"What?" she had no idea what that series of noises was. Aldrin tried to focus, but was finding it hard to see through the lights clouding his vision. Maybe closing his eyes would help.
Muttering something under his breath, the assassin of assassins walked into the moonlight. He was more darkness than the raven lady herself, his skin as black as rich tilled earth. Again, that crescent moon smile flared as he raised his hands and lowered his bow to the ground.
"That's close enough," Ciara warned, unwilling to trust anyone, even if he just saved her life.
The man smiled, then pointed to the boy dying upon the ground. Ciara followed, her dagger still pointed at him. She had no idea what, if any medicine he could perform, but it had to be more than what she knew.13
But the man didn't mimic bandages, or ligatures, or a healthy dose of vitamin c and chicken soup. Instead, he pointed to something in the sky above her. Ciara turned, for the first time taking her eyes off the archer and watched a plume of black smoke cresting above the forest tops. This wouldn't mean anything aside from possibly less forest in the morning were it not for the golden sheen sparkling around the edges.
The witch was in.
Realizing her mistake, she whirled around but the shadow man was already gone, back into the trees that birthed him. Sheathing her dagger, she dropped down to Aldrin, and cried into his waning ear, "Stay with me, I'll get you some help."
She looked back at the witch's cottage, its fires burning strong tonight, "I hope."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Her fist pounded on the cottage door, shaking a few leaves off the dangling eaves.
When most heard "witch's cottage" they conjured up an ancient lean-to with a bubbling cauldron that could feed a platoon working beneath, straw jammed into the walls and blood spatters across the ground.14 What Ciara stumbled across, dragging Aldrin with her, looked more like someone picked up one of those cozy homes the rich use to pretend they're roughing it and dropped it in the middle of a forest. There was no road, no path and barely even a trail leading to the door painted a delightful yellow slightly peeling on the edges. A few chickens wandered past, their eyes casting an unnatural glow upon the ground as they pecked for bugs.
Strange to see birds out at night Ciara thought as the pair waddled off, unaware they were odd for being night chickens. Aldrin sighed beside her, more of his weight collapsing across her weary shoulders.
She tried to stem the tide of blood still dripping from his side, but the extra tunic she rolled into a bandage and tied around him was drenched before they made it a few steps towards the smoke. Aldrin watched her; his face pale while sweat dampened his freezing back. He seemed coherent as she talked to him, responding with a nod or a shake, but then he'd loll back into silence.
Ciara had never dealt with knife wounds of this caliber before. The worst was when the chef caught the twins trying to sneak a bite of tripe pie before Solstice dinner and they found themselves short a few fingers for the trouble. She always wondered what Lady Winter thought of that mess, a pair of bloody bandages dangling off the mantle in the place of stockings.
Aldrin shuddered as she had lifted him to his feet, but didn't say a word of complaint. Either he was able to bottle up the pain lancing through every nerve in his body, or the blood loss was so severe he clung to his body by a thin thread.
Cursing this damnable forest, Ciara prayed he was far stronger than his slight frame implied. She began to knock a second time, shifting the boy's weight so he left a blood streak down the kitschy rain barrel, when the door flew open.
The woman before her was far younger than Ciara expected, somewhere in her mother's range, and stood proud, chestnut hair tumbling down her lanky back. The witch was so tall she had to stoop to get out of her cottage door. Her dress was a crisscross of alternating colors of silk, the yellows cut at an angle so it formed a green where it met the blue and so on. Bits of coin, and what Ciara prayed weren't human bones, jangled off her wrist as she effortlessly scooped Aldrin out of the girl's hands and laid him across a table. She followed behind cautiously, not wanting to close the door cutting off her only chance of escape.
The quaint cottage was far warmer than the freezing night of the forest, helped along by the fireplace still pumping plumes of black smoke high into the air. Ciara had been expecting strange crystal orbs, a large book bound in skin, maybe a few toads and mysterious throbbing ingredients from parts unknown. Old fashioned witch stuff. Mostly the place was full to the brim with glass jars, both in crates and scattered forgotten upon the floor. Loose paper was tacked to the wall. Instead of a crude unicorn drawing or indecipherable runes for raising the denizens of the underworld they had tiny, crisp writing etched into the margins. A few lines were scratched out emphatically on partially burned pages.
"I'm sorry, you caught me in the middle of canning," the witch said. Her voice was distinct and exotically spicy, with a hard catch that puts one in mind of a general ordering his troops to their deaths and not a battering spinster in the woods stuffing rotting fruit into jars before the winter.
Her perfectly almond eyes burned into Ciara, even as a small smile danced on her face, "What was it you wanted?"
Ciara, her fingers still curled around Aldrin's cool flesh, turned and looked at the boy lying stretched upon a table where fresh blood quickly mingled with tomato sauce. "He's dying."
The not so wizened face shifted to the boy. "Yes. Would you like him to die faster or to reverse the process?"
She glared at the witch, who seemed to be enjoying the outsider's discomfort. "The last one...please."
The witch laughed a bit at that and rolled up her sleeves. She walked around the boy to the gaping wound on his left, "Pass me the blade by your hand."
Ciara paused. Stories of witches were the ones parents used to scare each other. Magic was a fevered dream of an ignorant past trying to explain why the sun rose (as every right thinking person knows, it's thanks to the gods) or why people became ill, or how it was possible to walk into a room and forget why you were there, and yet...
It began slowly, reports of a few women able to do amazing things in the South a few generations back. They could heal bones that should never set, catch stone alight, and -- on occasion -- get two politicians to work together. Then more started to appear in civilized society; young girls who found themselves with abilities far beyond what any god would grant them.
It wasn't long before Barons, Earls, Princes, and Kings called for the execution of these women with powers that sent them hiding under the bed. But it wasn't easy to track down and kill someone who was quite happy with her head being where it was that could also save entire villages from the plague. Villagers might be ignorant hicks, but they hated "government interference with small business" far greater than a lone woman healing the sick and tossing a few fireballs to entertain for Summer Watch.
Then someone got the brilliant idea to blame the unblinkers on the witches. The propaganda changed; they went from angels in white hovering over a sick bed, to demons in black sneaking into nurseries and stealing infants for their dastardly covens for...Well no one really figured out who it was for or why they needed so many infants when you'd think a toddler or small child would suffice, but it couldn't be good.
So the witches fled out into the forests, the mountains, anywhere society turned a blind eye because squirrels and wolves don't pay taxes. One got herself a nice island and opened up a barbecue pork joint. And they schemed in solitude, only taking on those who dared to venture close to their homes, be it to help or hurt.
"Are…" the girl started, trying to not look at the giant cleaver stuck to the wall, "you're not gonna kill me and eat my bones are you?"
The witch laughed hard, her face embracing a lost youth with the mirth, "Oh child, no. Of course not," she held her hand out for the knife, which Ciara passed over. "If I were going to eat you, I'd cook your meat first. The bones are only for making soup."
A well-practiced hand ignored the child's ga
sp as she cut off the tunic and inspected the wound, the puckered skin pale as snow as it flapped against the still oozing muscle. She clucked her tongue to a beat no one else in the cottage could hear and rose from the table. Ciara watched the witch dash about her little cottage assembling a strange cacophony of small metal tools, each more medieval looking than the last, and a large bottle which caused the air to wave when she opened it.
"Boy," the witch leaned towards Aldrin's face, "I say boy, can you hear me?" Whatever spark of life Aldrin clung to on the journey was quickly slipping away. The witch merely shook her head, "No mind. This'll do the trick."
She upended the bottle directly into his wound. Steam rose from the ragged flesh and preceded a disturbing crackling noise. Aldrin's eyes shot open and he screamed from the bottom of his toes. Ciara tried to cover her ears but his hand clenched onto hers even harder as the potion did its magic. The scream continued as long as the wound crackled and hissed, like an angry snake yanked free of its safety in the grass. Just as suddenly as it began the steam stopped, the hissing vanished, and Aldrin closed his mouth and passed back out, his head bouncing against a bowl of pepper jelly.
Ciara leaned back on her heels, realizing she'd had her own teeth clenched the entire time. "That was it then?"
The witch looked balefully at her as she slipped on a pair of gloves boiling in a bag over the fire, "Of course not. That was just to clean the wound. Now the fun begins."
With the kind of adroit precision most pianists dream of, the witch began to suture muscle back to muscle while Ciara averted away from the gory mess, trying to find a distraction to keep her from vomiting all over the boy. Her eyes settled on his face, his eyes closed tight now as if he suffered a vivid nightmare. Getting your skin sewn up by a witch should probably count as one.
He wasn't a handsome chap, even being generous. His nose and ears far outflanked the rest of his features, making it look more like a nose with a face attached. Aldrin's jaw receded back so far it was a wonder he could even chew. Out of all the options in the kingdom, her father had to saddle her with this homely noble's brat. And why him, anyway? They could always sire more bastards; in fact, it was what they were mostly known for.
A clank pulled Ciara out of her revere and she watched a disturbing pair of tiny clamps plop into a metal tray, smearing blood where it fell. The witch stepped back from her handy work admiring the suturing, before draping a blanket across the boy. Her eyes lingered on the sunken face, one he was certain to grow into.
She turned sharply to Ciara as the girl asked, "Is he, will he die?"
The witch grinned, "We all die eventually." Ciara narrowed her eyes. "But today, I believe he shall live. Come."
Disentangling her fingers from Aldrin's, Ciara followed the witch to her hearth and, perhaps foolishly, accepted a mug of tea from the jangling hand.
"I am surprised to see a daughter of the sand traveling with the blood of the snow."
Ciara snorted, "I am no sandworm." It was always adults that called her that, usually when they were certain her father was out of range. Children were their own brand of cruel, forming pecking orders related to who could throw a stone the furthest or wore the fanciest tunic, until they learned proper hatred from their elders. "I was born and raised in Castle Albrant."
The witch nodded as if she were listening to something else, "You carry more of the dune's shameful power than you know."
"And for all I know, the only magical powers you have are to preserve bruised cherries for Soulmarch."
The witch smiled, but only the winter wind touched it, "Magic isn't something to be squandered performing parlor tricks for spoiled brats and their comatose princes."
Ciara's tongue got the better of her, even as her brain tried to scream about all the very sharp things scattered about this hut, "He's just some noble bastard, no prince. Certainly not mine."
The witch cast another eye upon her patient, watching the shallow rise of his ribcage. "No. Certainly not a bastard. But also certainly not yours. Perhaps you can ask him when he awakens."
"Maybe I will," she muttered under her breath. The witch seemed to know things, things Ciara began to suspect she was also supposed to know, and the woman used that as power against her. Perhaps that's all magic really was, knowing more than your audience.
Setting her own cup down softly, the witch returned to her large cauldron, stirring counter-clockwise. The movement bothered Ciara, the only other person she knew to stir to the left was Marna, right before she dumped all the soup on the floor for "bubbling at her." Over her shoulder the witch began, "Now, about my payment."
Ciara panicked. What little she had in her coin purse was marked for food and something resembling lodging. And everyone knew the witches always asked for more than you could ever give; it kept people beholden to them. The witch seemed to pay the girl no heed, still slowly stirring her pot, letting Ciara stew away in her chair. She banged the spoon once and picked up a bowl.
Ladling what was probably the last customer who couldn't pay into it, she started, "For giving life back to not your prince, I request that in three months time you stop at another witch's home."
Ciara froze. How could she make this deal? She was due in Tumbler's End before the first snowfall. "I.."
The witch passed her the bowl, filled mostly with an oily broth and a strange spice that tickled the nose if one got too close, "You will agree, of course. The other option is...not something you would like to explore. Now eat up. The two of you look as though you've been starving for weeks."
Without waiting for the girl to respond, the witch tipped the bowl back to her mouth. Ciara eyed her own dinner but followed suit, not surprised by the lack of dining ware in the cottage. It clung to her throat like a beefy sap, sliding down to a stomach that wasn't certain what to make of all this.
A pair of hazel eyes turned upon her then and watched silently, waiting. At first all Ciara felt was the warmth, then her eyes began to droop. She shook her head, trying to fight whatever potion the witch drugged her with, but it was too late. The sap wouldn't be denied as it seeped into her blood. She managed to crawl out of the chair before her body gave way and she tumbled to the floor.
"Rest," was all the witch said as she advanced upon the girl before Ciara's eyelids finally gave up the last of their fight.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Stones older than his line creaked in the wind as he crossed the fetid threshold of the Viltuvian. Marciano snuggled deeper into his coat despite the still mild autumn air, it wasn't the wrath of nature he kitted himself against up here. He despised this pile of rock; an old ruin from the first Empire, broken and beaten during the Elven war. A set of jagged teeth grimacing above the capital city beneath it.
It was his own cursed life that the Emperor would favor here, some days holding court as the untamable wind ruffled and tossed about the elaborate wigs on the Viscounts heads, sending their manservants scattering after them. But Vasska barely noticed, as he paced about what had been the rotunda, his eyes always glancing heavenward as if he could see more than the crumbled stone of an imploded dome and a few industrious bird nests.
He'd spend hours, sometimes even endless days, pacing the old halls of previous Emperors, trying to absorb an ethereal power from the weed encrusted floors they walked to legitimize his own claim to the throne. His father's power grab had been tenuous at best; but the Aravingions, sick of the infighting from the previous families for the past regicide filled centuries, decided to see where this new line was going. No one expected the religious fervor of Emperor Vasska.
Marciano shifted his shoulders, the sack upon his back slipping down. It cost him nearly a hundred men to retrieve the cargo inside. He drew closer to the old senate floor encircled with gasping candles providing the only light to beat back the darkness and the siren call of the ruins for bandits who, for centuries, called it home until the Emperor had them all executed. Not for being bandits, killing a few peasants happens to everyone now and again, bu
t for daring to sit their heretic bottoms upon the Holy Throne.
His Lord squatted over the small remnants of the mosaic-encrusted eras past on the floor, long since dug up and sold for scraps of bread and blades to dig up more mural bits. Only a tiny donkey head and a man who seemed to be scratching his own backside remained. Vasska mumbled to himself, "Yes, yes, that must have been here and," he dashed to the far right, "of course, the Scion of Pies rested here." An unraveled scroll followed him, the pictures almost entirely faded from age as his mind's eye filled in the missing pieces.
All Marciano espied of the splintered mural was more grass than god. He coughed politely into his fist. Vasska's head popped up, slipping back the royal hood his handlers insisted he wear while out playing so he didn't catch cold...again.
The Emperor was getting on in years, on the longer side of forty and with a few creases around his features to show for it, but he never appeared to age. Even in his young twenties, the man always moved and spoke as if he were facing down a midlife crisis. While most Emperors would lose their wild youth killing and bedding whatever crosses their path, he was on his knees praying away whatever sins he could conceive in his fervent brain. Some he was a bit hazy on, but coopering sounded wickedly awful. He'd confess to that one almost daily now.
He favored utility to fashion, swathing his lithe frame with rough linen vests and tunics, or an exceedingly plain robe at night. Most upon meeting the Emperor assumed it was all a big joke the Aravingions loved to pull. The man perched precariously upon the throne looked like your average neighbor yammering on about how the kids these days don't appreciate good Morris dancing, or perhaps a poor priest singing the tales of Argur and her great defeat of the pantheon in his one pig parish.
Vasska was completely ordinary, a pebble in a gravel pile, as forgettable as a noonrise, right until you looked him in the eye. It was like staring into a deceptively deep pool no light escaped from, only instead of your face reflecting back, it was your own sins in life. And he watched and judged them all. No one had ever been found worthy.
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