will announce you. Perhaps he will see you. Perhaps not.”

  The words were meant to rile, he imagined, but Sian did not respond. He had no doubt that the emperor would see him.

  “What was your name again?” another green-clad sentinel asked.

  “Sian Sayre Chamblyn,” he said, his teeth all but clenched.

  “Your business with the emperor?”

  “I will discuss my business with him. No one else. What’s taking so long?”

  One of the sentinels smiled.

  Sian had not been to Arthes and this palace for many years. He’d been caught between being a boy and becoming a young man when he’d experienced the wonders of the Imperial Palace for the first and last time. Little had changed since his visit more than twenty years ago. He’d been told that during Emperor Sebestyen’s reign the royal family had resided on the top floor. Level One. At that time there had been a wondrous lift to transport those of importance ten floors up, but the man who had the keeping of the machine that powered the lift had disappeared during the last day of battle in the War of the Beckyts, and Arik had never set men to work on reviving it.

  Since shortly after Arik had become emperor, the royal family had taken up residence on Level Nine, which would have been the second floor in a normal house. Of course, much in this palace had changed since Arik had become emperor.

  Sian remembered running up the winding stairway, all the way to Level One. No one had resided there at that time. There were too many bad memories on the top Level of the palace; too much bad energy. He’d heard rumors of secret passageways and hidden doors, but as a boy he had not been able to find them. Perhaps they didn’t exist, but were merely tales, much like the tales of Emperor Sebestyen and his many unfortunate empresses.

  Sian suspected most of the tales were exaggerated, but there had to be some truth in them. Odd that a good man like Arik could share blood—a father—with a man as evil as the long-departed Emperor Sebestyen.

  Finally, the door to the emperor’s room opened, and a pretty girl stepped into the hallway. She quietly closed the door behind her, as if she’d left the emperor sleeping and did not wish to disturb him. Sian noted that she was tall, for a woman, and possessed unruly, curly blond hair and a curvaceous figure any woman would envy and any man would admire. As she turned, she revealed a flawlessly beautiful face and lively green eyes.

  “I’ve been left waiting for the emperor to finish his business with this piece of fluff?” Sian asked harshly. “I told you, my purpose here is momentous.” He had expected that at the very least he’d been waiting for the exit of a highly placed minister or perhaps a priest.

  The woman turned to look him in the eye. She started visibly, as many people did when they first saw his face. It was the eyes that gave her pause, he knew. “What did you call me?” she asked.

  “Fluff,” he answered without hesitation. “The fate of the country hangs by a thread, and I am left waiting in the hallway cooling my heels while you service your lord and master. The least you could do is to be quick about your responsibilities.”

  She was not outraged. Her slowly spreading smile was one of amusement, not anger or seduction. Perhaps she was not a concubine, after all. What was her purpose, then?

  One of the sentinels entered the emperor’s suite to announce Sian’s presence. Sian waited impatiently to be summoned. The woman who had just left the emperor continued to study him with curious eyes.

  “The fate of the country, you say. Do you care to elaborate?”

  “To you? No.” Sian stared at the door as if willing it to open. How would the emperor receive him if he barged in before being summoned? He was sorely tempted to find out.

  “Emperor Arik does not receive many visitors these days,” the woman said cordially. She took a step closer to him, unafraid and openly curious. “He’s very busy. What makes you think he will see you?”

  “He will see me.”

  She looked him up and down, taking in his travel-dusty black clothing and the disheveled black braid that hung over one shoulder. He likely made a sharp contrast to her, as she was very clean and appropriately dressed in a pale gray frock which was pressed and free of road dust. Perhaps he should’ve bathed and dressed more properly before presenting himself to the emperor, but he hadn’t felt he had the time. No, there was no time for niceties. This message was important. Dreadfully so.

  The blonde reached out and touched Sian’s cheek. He almost recoiled; he was not accustomed to the touch of strangers. The caress was light and easy, not at all threatening or seductive. It might be the touch of a mother, or a sister. A caretaker of some sort, surely.

  A healer. Yes, he knew the touch of a healer when he felt it. There was power in that tender touch, and though he did not share her power, he could certainly sense it.

  “Dirt,” she explained as her hand dropped. “One cannot be presented to the emperor in such a sad condition.”

  Before he could respond, the door opened. The sentinel who emerged closed it again, and walked solemnly toward Sian. It wasn’t until he reached the weary traveler that he said, almost reluctantly, “The emperor will see you now.”

  With more than a touch of impatience, Sian lifted his right hand and twisted the fingers. The double doors to the emperor’s chambers opened swiftly and fully, banging back against the stone wall with great force. The sentinels in the hallway stepped cautiously away from him, awed and frightened by his display of magic.

  The woman didn’t react at all. She didn’t even flinch. Sian strode toward the emperor’s chamber, making his way through the opened doors to find the man he sought sitting by the window. Good God, Arik looked so old and feeble. No wonder he had need of a healer.

  One of the sentinels tried to follow Sian into the room, but he had been stunned by the display of magic and lagged behind. Sian turned, and with another twist of his fingers, the doors closed as forcefully as they had opened. The latch fell into place, leaving him alone with the emperor behind locked doors.

  His last glimpse of the crowded hallway was of the blonde’s impassive face.

  Alarmed, the sentinels began to pound against the door. Sian knew that if they succeeded in gaining entrance to the room, he was a dead man. That couldn’t happen. Not yet.

  “It’s all right,” Emperor Arik called in a voice that was loud enough to carry, and yet sadly weak. “Sian is a friend. Stand down.” The pounding stopped, and Arik smiled. “Always the showman. I see nothing has changed.”

  “I wish that were true,” Sian said. In fact, everything had changed, or would in the days to come.

  “Your mother?” Emperor Arik asked, his voice touched with melancholy. “How is she? I used to hear from her regularly, but over the past few years the letters came les
s and less frequently. It’s been a long time since I had a communication from her.”

  “She’s been gone almost five years.”

  The emperor seemed to flinch, though so mildly it was difficult to tell what had happened. “I’m sorry to hear that. I liked your mother very much.” Sadness showed on his too-thin face. “I should’ve heard of her death, but you live so far from Arthes and we had lost touch. She did write now and then, but I was not the best at answering those letters. I must confess, the years fly by too quickly.” He sighed tiredly, as if he felt every one of those years. “I always thought I had more time, I suppose. Your grandfather?” Arik changed the subject abruptly.

  He passed away three weeks ago, but not before penning a final prophesy,” Sian answered. “I promised him that I would deliver it to you.”

  The emperor turned his gaze to the world beyond his window. For twenty-four of the twenty-five years Arik had ruled, Columbyana had been a better place than it had been under Sebestyen or his father or his grandfather. During the past year the country had experienced a decidedly dark turn. Sian carried the explanation for that turn in the inside pocket of his dusty traveling coat.

  The emperor was obviously in no hurry to hear the prophesy. Did he know the news would be bad? Likely so. Prophesies were rarely of the joyful sort. The news that Sian had made the long trip in less than three weeks should also tell the emperor that the news he carried was of great importance. To journey from the southernmost tip of the Eastern Province to Arthes could easily take twice that amount of time if one traveled at a moderately leisurely pace.

  “Before we get down to the business which brought you here, tell me something of yourself, Sian.” Emperor Arik folded his trembling hands on his lap. “Are you married? Do you have children? You’re how old now, twenty-eight?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “Yes, of course. Thirty-four. Imagine that.” He glanced out the window, as if studying the fine, sunny day with some interest. “Surely by now you’ve taken a wife and produced many fine children. Do they have magic, like their father, their grandmother, and their great-grandfather?”

  Sian had not expected to find himself in a position where he had to relive his failures. There were so many of them. “I married many years ago.” Before the emperor could make joyous inquiries, Sian added, “My wife died giving birth. The child also died.”

  “You never remarried?”

  “No,” Sian snapped. “Did you?”

  The force of Arik’s gaze was powerful, ill or not. “No, I did not, as I’m sure you well know. Did you love her so much, then?”

  Sian withdrew the prophesy from his coat and unfolded the paper his grandfather had scribbled upon in his final days. “My lord, the matter which brings me to Arthes is of such importance, I feel we must press forward. Personal conversations must be set aside for another time.”

  “Of course.” Arik gestured, rolling two fingers of his right hand in a manner which very clearly said, Go on, and be quick about it.

  “ ‘A darkness creeps beneath Columbyana and the lands beyond,’ ” Sian read. “ ‘This darkness grows stronger each and every day, infecting those who have an affinity for evil. As it grows stronger, it will also begin to affect those who are of weak mind, and eventually it will grow so strong no one among us will be able to defeat it. If this darkness is allowed to grow to that point, the world is doomed to eternal shadows, where evil will reign.’ ”

  Arik lifted a silencing hand. “What does that mean, a darkness? Is this a person? A group of people? Is it a metaphor or an actual dimness?”

  “I do not know,” Sian admitted. “Prophesy is not one of my gifts.”

  Again, Arik made the gesture that commanded Sian to continue.

  “ ‘Only the firstborn children of three fine women have the power to stop the darkness and restore the world to light.’ ” Sian folded the paper. There was more written in his grandfather’s hand. More detail about the ugliness of the battle and the monsters which would need to be defeated in this war. More promise of death and darkness, along with a few scribbles in the margin which made no sense at all. “Beware Serrazone,” with no hint as to who or what Serrazone might be. “He who walks through fire may show the way.” There were other references to the children of the fine women as soldiers. Warriors. Scrawled along one margin were the words, Those who are called must choose between love and death, between heart and intellect, between victory of the sword and victory of the soul. Some of the scribblings seemed to be nonsense. Others were no more than doodles. Still, Sian was certain they were as important as the carefully worded prophesy which filled the center of the page. He just didn’t know how. Not yet.

  Given Arik’s fragile condition, it was likely best that he not be bombarded with an excess of unpleasant details at this time. “ ‘The firstborn children of three fine women’ isn’t very specific, I’m afraid, but he made it very clear to me that they would be crucial. Grandfather was very ill in his final days. I’m sure if he’d had more time...”

  Arik smiled crookedly, a strange response given the dire prophesy. “Your grandfather was specific enough, Sian.”

  “There are many fine women in Columbyana and beyond, my lord. How will we know where to look for their sons?”

  Arik shook a too-thin finger at Sian. “You see the prophesy, but I hear it. I imagine your grandfather heard it, too, in his own way, so he can be excused for making a mistake.”

  Sian’s spine went rigid. A mistake from his grandfather? Unheard of.

  “F-Y-N-E,” Arik spelled slowly. “Fyne. I suspect the prophesy refers to the firstborn children of three Fyne women. I didn’t hear the word ‘sons,’ though you used that word.”

  “As these children are meant to be soldiers in the coming war, I assumed it to be so.”

  “If sons were required, I believe your grandfather would’ve made that plain. No, his one mistake was in the misspelling of Fyne.”

  While Sian hated to admit that his grandfather might’ve made a mistake, given the old man’s physical condition in his final days, it was certainly possible. “Do you know where these Fyne women and their children can be found?”

  For the first time, Arik’s smile seemed real, and familiar. He looked not quite so ill, not quite so old. This was the man Sian remembered. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  About the Author

  Linda's first book, the historical romance Guardian Angel, was released in 1994, and in the years since she's written in several romance sub-genres under several names. In order of appearance, Linda Winstead; Linda Jones; Linda Winstead Jones; Linda Devlin; and Linda Fallon. She's a six time finalist for the RITA Award and a winner (for Shades of Midnight, writing as Linda Fallon) in the paranormal category. She’s a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than seventy books. Most recently she's been writing as Linda Jones in a couple of joint projects with Linda Howard, and rereleasing some of her backlist in ebook format. Information is always available at www.lindawinsteadjones.com.

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  Also by Linda Winstead Jones

  The Columbyana books

  The Sun Witch; The Moon Witch; The Star Witch

  Prince of Magic; Prince of Fire; Prince of Swords

  Untouchable; 22 Nights; Bride by Command

  Bride by Midnight

  Firebird, a novella

  Dragonstone Dance

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  Fairy Tale Romance

  Into the Woods

  DeButy and the Beast

  Someone’s Been Sleeping in My Bed

  Big Bad Wolf

  Let Me Come In

  Cinderfella

  One Day, My Prince

  Jackie and the Giant

  Let Down Your Hair

  * * *

/>   Time Travel Romance

  Desperado’s Gold

  On a Wicked Wind

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  For other titles, visit Linda’s website.

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  Also by Linda Winstead Jones

  Children of the Sun

  Prince of Magic

  Prince of Fire

  Prince of Swords

  Columbyana finale

  Bride by Midnight

  Firebird

  Dragonstone Dance

  Fairy Tale Romance

  Into the Woods

  DeButy and the Beast

  Someone's Been Sleeping in My Bed

  Big Bad Wolf

  Let Me Come In

  Cinderfella

  One Day, My Prince

  Jackie and the Giant

  Let Down Your Hair

  The Emperor's Brides

  Untouchable

  22 Nights

  Bride by Command

  The Fyne Witches

  The Sun Witch

  The Moon Witch

  The Star Witch

  The Rock Creek Six

  Sullivan

  Jed

  Cash

  The Shades Trilogy

  Shades of Midnight