For a recluse, Mannemous was chatty, and he peppered them with questions about the animal attacks. Corrie let Sverr answer. And then he wanted to know how they met?
“This is only the sixth day you’ve known each other? Surely not?”
She flushed. They’d been intimate before the third night. She’d rather not than hear Sverr’s dry comment that it was sooner than he’d planned or how Mannemous would judge her.
Sitting on the stool beside her, Sverr’s big hand squeezed her knee. “I knew she was mine the moment she blasted fire out of the hearth and set the tavern on fire. She hasn’t run from a fight since. She’s usually a little snippier. She’s being polite to please you. I don’t need polite. I just need kisses.”
“Sverr!”
“See, now you’ve embarrassed her.”
“I have?” But the older man grinned and took another bite of carrot. “So, she’s the arsonist I’ve heard about. And you’re the assassin.”
“I didn’t think you heard rumors out here in your hermitage.”
“Not as solitary as I’d like. The troop talked about you both. You two not only burned the tavern down but wiped out the Ornestreigon troop. The leftovers limped home with only one of their officers.”
“That’s one worry gone, then. They won’t be tailing us as we’re heading north.”
“Why did you kill the Chancellor-Regent?”
“He deserved it.”
“For passing Brom on to the Prime. But did that deserve death?”
“You ask a blood-thirsty Norther assassin that?”
Corrie touched his shoulder. “You are not blood-thirsty. Having been in those dungeons, with no hope of escape, I know what Brom is facing. That fat ruler deserved death.”
Sverr covered her hand. “He was fat. I’ve been an assassin, though, and Northers don’t balk at blood. The keen blade is my life.”
“You are not a blood-thirsty assassin, either, just very good with your weapons.”
“They will hunt you for killing the regent,” Mannemous interposed.
He shrugged. “They will hunt until the new regent tires of paying a troop to wander from mountains to steppe, seemingly without purpose.”
“And if the new regent does not tire of this?”
“They’ve tried. Corrie had my back, and soon Brom will. And I do not think Brom will regret my killing of the regent.”
“If you can free him from the dungeons.”
“We will. Corrie escaped once. She has vowed to help me.”
“Not with the Prime’s seal on her. It will alert him to her presence when she’s within a mile of him—if she gets that far.”
Sverr set aside his bowl, half-eaten. “How long will removing the seal take?”
And that quickly ice shuddered through her. Her hand on his shoulder jerked with her apprehension.
He glanced up. “It has to be removed, sweetling. You know that.”
She missed him calling her Lyse Oyne even though she still didn’t know what it meant. “I know,” she agreed huskily. “We shouldn’t give Enstigorr any edge when we go for Brom.”
“How do you plan to get your brother out of the dungeons?”
“That’s a plan in progress, Mann.”
“Which means you have no plan at all.”
Sverr grinned. “We have options. I’m partial to sneaking in. Corrie snuck out; she can probably sneak back in—but that relies on luck, and I don’t count on luck.”
“You could exchange her for Brom.”
Sverr didn’t disagree. He said nothing but stared from beneath his brows at the bane witch—and additional cold settled in her bones. He was considering that. Trading her for Brom. Trading his easy lay for his brother.
His hand gripped her knees. She must have said something. “No, Corrie, no. Sweetling, don’t think that. I won’t abandon you to Enstigorr. If it comes to a trade, Brom and I will get you out.”
“We can’t sneak in.” She whispered it. She hadn’t considered what plan they would need to rescue Brom. She felt foolish indeed for not considering it. “And we can’t defeat him in a fight. You will have to work some sort of trade. That’s the only option. Oh, gods.” She bent over her knees, wanting to curl into a ball. “I can’t go in there again.”
He smoothed her hair, massaged her back. “Sh-h, sweetling. I’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way,” she said to the yawning abyss.
“Corrie—.”
She lifted her head and speared him with her eyes. “You knew—you knew when you took me from Pagsey’s that you could exchange me for Brom.”
“I thought that, aye.”
His admission bolted her upright. She needed to get away from him, but both of his arms had looped around her, holding her firmly in the chair. She would have to scratch him—or sear him with power—to escape. Neither option could she do. Oh, my foolish heart.
“Don’t cry, Corrie. I will find another way.”
“And when you admit there is no way—,” she whispered. “You cannot leave your brother to the Prime and his wizards.”
“And I can’t leave you to him, sweetling. I won’t leave you to him.”
“She can wear the spell-cords when you trade her,” Mannemous offered. “She’s unlocked the key. She just needs to become adept at it. The Prime won’t expect a wizard who can defeat not only the cords but the spells he has infused into the stones.”
Without looking away from her, Sverr asked, “She can defeat the spells in the dungeons? And on anything he might put on her?”
“Not a seal, obviously—but I can teach her how to ward against any seal. The other spells, they are essentially worked from the same base spell.”
“You hear that, Corrie?”
Even with his gaze so intense and controlling, she could still sense the abyss. “I can’t go in there.”
“You go in with all your powers, not like before. He’ll never expect you to strike back. And Brom and I will come after you as soon as we quit the guards’ line of sight.”
“He won’t just let your brother go. He will put a seal on him, to control him and eventually get him back under his thumb.”
Sverr didn’t let her look away. Over his shoulder, he asked, “You’ll go with us, Mannemous? To remove the seal from Brom?”
The bane witch hesitated, and only then did Sverr break his gaze from Corrie. He turned his glacial eyes on the old man, and Corrie thought Mannemous trembled at the threat he saw in the ice. “I am nothing against those wizards,” he protested.
“But you can remove any seal?”
“Aye. Aye, I’ll go. I’ll leave my lair and reveal myself to the Prime—after I’ve spent two decades and more hiding from him.”
“Hate to tell you, Mann, but he knows where you are. That troop with its tame wizard had to be from him.”
“You cut the rug from beneath me, Norther. Will you cut my head off if I can’t remove the seal from your brother?”
“No. Only if you don’t remove the seal from Corrie.”
“Enstigorr will know as soon as I do it.”
“I would expect that.” His arms tightened as he turned back to her. “Does it seem so hopeless now, Lyse Oyne?”
His use of the foreign title broke the fear that had incased her. She lifted a trembling hand to his face, touched his scruffy jaw, then his mouth. He kissed her fingertips. “I won’t leave you in there. I swear it, Corrie.”
“And to get a Norther to swear is to chain him more effectively than using iron forged in the deeps of the Raikon.” Mannemous clapped his hands as if summoning a servant. “Come, it’s past time. Bring her away from the fire. She may thrash around, and I would not have your best hope be burned.”
“She can heal any burns. She healed us both after the rooks attacked.” He guided her to the old witch.
“I am more and more impressed at your abilities, lass.” Mannemous knelt on the woven mats, so she did, and Sverr was seconds behind her. “Get rid of your sword an
d knives. It would not do to have sharp edges near.”
The bane witch looked calm. She might copy his position, but she couldn’t copy that look. Her heart raced. Sweat broke on her skin, but it was clammy and only chilled her more. Those lichen eyes looked less green. They had an eerie glow that revealed he drew up power. She was glad when Sverr returned to kneel beside her.
“Take off the binding cord—drop it over there, away—aye. Give me your arm.”
Her sleeve remained pushed up from earlier. Mannemous gripped her wrist and turned it, turning her forearm so the amber glow from the orbs fell on her skin. He leaned close, as if he did see the seal beneath her flesh—but Corrie still neither saw the seal nor felt it.
“Who had your training?”
“Laienn then Freithe. I was still with Freithe last Spring.”
“Last Spring, when the Prime scooped you up. And you learned while in Hardraste’s dungeons. Don’t give me that look, lass. The knowledge would have come unwelcome, but you have only to twist the evil from those spells to use them. You do know that?”
Mannemous opened worlds of possibilities with his words, as he had earlier when he told her that she had the key to unlock all binding spells. She remembered Enstigorr’s wielding power so strong her hair crackled with the energy. He flung it about as easily as a laundress flicked water from her hands. Mannemous’ words tumbled the walls in her mind. “I had not considered that.”
“I am surprised your teachers did not tell you.”
Sverr growled. “Useless. They were useless. Corrie has gaps. It will take a lifetime to fill in since she doesn’t even know what or where they are. Known gaps, unknown gaps.”
“And not even known to be unknown. Aye, that would be difficult to discover. Do you appoint yourself the task, Norther?”
“If she’ll have me.”
Corrie blinked at Sverr. For a second time, he spoke as if he expected long years with her. Her core warmed. She had accepted his word that he wouldn’t abandon her to Enstigorr. Now she began to believe it.
“Tell me, lass, what were these teachers of yours, Laienn and Freithe?”
“Root witch, hill witch,” she said to the crown of Mannemous’ head, for he was again bent over her forearm. “I know a hill witch is more powerful than the root witch.”
The bane witch shared an eye roll with Sverr. “Your training is atrocious. The root witch gathers her power from plants around her. Did you never notice she is weaker in winter?”
She tilted her head as she met his pale moss eyes, but she saw a memory, not him. Laienn hobbled in the cold months, depending on her walking stick with the first frost, refusing to venture beyond her walled garden when the snows became lasting, tending the sunny patch tucked against the wall and warmed by radiant heat until deep winter sent into sleep even the hardiest of plants. The root-witch would climb from bed only to nurse the few bulbs beside the hearth, like a hen brooding over her eggs.
Corrie re-focused on Mannemous. “Laienn said her winter weakness was the reason I should go to Freithe. Since she is a hill witch, I suppose she draws power from the very earth and will never experience such a weakening of her powers.”
“You understand quickly. Tell me,” he cradled her arm, his fingers well away from the place she clawed at when the seal awoke. “In your apprenticeship, did you ever try to heal someone with a curse?”
Her mouth twisted.
“I see you did. And he did not survive.”
“No, she didn’t. She was new married.”
“Do you know the reason?”
“Freithe did not know. When I saw Laienn on my next visit home, I asked her. She said the curse should have been lifted first. I have a bare memory of her doing such, when I first apprenticed to her, before I understood anything about spells.”
“Ah, your root witch knows more than the hill witch does. I see now the reason Sverr calls them ‘useless’. Look and learn.” He circled a point on her forearm, an ever-widening circle that blackened with a final point rimmed the color of her flesh. Then he poked his finger into the center.
Pain flared in her arm, as if he had set fire to her flesh and her bones ricocheted with it. She jerked, but he didn’t release her. The fiery pain centered in the circle, increasing until she whimpered and writhed.
He lifted his finger. The pain vanished, the memory of pain screeching along her bones and jittering over her joints. “This seal is a like a curse, Corrie. It leaches poison into your body. And like a curse, it must be removed before I can heal the damage it’s done.”
“The pain—.”
“The seal’s protection. Only the master can remove it without triggering the protection.”
“I do not think I like where this is going.”
“Aye. When I start after the seal, it will release more pain, much more. More pain and more poison. If I stop before I remove it, the poison will kill you, and nothing I can do will stop it. You will die at sunrise or sunset; I cannot stop that.”
“Remove it. What other option do we have, Mannemous? Nothing. Remove it.”
“The pain will be more than you can withstand, Corrie. It will be merciful when you pass out, lass.”
“You can put me to sleep. I have done it myself before I started a healing.”
“What happens to someone with a spell on them when we try to remove a curse?”
“That spell becomes the curse.”
“As if the curse was never lifted. Curse upon curse upon curse. Every help becoming hurt. That is the reason the new-married bride did not live. When did she die?”
She remembered slaving over the young woman, who weakened each time Freithe poured power into her. At sunrise she breathed her last.
“I want you to live, Corrie.” His lichen eyes crinkled. “If you die, Sverr will eat my heart.”
She glanced at her lover. “He would not—.”
“I would,” he countered. He thumped his chest. “You are with me. If you die, his heart is mine.”
The tales of Norther barbarity were well known, but in traveling with Sverr she had begun to discount them. He’d not eaten raw meat or cut his arm to drip blood or worn necklaces made of his enemies’ bones. Yet looking into those ice-chip eyes, she knew neither he nor the bane witch exaggerated. She trembled, afraid for the first time in Sverr’s presence—not for herself, but for Mannemous. “He can help you free Brom,” she reminded. “You do not want him dead.”
“I want you alive and Brom free.”
“You may not get both,” she warned.
“Without both, I have lost a part of myself.”
She did not know how to respond to that. Several times he had sworn to a heart-bond. Now he claimed it as strong as his brother-bond. Nevertheless—.
“Hush,” he said and smoothed his hand down her back. “Do not doubt me, Lyse Oyne. Do not doubt Mannemous. He will remove this seal from you. He will remove one from Brom. But he is not help enough to get you out of Enstigorr’s clutches. Has he not told you a bane witch is nothing against a wizard?”
Corrie leaned into his hand, weighted heat against the small of her back, as reassuring as his words. She glanced at the old man. His spell to fire the seal had given her a taste of his power, stronger than Freithe, outdistancing Laienn by miles. Enough, she reckoned. She had no memory of his power from her childhood, just his eyes and height, a particular turn of phrase, yet something had unwound in her after he touched the seal. An aura that evoked a wisp of memory that she sensed but couldn’t recall.
“Well, lass?”
She lifted her eyes from the elusive memory. “Why did you tell me all this? Why did you not start immediately to remove the seal?”
“When I begin rooting out the seal—for so it will seem to you, that I dig it out of your flesh—then I do not want you to attack me with power. We can use the cords—.”
“They will be useless,” Sverr reminded him.
“They will create a small delay, perhaps enough that she will fa
int from the pain.” His gaze was steady and intense. “I will work quickly, Corrie, with no hesitation. The pain will be immediate and extreme. You must remember not to attack me or Sverr. You must remember that we do this for your good. You must remember, Corrie, or the Prime will win.”
She thought of the rooks and knew he feared incineration. “I do not want to hurt you, Mannemous. Or kill you.”
“Remember, Corrie. That is all you must do. Remember that we help you. Remember that I am a friend and this Norther claims you.”
She glanced at Sverr. He had all but said those words. He had vowed to eat the bane witch’s heart if she died. He had said, “You are with me.”
“Bind me. I will try to remember. I withstood Enstigorr’s games—.”
“This will be more intense. He would not risk your discovery that enough pain, enough desperation will drive your power past any bindings. I do not know if he knew it would happen, but I think he suspects that you are more than a wizard. Tell me, did he let Raicha use her knives on you?”
“Only Snossi touched me—cut my hair—and that without Enstigorr’s permission.”
“He must suspect. He dared not risk extreme pain because he has greater plans for you.”
Gods, it sounded worse and worse. “Can we just do it and not talk about it anymore?”
The bane witch flashed a grin, giving her a glimpse of the young charmer he must have been. “You command, and we act. Lie down, lass. On your stomach. Sverr, tie her legs together.”
He pushed her skirts up and used the rope Mannemous handed him. The bane witch used the ends of the long spell cord to tie one wrist then the other then both together.
“Bring her legs up,” and he handed her right wrist to Sverr. “Tie it tight. Onto your side now, Corrie,” and he rolled her to put her left arm uppermost.
“I feel like a pig trussed for slaughter.”
Sverr pushed the hair out of her face. “Not slaughter, sweetling. Push that out of your head.”
Mannemous walked away. She peered at the man who was her first lover. “This seems excessive.”
“I saw what remained of that flock, Corrie. He’s right. Tied like this, your power will be slowed even as the pain will flash it to full force.”
More than a Wizard Page 15
