And the power went. She felt it evaporate and leave her panting, sobbing, from the effort to control it. The water she'd psyched from the well, from the skins, the minute amount she'd gathered from the dead around her, the living too, all burst with all the power of the fury she'd used to drain it. She couldn't stop herself from weeping in relief. The shivering made her thighs quake as she knelt, and she couldn't stop herself from collapsing.
The leader squinted at her suspiciously and motioned to the others next to her to truss up the man she'd scored with her blade. The she stood to Alaysha and fell to her haunches, grabbing Alaysha's chin and twisting her head this way and that. Her thumb pressed painfully into the tattau.
“You are a witch,” she said flatly. Alaysha sent the woman a scathing look.
The warrior seemed unaffected even with the new flush of rain running down her cheeks and pooling on her breastbone.
“This man was yours?”
What did she mean 'was'? Surely Gael still lived, she'd seen his eyes. She knew he was alive. He had to be.
“That man killed several of my best.” The woman looked backwards over her shoulder, then she twisted back to face Alaysha. The eyes she'd thought were black as mica stones were dark, deep green. There was the unmistakable air of respect on the Enyalian's face. She grunted thoughtfully.
“He will be well fought over, little maga,” the Enyalian said. “We thank you.” She stood, then, and with a quick motion, the rain sluicing down her body unheeded, she had the remaining warriors heft Gael onto one of the strange beasts. Edulph was lifted and deposited onto another.
Two women hoisted the cover of the well and peered in. Alaysha could tell by their reaction that it was empty.
The leader glared at Alaysha. “It will take at least three moons to refill even with all this rain.”
Alaysha shrugged but said nothing. She knew the warrior understood what had happened to it by the way she'd called her witch. There was no need to answer with words. The woman broke into a grin.
“I could leave you here to enjoy your downpour, little maga.” Her gaze trailed to the horizon where Alaysha could make out a huddled bulge on the horizon that she knew were the others lying flat. She hoped the Enyalian would see it as a shadow and no more.
Alaysha tried not to let her face give away her fear of losing Gael to these women, and as she worked to appear composed, she realized what the woman meant by asking if Gael was hers.
Was hers.
But no longer. He was theirs now, and Alaysha understood all at once that the warrior knew she'd unleashed her power only when she'd thought him as good as dead. This woman, this cunning woman understood the crux of the power all at once, that she'd not use it if the ones she wanted to protect were alive. She knew Alaysha posed no threat as long as they had Gael.
It seemed once again she'd given herself away. They knew how to manipulate her even as Edulph had, as Yuri had. And then she understood the silent message in Gael's eyes—it wasn't for death or for salvation. It was begging her not to use her power because then they'd understand the most important thing about it, that she had a weakness that could be exploited.
And now she'd done it—she'd shown these warriors the same thing she'd shown Yuri, and in his turn, Edulph. That she could be manipulated by her love for others.
Chapter 7
It poured all night and Alaysha hoped that the steady onslaught would at least rejuvenate the companions she'd had to leave behind her. It also left her wondering just how deep the Enyalian well had been. Surely to psych so much fluid that the heavens could drip for so long, the well had to be leaguas deep, not hand spans as most were.
They plodded along for hours on the strange beasts, the long necks of the things swaying in a rhythm that would put a weary traveler to sleep. At times the ground quaked, stronger than before, but if the warriors noted it, they said nothing to each other about it. They stopped when the sun met the lip of the horizon in a kiss so wet it seemed the entire world had flooded. Alaysha's leather tunic was soaked through and her hair stuck behind her ears, leaking water into the crevice between her breasts and trickling down to her belly button.
The Enyalia seemed to take it in stride. The one who had called her maga, the largest and the one who sat her beast at the front of the queue, turned her face repeatedly toward the sky, letting the rain pool into her open mouth. Her hair, a shade that resembled the kind of reddish brown that dying leaves turned to in the more frigid lands past Sarum, was twisted into lengths that sent the rain into miniature rivers down her back. What water the woman didn't swallow, she spat into her water skin. Seeing this, the others did the same. Alaysha made note not to share from those skins unless she had nothing left to drink.
The leathers they wore, brief things on their torsos that stretched up in separate halters to cover their breasts and tie behind their necks also splayed downward into strips at the waist for easy movement. All the skins must have been tanned in a way that made them supple, and coated with grease because they had a way of sluicing the fluid into rivulets that traveled the creases. They all wore leather belts that hoarded any number of tools and pouches, a blade, rope, even. Alaysha guessed the weight of them alone was enough to keep their legs strong.
At one point, each of them pulled out some sort of hollowed out root that they then tied to their waists and used to catch the water that ran down their backs. They repeatedly upended this into their skins. When the rain slackened, they pulled from their packs flax-woven bedrolls and draped them over their backs, letting the material grow sopping wet and collect in small narrow gourds they'd tied to a corner.
Resourceful women, women used to traveling in the burnt lands, wasting no drop of precious fluid. Her heart sank thinking it must mean they were still far off from the end.
As the sun began to set again, the Enyalia halted the caravan and leapt from the beasts in nearly one fluid motion. They pulled Edulph and Gael from the backs of the beasts and set them apart from each other, then dropped dried apples and nuts onto their laps. The large red-haired Enyalian passed some fruit to Alaysha, her green gaze flicking over her in silent assessment.
"Eat," the woman said in a voice that sounded loaded with the gritty earth beneath her feet. Too much time spent in the dried lands, Alaysha supposed; her vocal cords were undoubtedly little strings of baked sinew. "Walk. But don't wander."
Alaysha looked out over the distance they still had yet to cover, at the ground that was cold but hard, without vegetation or grazing beast to relieve the eye of earth. "Where would I go?"
That seemed to satisfy the warrior and she marched off, chewing a mouthful of nuts and apple. Alaysha edged her way over to where Gael had been dumped. He slumped down into himself, and if his eyes were open, he stared broodily off into the distance. She settled next to him, touching him on the arm; she felt it tremor beneath her fingers and sensed an echo in her own chest. He refused to look at her.
"I'm sorry, Gael," she whispered. It was obvious that past his grievous injuries sustained in battle, she'd also made him sick and weak from the power that leaked from her when she'd been afraid. She wondered how much she had dehydrated him and whether he could recover easily enough to make the rest of the journey safely. She recalled the way she'd made Saxa sick when the power had unleashed itself because of fear, nearly taking all the fluid from the healer as she'd nursed Alaysha back to health. It seemed so long ago now that she'd nearly died of wounds to her side, wounds inflicted by her father's favoured scout—a lifetime ago rather than a few fortnights. Theron had to help replenish Saxa's fluids then, feeding them to her constantly with additional herbs to help her body distribute it quickly. There was no such help here. No herbs.
"Gael," she tried again. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I thought—"
"You thought I was as good as dead. I know," he said. The normally strong voice was thready.
She let go her breath. At least he was speaking, even if he sounded flat and morose. She tried again, not
sure why she needed his forgiveness, but realizing she did. "It came too quick, Gael. I couldn't stop it."
"I know, Alaysha," he said in dismissal and she could feel her cheeks burn.
She sought Edulph's form in the encroaching darkness, making sure he wasn't within earshot just in case the brutal man decided to take his revenge on them while they rested. He'd fought with them against the Enyalia, but he still couldn't be trusted. He'd come along quietly with them on the journey, happy enough to leave the well Aislin had left him in deep in the mountains of Sarum. That didn't mean he wasn't planning something with the fire witch. It wasn't but a few short days ago that she and Gael both believed he was sent by Aislin to spy on them and to help her locate Yenic.
Alaysha found Edulph in short order. They'd placed him next to the beasts, making him squeeze the bedrolls until the water sopped into the fibres let go and streamed into the open water skins. Strange, how the Enyalia had selected him to perform the menial task while they let Gael rest. It made her wonder if the warrior could be forced to such tasks at all.
Perhaps the Enyalia were more discerning than she'd given them credit for.
She studied the way the women strode about, feeding the beasts, chewing their dried fruit without pause, never once sitting down or taking a break. None seemed concerned about their captives escaping. But then, where would they run to? And besides that, they needed the Enyalia to help them get safely past the burnt lands. Surely the women knew that too.
Gael hunched too sullenly to appear a threat to them anymore, she supposed.
She reached out to him. No leather bonds about his wrists, nor on hers. The Enyalia were cocky, thinking once beaten, the captives wouldn't dare rise again in vengeance. Alaysha had only to look at the unmoving bundles lain reverently across several beasts to know they could be beaten.
"Gael," she whispered, hoping the tension she felt in his forearm would ease. "Gael."
He said nothing, but at least his arm snaked around her shoulders, and she felt at once reassured and something else she couldn't name, but it sent her a quick flash of memory of the both of them in the darkness of a close, hot tunnel, the sweetness of intimate touch flushing her cheeks. She should have felt as though she was betraying Yenic, but the truth was she still wasn't sure he hadn't already betrayed her to his mother. It was something she had to know: if Yenic loved her enough, if he would side with her to release Sarum from his mother's mad takeover, or from whatever else she had in mind and according to Theron, there was plenty of it.
She didn't know how much of that she believed either. Gods and goddesses fighting each other, following each other to a garden created for the safety of a few children. Those things seemed remote compared to the very real issue of the people she loved being murdered by a woman who could control her power a little too well and who couldn't be manipulated by anyone or anything. Except maybe Yenic.
There were so many things about Yenic that she didn't know, and yet she loved him still. Deities help her, she doubted whether it was the bond alone that drove her feelings for him. She looked askance at the warrior who sat next her. So little did she know of herself and of her own world, and yet she knew this one thing: that this man next to her would die for her. And she'd nearly killed him.
"I thought you—I mean," she floundered. "I thought –"
"You thought I'd given up." His voice sounded tired. She didn't blame him. He'd fought like a madman. And now his fluids were low. He must be struggling just to speak.
"I did. Sorry." She felt ashamed that he was able to guess how she felt, that she remembered a day when he had given up, when he'd admitted that he didn't want to live anymore. She'd nearly killed him that day too, and brought the rain when she managed to pull back the power. But that too was fortnights ago. So much had happened since then.
He chuckled. "No apology needed, Witch," he said, and she almost gasped in pleasure at the return of his mocking term for her, the one that had changed to endearment so subtly over the weeks that she'd grown to miss it when he stopped. He pulled her in closer, easing her head onto his chest, and sending a burst of warmth down her side. He was terribly hot; too hot for even these lands.
"If I can fool you, think what these women must think."
"So we'll beat them by being docile?"
"Not beat," he said. "There's no need to fight a warrior who believes he—I mean, she—has already won. We'll use them."
"To get to Yenic if he still lives."
"Yes, and through Yenic, Saxon."
Alaysha hadn't forgotten Gael's nephew—her own half-brother, truth be told. Yuri's heir. The one he died to protect even as he was confronted to make the choice to save Alaysha instead. But then it hadn't really been Alaysha either that the fire witch planned to kill in front of Yuri was it? No, it was Alaysha's twin, and her father had known that too even if Alaysha had no idea she even had a sister.
She almost wished she hadn't let her mind travel down that complex path of her father's devious machinations. There were far too many pains from small thorns on the sides of those pathways, but she couldn't stop the memories that flooded in. Memory. Curse of the temptress bloodline, to remember so clearly and so lengthily. Her nohma had said it was long memory that allowed the power to work so well through her, to find and remember the fluid pathways so intimately it could pull the water in mere heartbeats.
Except there were so many holes in that memory, the very ordinary mechanism her mind put to use to protect her from the tragedies she'd suffered—the pain of her mother's death, her nohma's, the torture she'd suffered at Corrin's hand, the neglect of a father she loved.
Too many holes, and thank the deities she'd been spared them so long. Now, though, things were different. She knew too much, and that knowledge made her angry.
She heard her own sigh of frustration and felt Gael's finger on her lips. A little shock tremored through her in response.
"They're coming," he said and resumed his previously sullen and defeated posture. It was such a good act that Alaysha found herself doubting it was all feigned.
Two of the brutishly tall women towered over them, their arms and leathers still slick from the rain that had stopped by the time the group had. The small marbles around her legs clacked together with each movement.
One of them kicked Gael's outstretched foot, but he made no sound.
"Get up, man. Cai wants you to kneel when she comes." The voice was almost too lyrical sounding for such a large frame. Alaysha peered up at the face, trying to see what she looked like.
When Gael didn't move right away, the woman reached down, and with a short grunt of effort pulled him to his feet. It took Alaysha by surprise that even a woman of her size could force Gael to his feet. At least until she remembered he was playing along. At least, she hoped that was the case.
"What about me?" Alaysha asked and the woman eyed her with some speculation. Even in the approaching gloom, Alaysha could see the woman was thinking.
"You may stand or sit as you please."
There was a sort of grudging respect in her voice, Alaysha thought. She chose to stand. "Who is Cai?"
The woman's look of speculation disappeared. In its place came annoyance. She gripped Gael by the arm and twisted him toward where the sun was setting, facing away from the group, then forced him to his knees. After that, both warriors took their places on either side of him.
Alaysha noted that none of the others even bothered to stop to watch what was happening; they merely went about their business, collecting water skins, attaching them to the beasts, wrapping up their food stores.
The ground had gone slick from the rain, and Alaysha could see Edulph doing his best not to slip in the mud as he hefted the skins and packed the bedrolls back onto the beasts. He was working without complaint, Alaysha noticed, and she remembered Aedus's words when she'd first met her, that her people were used to work, used to brutality. Not for the first time, she wondered about the girl and her brother, their past, their p
eople. A tribe Yuri had obviously wanted to enslave for his own uses.
It was long moments before the woman Alaysha assumed to be Cai came forward. The Enyalian, obviously their leader, strode toward them without rushing. The same woman who had gripped her chin and called her maga when she'd inspected the tattaus. The woman stopped in front of Alaysha, rattling hazelnuts around in her palm.
The way the shadows crept across her face, the aquiline nose, the speed her expression shifted, all looked vaguely familiar. Despite her startling beauty, Alaysha shivered instinctively.
Just when Alaysha thought the warrior wouldn't speak, she addressed Alaysha impassively. "We're nearly home. I need you to relinquish these men to me."
"Relinquish? You already took them."
The woman smiled slowly, quietly. "Indeed. They are ours now, but you must know this too."
"Why? What will it change?"
Cai cocked her head thoughtfully and her eyes lingered on Alaysha's tattau. She really did have striking eyes, a dark shade of green but outlined in an almost translucent yellow. Set like almonds in skin that resembled young milk pudding.
"They're no longer yours, maga," she said. "They belong to the Enyalia now." She spoke slowly, working hard to pronounce the words so Alaysha could understand. But it was the meaning beneath that Alaysha thought Cai wanted her to grasp.
"If you do them no harm, I won't psych your land dry," she said in return and grinned spitefully at the woman.
"Our bone witch will want to see you," Cai said, ignoring the threat in the air.
"Bone witch?" Alaysha was instantly wary.
"Our healer." Cai waved the question away as though it was an obvious one, and Alaysha silly to ask it. "When she's done with you, you will leave these men. They belong—"
Bone Witch (Elemental Magic, #3) Page 5
