The Merqueen (The Witching World Book 3)

by Lucia Ashta

  Mina sat in the saddle behind Washur, clinging with her claws to the leather of the saddle to keep from sliding across and off of it; it was a peculiar arrangement. I’d never seen a pet ride on a horse behind its master. Now that I thought of it, I’d never seen a lord take any sort of pet with him anywhere, unless he brought his hunting dogs with him to a hunting party, and they certainly didn’t ride atop his horse with him when he did.

  Mina’s green eyes, so much like my own, crossed the distance that spanned between us with ease and held. She continued to move away from me, but even so, I could make out every detail of those irises. I stood there, completely breathless, while I explored territory that was so familiar that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized it before.

  My breath rushed back to me all of a sudden, and it came quickly, too quickly. Frantic, I thought I would slide right out of my skin and fly to Mina.

  The cat saw the recognition in my eyes and moved toward me. It made no real difference; she moved perhaps only an inch in my direction on the constantly moving surface beneath her. But her slight movement confirmed what I’d just realized.

  I saw it all so clearly now that I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t noticed it before. Why had I not even suspected it?

  Still, how would I ever imagine something like this? Why would I ever guess what Mina was? It was so bizarre, even for this magical world to which I was a newcomer.

  A faint cry that Mina couldn’t hear escaped my lips. They were too far away now. Not even a cat could have heard the sound. But Mina reached impossibly closer to me; it was, perhaps, another inch. Salazar’s horse had already dipped below the mountain, so that all I could see were his shoulders, resigned to a fate of misfortune.

  Washur was next. His horse took one step down and out of sight.

  Another cry escaped me, louder this time.

  I tore after them, after Mina, even though it was useless. I couldn’t reach them, and, even if I did, I didn’t know what I could do to save her.

  But I ran anyway. I ran across uneven cobblestones on shoes that hadn’t been made for running; they had barely been made for walking.

  “Lady Clara!” I heard Carlton’s voice. Still, I ran. Common sense had little to do with anything that was happening right now.

  I ran until strong arms caught up with me and grabbed me from behind. I thrashed as if possessed for several moments, until the last sight of Mina, the tops of her reddish ears, fell below my line of sight, as if the mountain had swallowed her whole.

  Then I collapsed into those strong arms. My head fell, lifeless, against a strong, scarred chest.

  “Clara,” came Marcelo’s gentle voice. “Clara, darling, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  What wasn’t wrong would have been the better question. There was so much wrong. There was so much that was so terribly, awfully wrong.

  I turned toward him and tried to bury my head in his chest as if there I could escape this inconceivable terror. I’d thought my life at Norland was senseless. Now, even in a world that could be filled with beauty and magic, terror and cruelty had followed me like a pest. Only this time, it was filled with the hatred of a man that should have died a long time ago and taken his malice with him deep into a damp, quiet grave. I was dealing with ancient ugliness that was not meant for this world anymore—at least, I hoped it wasn’t.

  Marcelo ran his hands across the top of my head as softly as if butterflies swooped in to kiss it. Still, I could find no comfort in his gentleness. A single, solitary sob shuddered through me, and then it went off to die. Crying would not change anything.

  “Clara, darling, tell me. Please. What is it? What has upset you so?”

  I pulled my head back from his chest, held strongly against him by his arms. But I couldn’t find the words to tell him. What words could properly express what I was feeling just then, what was ripping through me, threatening to tear me apart?

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” It was Mordecai now. He’d joined us outside.

  “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”

  “Mina, the cat, is Gertrude.” I croaked the words out, turning the nastiness in my mind into an undeniable truth.

  Marcelo’s eyes widened, and the silence that came from Mordecai and Carlton confirmed the sinking feeling within me that couldn’t find a bottom deep enough to plunge to.

  “Are you certain?” Marcelo asked.

  “Yes, Mina has Gertrude’s eyes. There’s no doubt. I can’t imagine why I didn’t see it before. The way Mina—Gertrude—acted around me. The way she acted with Count Washur. Why didn’t I think of it? Getting to Gertrude would be the best way to get to me. And for whatever reason, Washur wants to get to me.”

  Marcelo continued caressing my hair, but he turned to Mordecai. They shared a silent look that, under ordinary circumstances, I would have wanted to know every detail of.

  But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. They were far from it. And now I couldn’t think of anything but how to save my sister.

  Chapter 31

  “Mirvela’s gone,” Marcelo announced the moment he walked into the parlor, where Mordecai and I, with Sir Lancelot on the windowsill, waited for him in quiet companionship.

  I turned, startled. “What? Are you certain?”

  “Quite certain. She’s nowhere in any of the main rooms. I could have the staff search the castle for her, but I think it’ll be a wasted effort. I performed a locator spell on her. She hasn’t gone far, but she may as well be leagues away.”

  “Oh no,” Mordecai said.

  “What? Why ‘oh no’? Where is she?” I asked.

  “In the sea,” Marcelo said.

  “That’s right, my son. She is.” Mordecai nodded, acceptance of this fact already settling across his features.

  “How could she have gotten there so fast? I thought her magic was bound,” I said.

  “I did bind her magic, and it may still be bound,” Mordecai said. “For most magicians, there would be no way out of the binding. But, as we know, there are exceptions to the rule.” Mordecai looked at me pointedly. I was an exception. “And I have limited experience with the magic of the underwater people. Much of what I know is based on the research provided by others or assumptions. Neither is fool-proof.”

  “I thought you’d spent time with merpeople, some that weren’t from Irele Castle, in your youth,” I said. “Didn’t you say something like that?”

  “Yes, child, you’re right, I did say that. You listen to the ramblings of an old man.” Mordecai smiled tiredly. “Albacus and I vacationed near the sea a few years in a row. It was nowhere near here. Several times, when we swam in the sea, we saw gentle merpeople. They interacted with us, but they didn’t come out of the water, and my brother and I could only remain underwater for so long until we had to draw breath.”

  His eyes were unfocused, lost to nostalgia. “We didn’t learn much from those merpeople. We searched for them many times, but never found them. They only seemed to come to us when we weren’t looking for them. They never left the water. We never spoke. But they were kind, I remember. I could see it in their eyes.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment I felt from my voice. Couldn’t someone have clear answers and solutions for me? For once? Finally, I asked, “Could someone else have unbound Mirvela’s magic?”

  “No, that’s not how it works,” Marcelo answered. “Only the magician who puts the binding spell in place can remove it. Which is why they’re prohibited. It can be very nasty business, especially if the casting magician were to die before removing the binding.”

  “She may have gone into the sea with her magic bound,” Mordecai said. “It’s a distinct possibility. At least there, she’ll be free of us. And the sea is her home. Within it, she might be able to access more power than on land, significantly more.”

  “And what of her legs?” I asked. “Do they automatically become a mertail when she enters the water? Or does she need magic to transform
legs into a tail?”

  “Mirvela is no fool,” Mordecai said. “I can’t imagine she’d ever enter the water if she couldn’t convert her legs to a tail. She’d be at too great a disadvantage. She must not need magic to change. I think her behavior suggests that it’s a kind of automatic body response, perhaps a response to moisture. Immersion in water may be sufficient to transform her legs into her natural tail.”

  More assumptions and deductions. “But you were going to put her in the sea here anyway, weren’t you? Why not just wait?” I said.

  “Why wait to be commanded by others when you can take charge of things yourself?” Mordecai said. “I would’ve escaped too, even if it was just to show that I was still in command of my own will.”

  “She also may have had other good reasons for leaving that we don’t know of,” Marcelo cautioned.

  “Yes, of course,” Mordecai said, turning to look out the window Sir Lancelot perched at. But either way, she’s in the sea now, and you know better than most that the sea is a tricky place with rules very different to our magical plane. The water element colors every spell and warps it, giving it an unpredictable and often great power. Some of the most powerful magical creatures on this earth come from the sea. Many of the sea’s creatures are magical, unlike on dry land, where those of us who are magicians are a small percentage of the population. The sea isn’t a place to enter without preparation and, even then, it can be quite dangerous for people like us. Mirvela’s gone, into the sea and, at least for now, we should leave her there.”

  The memory of what Mirvela had done to Marcelo and me had barely faded with the passing of time, and I didn’t want her to steal the life from anyone else. But it didn’t seem like her escape had any easy resolution. Meanwhile, we were the only ones who could save Gertrude.

  I nodded. “I can accept letting Mirvela go—for now.”

  “Good. That’s settled then. Shall we get comfortable? I believe we have much to discuss.” Mordecai claimed one of the parlor armchairs. “Carlton,” he called out, “please join us.”

  We’d need the help of every magical being we could get.

  “You won’t be able to face Count Washur in the duel as soon as you might have wished, and I’m sorry for that. It’s I who insisted you wait to hold him accountable for his crimes. If I hadn’t, and I’d allowed you to kill him tonight as you wanted to, we wouldn’t be in this position.”

  “You’re correct, my son. It’s unlikely we’d be in this situation right now. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t do the right thing. It’s never wise to act from a place of anger, no matter what the circumstances. Count Washur may deserve a condemnation of death a hundred times over, but that still doesn’t mean that I should’ve executed him, without allowing for rightful conduct. Just because he doesn’t value honor and fairness doesn’t mean that we should disregard them. No, my son. Don’t regret your actions. We should never judge ourselves too harshly. It’s impossible to be certain about anything in this human life. Our job is only to do the best we can in any given moment. And you did exactly that.”

  Marcelo was quiet in response to Mordecai’s words, yet I felt the power of the emotion that ran through him. Mordecai truly was the father Marcelo wished he’d had from the start. How different would he be now if his father had been this man instead of one who gave himself to darkness and to Count Washur?

  “Now, Clara,” Mordecai said, “I want to be certain. Is there any chance that you may be mistaken and this cat Mina isn’t your sister?”

  I was shaking my head even before he finished. “I’m fully and completely sure. There’s no doubt my sister’s trapped in the body of this cat. The cat has human eyes, and they’re the eyes of my sister. I’ve stared into them hundreds of times before. Her eyes are almost identical to mine. They’re the same amber, except that she has a yellow streak in her left eye that starts at the pupil and goes straight out to the iris. I just can’t understand why I didn’t see it before, especially with how she behaved with me. Do you remember? Even the first time she was here, she stared at me. And today, she did the same. Poor Gertrude. She was trying to tell me all along, and I didn’t get it and I left her with this madman.”

  “My child, breathe deeply. Calm yourself. As I just told Marcelo, we can only do our best in any given moment. Blaming ourselves for our shortcomings does nothing but deprive energy from helping to resolve the situation. Let’s plan how to save your sister instead of lamenting the past.”

  I nodded over the knot in my throat. I didn’t trust myself to speak as I worked to push away thoughts of Gertrude in the company of that lunatic.

  Marcelo said, “It’ll take all of our combined skills to get Gertrude away from him safely. He must know how much hurting her in any way would affect you. He’ll use his advantage. We need to act carefully. And wisely. I’d also like it if we were to include the rescue of my nephew in our plans. The poor boy is as much a victim of his circumstances as Gertrude. He was never even given the chance at a normal life. Count Washur stole that from him even before he was born.”

  “Yes, I agree. We should help him too.” In that subterranean cave during the battle, when he’d tried to kill me, I sensed a part of him that might still respond to goodness.

  Mordecai said, “Yes, well then, let’s just hope that he’ll allow us to rescue him when the time comes. And be prepared, my son, that he may reject our help.”

  “I know.” Marcelo sank back into an armchair and ran a hand through his hair. It would be standing up all over his head before the planning session was complete. “He won’t even meet my eyes. He doesn’t allow himself to hope that everything Count Washur told him might be a lie. After the life he’s led, it must be terribly painful to hold any hope. Still, I must try. I owe it not only to him, but to my sister. She’d be devastated if she knew I wasn’t willing to do everything I could to help her son.”

  Yet instead of being devastated, Clarissa was dead. She was one of the forty-four souls that fed Count Washur’s immortality, or something close to it.

  “We’ll pull your sister”—Mordecai looked at me—“and your nephew”—Mordecai turned to Marcelo—“away from Washur. But we’re not ready to do so yet.”

  I opened my mouth to complain, but a look from Mordecai shut it. “We’re not ready to face Washur, not if we want Gertrude and Salazar to survive our efforts. The first thing he’ll do when we attack is threaten them, and Salazar might even fight against us.”

  Marcelo didn’t try to deny it. It was true.

  “I know better than any of you how powerful of a magician my brother was. Albacus and I might have teased each other about our respective magical skills while he was alive, but I can tell you now that he was a magician of extraordinary skill and power. I wasn’t there to see what happened when Washur killed him—or took his soul as he said he did, though I’m not sure that I believe him—but I know my brother.”

  From across the room, I could see the strength it took for Mordecai to continue. “He wouldn’t have gone down easily, not without a challenging fight. But Washur killed him. And he must have done it relatively quickly because I didn’t leave Albacus’ side for that long.”

  Now it was with great difficulty that Mordecai continued. “We’re dealing with a magician who can take out someone like my brother fast. We can’t underestimate our enemy. To do so would be a death sentence. Already, we might be walking into something that doesn’t end as we’d planned. Are you prepared to give your life for this cause?”

  It wasn’t a light question. Mordecai meant for Marcelo and I to reflect upon the risk that we were taking.

  I looked to Marcelo and took his hand. Thinking that either one of us might die before we were even given the chance to begin a life together left a hollow feeling inside me. But what choice did we have? None other. Marcelo could no sooner leave his nephew to a cruel fate than I could my sister.

  I just hoped that if one of us had to die that we’d both die together. Then w
e could share in death what we wouldn’t in life.

  I squeezed Marcelo’s hand. “Yes, I am.”

  Marcelo’s gaze trailed across me, yet reluctantly, he answered, “I am as well.”

  Mordecai sighed loudly. “Well then.” But he didn’t continue. Instead, he looked off into a corner of the room where there was nothing to distract him from the fears of more loss.

  Marcelo let him be. “Carlton.”

  “Yes, milord.” Carlton stepped forward from where he waited at the entrance to the room, his hands neatly folded behind him.

  “You’ve been at Bundry much more than I have in the past several years. Is there anything you know of Count Washur that might help us? Anything you might have seen or heard from his visits to my father or from around town?”

  “The townspeople fear him, milord. They always have. Even those that don’t believe in the existence of magic still call him a sorcerer. They sense his evil, and they realize he’ll as readily kill them as greet them. They give him wide berth. As to your father, he used to ensconce himself in his study with Count Washur whenever he visited, so I wasn’t privy to any of their conversations. However, milord, I did witness your father growing ever darker through Count Washur’s visits. The staff all learned early on to do whatever Count Washur asked and to try to remain absent from his view as much as was possible.”

  “I understand, Carlton. Thank you. Is there anything else?”

  “Just one other thing, milord. There have been rumors around the town that someone new has joined the Washur household. A noble man. I regret that I don’t know his name, but they say he’s an angry man as well. Average build, blond.”

  “Winston,” I said. “From the House of Chester.”

  “That may be, milady. I’m afraid I never caught his name.”

  “Thank you, Carlton.”

  “Is Winston this man that almost killed you?” Mordecai asked Marcelo.

  But I answered him. “Yes. He’s the man my parents arranged me to marry. The very same one that ambushed us—twice—and beat Marcelo nearly to death. He’s a violent, unpleasant man. He bound us and took us to Washur Castle on our first trip out here. So it would make sense that he’s the man Carlton speaks of.”