Bone Witch (Elemental Magic, #3)

by Thea Atkinson

  Almost as though someone was beneath the pile.

  Theron had drawn the first of the symbols in for her with wet soot. Both Gael and Cai held their left arms aloft, careful not to smudge them and letting Alaysha inspect the finest of the lines. She wondered how she'd be able to produce anything nearly as shapely with the bone tip he passed her. She ran her thumb along the point and found it sharp indeed. Still, the idea that she could tap such detail onto skin seemed improbable.

  "I don't think it will look as good as he's drawn it," she said, letting her finger run absently along the symbol in the middle of her own chin, the one her nohma had put there for her, the one she knew meant water in an ancient language.

  Gael dipped his finger into the sooty ash, testing its texture. "I know some sword smiths add bone to their steel, but this seems a little bit disturbing. I mean, your sister's ash." His words had begun to slur, the effects Alaysha knew, of the brew Theron had fed both him and Cai. Alaysha still didn't understand why they needed to be drugged so. Theron insisted it was not a drug but a sacred drink.

  "You'll tell me if it hurts?"

  Cai made a sound that could have been disdain, but the way the words came out after, all thick and muddy, Alaysha wasn't sure it was something she intended. "Try being branded, little maga, if you want to understand pain."

  Gael murmured his agreement but lifted his arm above his head, all the better for Alaysha to work on a broader landscape. Both he and Cai lay on a thatch mat, stretched onto their sides. Two large copper goblets sat between them and if Alaysha remembered correctly, they were each to save a drink for her, but all the brew should be gone in the end. By the way they grimaced after gulping some of it down, she was sure there'd be plenty left for her. She just worried she'd not be able to stomach it; her belly already gurgled from nerves.

  She inhaled. "At least if I make a mess of it, you can cover yours up," she teased and wasn't certain she said it just for their benefit. She tried a trembling laugh, but neither warrior returned it. In fact, both looked unable to muster so much as a smile.

  "So then," she said, trying again to find courage. "So."

  "So, get on with it, little maga." Cai sounded irritated. She didn't expect any response from Gael; except for his agreement to do this, he hadn't so much as spoken but a few sentences to her since she'd cornered him in the forest.

  Cai was the closest. Alaysha puffed out the air that had collected in her throat. She could do this. She would do this. Theron had warned her that the brew, the marking, and the ritual might take more out of all of them than normal because of the exertion they'd all expelled at the broad sea and because of the amount of recovery they were all undergoing to heal. Still, it had to be done.

  She leaned over the bowl, working her mouth to build saliva and spit into the pot. Then she held her finger over the same and with an inhale, pierced the tip with a needle. Squeezed. One, two, three drops for each of them. She intoned the words she'd practiced, did her best to recall the face of her nohma as she did so, the only ancestor she knew who could bring her spirit to the magic.

  She used the same finger to mash the soot, ashes, and fluid together. Then she began.

  It was precise, finicky work and Alaysha was sweating by the time Cai's mark was done. As instructed, she bid Cai swill nearly all her own brew, leaving enough for Alaysha who by now was licking her lips with thirst. She had to believe Theron when he told her she would be begging for the drink by the time she was done. The fragrance of myrrh charring on the open flame was coating her throat in ways that made swallowing difficult and her nose dry. Still, no matter how much she needed a drink, she couldn't until the last of the work was done.

  She wished Gael would at least look at her while she did this to him. Cai had stared stonily at Alaysha the whole time and when Alaysha paused every now and then to take a break, Cai had grinned at her.

  She expected no such encouragement from Gael. She began on his symbol with reluctance. What good could come from binding herself to a man who couldn't bear to look at her, who tortured himself with things that simply didn't matter. The Enyalian might be pragmatic about her agreement, and her motives had certainly become all too clear, but there was at least some comfort in knowing the large woman would be there always ready to give her self in service. That she'd agreed without hesitation, even after understanding what it meant told Alaysha the woman could indeed be trusted and could be counted on.

  Just knowing it lent a flush to Alaysha's skin that had nothing to do with the fire.

  Strangely enough, not long ago, she would have said the same of Gael. He'd voiced it with his own lips, assured her of it even. All she had needed or desired of him at the time, the reality of him now taking the steps to demonstrate it was still almost hollow. How could she ask it of him when he felt so tortured over her; it was why she'd asked Cai in the first place.

  But here they were, joining together in a ritual Alaysha doubted would even work. Never done before, is what Theron had said. Could her power, so strong as it was still move through two her Arms instead of one? No one had ever done tried.

  Poor Gael. It might be too much for him, really. She studied the complete symbol critically. It was good, actually. The curves rounded nicely. The lines were solid. bold. Beautiful, even.

  Not bad for a woman covered in nervous perspiration. She exhaled, satisfied.

  "The drink," she said. Surely if she didn't wet her lips soon, the stink of myrrh would gum them closed.

  Both Gael and Cai held their goblets out and Gael met her eye boldly. She took his first and swallowed everything within, then reached for Cai's and drank deeply.

  The flush of heat without was nothing to the flush within when she finished. She felt as though her veins were filling with molten Quicksilver, that it was coursing and flowing, throbbing beneath her skin. Her ears tingled. The skin beneath her hair prickled.

  And then she knew, just knew, what would restore Gael, what would bring him back to himself.

  She reached to cup her hand beneath his jaw. "Gael," she whispered. "Let me replace those memories for you. Help me feed you new ones to eat away the ones that torture you."

  At first, he tried to wrest his face from her touch, but she grew insistent, more determined. She stood, pulling his head toward her so that she wrapped him with her arms, her fingers roaming his hair, fleeting gently over the healing wound. He was on his knees, cheek against her legs and it was easy to slip her hand beneath his arms and tug, just firmly enough he looked up at her. When he caught her eye, she refused to let it wander. Instead, she leaned forward and captured his mouth, never once closing her eyes for fear of releasing him. Even as her tongue probed his lips open, she watched his pupils dilate and the wrinkles of doubt smooth over. There was an instant when she thought he'd pull away, but then his eyes squeezed shut determinedly and his tongue followed hers, dancing with it in surrender.

  At last he stood, letting his hands roam her body as he found his feet. He pulled her against him, letting her hand rest on him so she felt each muscle tense and let go in his chest. His legs moved outside hers, trapping her; she realized how desperately he clung. She thought she felt a tug on her leggings and tunic. Her arms lifted of their own volition and the leather slipped over her skin. The shiver of air danced over her flesh and was gone so quickly she thought she was cocooned within two fires. The flames of one licked her throat, beneath her hair on her nape; the flames of the other captured her breath, fanning the heat as they danced.

  Indeed, she was cocooned, she realized. She had to be, and between the two large warriors, both making her flesh feel as if it was on fire. Gael's mouth moved across her chest and throat, Cai's trailed down her spine and rested at he cleft just above her buttocks where it sent a shiver straight up to her neck. The woman's hands, her fingers cupping and probing between her thighs until she felt herself grind against them shamelessly. She pulled her feet from the leggings and lifted her arms to feel all the more deliciously available. />
  Together, they stretched onto the mat and she let her own lips travel Gael's throat even as Cai pressed against her, the hard pebbles of her nipples reminding Alaysha that she had two bodies about her, not the one, and that they were both hard, fierce fighters with almost freakish strength. She felt more safe than she'd ever felt, more alive. More than that, she felt as though she couldn't possibly be close enough; she wanted more, to feel their hands roaming her skin, entwining together between her legs, making her slick with need.

  She became a molded piece of clay, moving with them, letting them press into her, against her, and then finally being lifted and entered. She rode the wave that battered her and let the hands behind travel her skin, gripping her nipples. It was a wild dance, as fierce as the wielding of swords fighting for possession of her, and she couldn't get enough of either body. She wanted them both to win her, she wanted their growling need to each take her.

  Finally the rhythm behind became as the one she rode, until the heat, the flush, the desire of it all left her leaning back onto one warrior as she moved like a piece of oiled sinew against the other.

  No one spoke. She could only echo the sounds that met her ears, of desire and satisfaction and longing finally met until the only sound she could make at all was a cry of complete surrender.

  Alaysha woke to a groggy head. Both Cai and Gael were gone and the only way she knew for certain that she'd marked them at all was that the small copper bowl of soot still lay on the floor next to her with the blackened tapper resting inside. She eased to a sit, holding on to her head and trying to keep the throbbing she felt contained to the inside of her skull. Even her fingers ached. The fur around her shoulders slipped to her waist. She was nude and the air was chilly. Morning then. Thank the deities one of them had thought to build a small fire before leaving.

  She tried to get up and realized that every movement she made was effort. She did remember having a few small sips of Theron's brew. How must her new Arms feel, having each drunk an entire goblet when she felt this way after so little, she didn't even want to think about.

  She stared into the flames, letting the crackle of wood replace the sound of her own heart beating in her ears. She stared at the flames, watching the short peaks lengthen lazily. Letting the heat fill her skin. She felt totally at ease in her own skin; strong anxieties from before seemed to have melted away in the comforting knowledge that she wouldn't need to be alone anymore. That she was now connected to not one, but two others, in a way that would secure her safety and well-being. She had somehow extended – diluted – her power into another spirit, and it felt right.

  She could fix her stare if she liked, focus the pain behind her eyes; the trouble was they didn't truly focus at all even when she tried. They seemed to be following a figure within almost as though the flames themselves were twisting into shapes that wanted her to see. She thought of Aislin and of how she'd come to her through the flames back in the mud village. Pyromancy, Yenic called it. The fire witch's affinity with flame, and her ties to Alaysha through Yenic were supposed to give her the same sort of ability.

  Alaysha wondered if that connection could work to her benefit. She certainly felt just off enough this morning to do it.

  She stared, pinning her gaze on one particular section of the fire, one that reminded her of the fire witch's eyes. She let the flame lick around the edges of her vision and twist within and upon itself.

  When it happened, she gasped aloud. Aislin herself, wearing a long linen shift, paced within the flames, the veil of her hair catching a breeze behind her. She stopped short. Looked over her shoulder to the other side. Then Alaysha could see a slow smile spread across the woman's face as she closed her eyes. A tingling shivered down Alaysha's chin and trickled down her throat. She felt hot, as though the flame had entered her. Dryness came after. So dry she could barely swallow.

  She scrabbled backwards, even as she heard shrieks of agony and shouts of confusion sound from outside. Despite the pounding behind her eyes, she bolted to her feet, grabbing her tunic and pulling it over her head. She whipped aside the leather flap of the mud hut and ran across broken branches and through thickets that scratched her face and arms to get back to the village. At the edge, in piles of smoking ash, lay copper bowls and smoking water buckets. She leaned to pick up a copper cup and pulled her hand back. There were blisters on her fingers.

  It didn't take her but a few moments to realize what was happening. It came to her even as her toe rammed into a copper bowl. She looked down, confused, thinking she shouldn't be kicking at bowls this far from the fires, see ashes in such peculiar grouping so far from the communal fire. Then she saw them: two hard black seeds sitting in the middle of gray ash, and she couldn't swallow back the gasp that left her lungs.

  Alaysha cast about blindly, stumbling into Highlanders as they sobbed and ran about, gathering their children. Several of the Highlanders were already sprinting toward her: confused, afraid, shouting at her, flinging rocks. Alaysha cast about, looking for some witness even as she knew she needed none. These people couldn't understand what was happening to them, they would blame her, and she was to blame. Aislin had used the connection to force her to kill.

  "It wasn't me," she sobbed. "Not me," she spied Aedus, her mouth agape, her arms full of herbs and plants she'd been gathering. She dropped them as Alaysha reached her, and thank the deities, without speaking, the girl knew what was happening.

  Alaysha found her hand in the girl's and let herself be pulled along, the satisfied sense of early morning long gone. Now it was replaced by a queer kind of panic.

  "The child," she said, gasping for air she ran. "Where is she?" Several hard globes stung her back.

  "Theron has her," Aedus got out, and yanked Alaysha toward the tree Edulph had disappeared into with the girl the moment they'd arrived. "He's mixed up his ghost pipe roots and she sleeps far more soundly."

  Panting, feeling as though everything in her skull would erupt, Alaysha craned her neck up the tree trunk. The stairs that wound their way up into the brush of the branches and joined several trees together by a wooden lodge looked far too high for her to climb. It was why she chose in the mud hut instead. Not only did her head pound, but she suddenly grew dizzy.

  "I don't think I can," she said.

  "It's okay," Aedus always understood. "I'll fetch them. And Edulph too. He might be able to calm them down." She sprinted up the steps as though there was no height to worry about.

  Alaysha whirled to face an accusing crowd.

  "I did nothing," she said. "It wasn't me."

  A woman stepped out from the throng. "Then name the power that could dry standing flesh to leather."

  "But they were burned. They –"

  "They caught fire with no lightening to hand, no torch near. They simply dried out as they stood until there was nothing left but flame."

  "But there was flame." Alaysha wasn't afraid; she was ashamed. So ashamed and she couldn't explain herself let alone the simple folk that the power that could do such a thing wasn't from her even if it came through her. Her tongue felt tied to its palette. She could hear footfalls on the stairs again and realized that Aedus hadn't gone all the way up. Instead, she came back around the tree and stood with her hands on hips, daring the crowd.

  "Worry for yourself, then," she commanded. "If you think this woman capable of lighting the flame, imagine your own deaths from such fire and back off."

  They went quiet but they remained. Alaysha took a bracing breath.

  "Your young one can drain air, you know it's true. I can draw water, but there is another. One who sparks fire in a man's own flesh. It's why we're here. We want to help you."

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Yenic rushing toward her, his face a mask of concern. He drew close, his arms opened in question.

  "How Alaysha?" His eyes, so like roasting honey when he looked at her, were clouded with something she couldn't name.

  She shrugged. "I don't know. The fire, I guess
. I was staring into it –"

  It took him a moment, but realization flashed across his face. "Sweet deities. She channelled you."

  "No," Alaysha protested. "Not like that. I saw her. She was pacing, angry, upset, something. I caught her unaware."

  He grabbed at the spot beneath his arm as though it stung. "My mark. It still tingles." He looked at her and past her at the same time.

  "What does it mean?" she asked.

  Yenic shifted his weight side to side. "You touched her, Alaysha. She knows your spirit. She knows it without having to search now."

  "The bond," she guessed and he waggled his head up and down, stepping now more lively, his hands swatting his ribs.

  "She can sense you through me."

  Another shriek went up from somewhere near; the crowd parted, pulling back like the ball of fire would reach out to them each with light, leaping fingers. The stink of animal fat and burning hair raced through the air.

  "No," Yenic said, stumbling. Alaysha caught at him, leaned down to keep him from falling. He swept her hand away. "No," he said again. "I have to break it," he mumbled to himself and Alaysha thought his face had shifted into something akin to Edulph's when he'd gone mad.

  "Yenic," she reached again, but he took a faltering step away.

  "Your Arms," he said, his eyes glazed and wide now. "Is it done, Alaysha? Tell me it's done."

  "Yes. Yes, it's done." It was true was it? She saw the ink pot, the black and bone. She'd marked them both. They'd finished the drink, she drank the brew. They'd –

  Oh dear deities. She'd done more than mark them. She felt her face flush and forced herself to stay calm. She could explain it to him later. "Yes," she said avoiding his eyes. "Yes it's done."

  His chest was heaving even as another scream rent the air. "Good, good." He staggered. "She knows we're together," he choked out. "She won't stop. I have to break it, Alaysha." His amber eyes were liquid again for one heartbeat, and he leaned in and kissed her, gripping her face, letting his thumb travel her tattau.