Blood Witch

by Thea Atkinson

  There would be war if Yuri was right. The war of men trying to gain control of the elements and thus of more than a mere city. He had told her he'd wanted to avoid that, using her throughout her life to unwittingly eliminate that concern by killing all of the other temptresses: those of fire and earth and air; in effect, leaving him the sole owner of the one witch who had power over water.

  But not to philanthropic desires. Oh no. Not Yuri Conqueror of Hordes. He had other motives. Simple. Honest. Greedy motives.

  What did it matter that he couldn't control fire or air or earth when he could manipulate the one person who could drain the fluid from any living thing? He'd been content with that victory, thinking the others were gone, until he discovered he'd not eliminated them, merely assassinated the matrons. Two younger ones lived still, filled with the passed down energy that enabled them to control the wind and flame. One was Yenic's mother. The other was lost to them: a babe powerful enough to harness the wind but lacking control. A witch like Alaysha, powerful but ignorant and needing of teaching.

  Except Yuri wasn't the only one to know about the witches. Now Edulph knew. And he was out there hunting for that youngest while a woman Yuri couldn't control, a woman full grown to her power, resided within his city walls. She could imagine how fretful her father would be at that. She almost smiled until she recalled that Yuri had reluctantly agreed to let Yenic bring his mother to Sarum under pretense of teaching Alaysha to control her power. She wanted that desperately even if the teacher was the woman Yenic protected despite his letting her believe differently. Yenic's mother: the witch of flame. A woman powerful enough to bring lightening to a man's skin. She felt a sudden panic thinking about that kind of control.

  "She hasn't been to see me, has she?" Surely her father wouldn't allow another powerful woman to see his own witch cut down so and helpless. "Yuri hasn't let her in here, has he?"

  The wife poked at the fire absently. "Yuri has not been here since she arrived."

  The wife smoothed her linen dress down against her hips and untied then retied the laces as though to unknot some problem bothering her. Then in a moment, she took a breath and strode to the fireplace.

  "So she hasn't seen me?"

  "She has been with Yuri."

  "Yes. And Yuri has not come, so she has not come." Why wouldn't the woman just say so? Why did Alaysha have to work to get such simple information? It was wearying.

  "Saxa?" she said, running through her memory to find the name. "Saxa is it?" She waited for the woman to nod. "Saxa, tell me no one but you and my father have seen me like this."

  "Gael."

  "Gael?"

  "Gael has seen you. He and I and Yuri. Theron the shaman. No more."

  That was good. Alaysha wasn't sure why, but she couldn't stand the thought that the woman who controlled Yenic – who ultimately owned him – would see her helpless. She sighed in relief, and only when her own doubts were gone did she notice Saxa hadn't stopped poking at the fire.

  "You're afraid," she said, realizing it.

  Saxa turned to her. "She's beautiful."

  Alaysha looked Saxa over, took in the willowy frame, the long plait of mist colored hair, the eyes the color of a sword edge, and tried to imagine any woman more beautiful. She found she couldn't.

  "You have nothing to fear from another woman."

  Saxa chortled. "I didn't fear the violence done to me by my father. I did not fear the birth bed." She dropped the poker. "I do not fear. I accept."

  If it was acceptance Alaysha saw in the woman's eyes, then Alaysha didn't understand fear at all. "What is there to accept, Saxa? You're wife to the heir. He has named only one."

  Alaysha couldn't say why she was even talking about this. What did she care who Yuri bedded or how they felt about it? She cared only that she get better. Learned to harness her power. She couldn't afford to care about any more people. Caring about people got them in trouble. Caring for others came at a cost she didn't want to pay.

  Saxa seemed to understand. She smoothed the ruddy madder color of her homespun linen shift again then squared her shoulders.

  "Yuri will want to know you're awake. I'll send Gael to him. Would you like some broth?"

  Alaysha thought about it. She expected a gurgling in her belly that would warn her of hunger, but she felt nothing. Still. She must eat to gain strength. She couldn't afford to be caught here weakened.

  "I'll have broth," she told Saxa. "And a leg of whatever meat you have. And… ale," she said.

  Saxa grinned. "You'll have broth." She turned on her heel and went to the door where she shouted out into the yard. Moments later Alaysha saw a blonde head bow beneath the doorframe and straighten into a large man with biceps the size of a lamb's haunch.

  "This is Gael," Saxa said.

  Gael had to be at least as many hands high as Barruch. He wore his hair plaited, but most of that had come loose and stuck out in sprigs; the stubble on his jaw proved he hadn't pulled a blade over it in several days.

  Even still, he was the most beautiful man Alaysha had ever seen.

  She tried and failed to sit up, but at least she managed to keep the pain of doing so from stealing her face.

  Gael offered a half smile that surprised her until he spoke; she could easily recognize the disdain in his tone. "Does it hurt, Witch?"

  Alaysha thought she could happily psyche the water from him in that instant.

  Saxa interrupted. "Gael, Yuri will want to know she's awake."

  "Of course he will." Gael didn't move, merely raked his gaze over Alaysha's form as she worked to pull herself up. The grin on his face moved only slightly as she floundered against the pillows.

  "Gael?" Saxa put her hand on his arm. "Go."

  When he left, she turned to Alaysha. "I see I must ask forgiveness for my brother. He wasn't overly pleased to be called to the service of water lugging."

  Alaysha thought it was probably more than that, but that Saxa was being kind. Alaysha found she couldn't meet the woman's eyes. She mumbled instead to the fur that covered the bed and that had crept up, leaving her feet bare. "No need. I'm used to it." She eased herself back finally, giving up on the struggle to sit upright.

  "It's too soon," Saxa said, seeing her defeat. "You're not strong enough to sit. After some broth maybe."

  "And a leg of meat."

  Saxa's hands went to the fur and pulled it over Alaysha's toes. "Broth. No more until I can be sure you won't pull out the threading."

  "I haven't vomited since I was a babe," Alaysha said.

  "Nor worn shoes, it seems." Saxa strode to the fireplace and reached for the ladle hanging on a peg. "Your feet are calloused and filthy. I had a chore to clean the toenails."

  "I prefer to be barefoot." She refused to admit the times she'd stubbed her toes on stray roots or jammed a sharp stone into her heel.

  "So I see." Saxa dipped the ladle into the pot hanging over the lowest part of the fire, then emptied it into a wooden bowl. She tested it by raising the bowl to the edge of her mouth. With a nod of satisfaction, she carried it back to the bed, a wooden spoon in her other hand.

  "It's not too hot," she said.

  "What is it?"

  "Lamb. Some wild carrots. A threshing of black rice. My own mix of herbs. Some honey." She peered down at Alaysha with what looked like mischief in her smoky eyes. "But you get only the broth." She put one hand behind Alaysha's neck and eased her head forward enough to tilt the spoonful of soup in.

  It tasted divine.

  And when it hit Alaysha's stomach she immediately felt suffused with heat. She clamped her mouth closed so fast on the nausea she heard her teeth clack together.

  "It seems as though this is a day of firsts." Saxa's dry tone was the only thing that gave Alaysha the strength to keep the broth in. It was several moments before she could shake her head to refuse a second spoonful.

  Saxa was adamant nonetheless. "You will eat this entire bowlful, Alaysha."

  Alaysha jiggled her head ba
ck and forth.

  "Yes, you will. Spoon by spoon. It might take hours, but you will do it."

  Alaysha eyed the spoon and Saxa made a moue of frustration. "Then you will have that leg of lamb you asked for and a mug of ale." She laughed outright then. "You warriors. So strong of mind except in the face of sickness." She scooped another dribble of broth from the bowl. "More soup, or would you like that leg of lamb?"

  Alaysha squeezed her eyes closed and willed her stomach quiet. It didn't exactly obey, but it didn't outright rebel. She nodded and opened her mouth slowly.

  It was torturous going, but by the time she had emptied the bowl – it turned out it was only six spoonfuls – Alaysha felt strong enough to have Saxa ease her to a semi reclined position against a back of barley pillows. She thought she could smell lavender.

  "It strengthens the spleen," Saxa said when she mentioned it. I have it sewn into all our pillows.

  Alaysha wasn't sure what a spleen was or why it needed strengthening, but it was pleasant to have the tang of scent drift to her nostrils when she moved, even slightly.

  "Where is the heir?"

  Saxa gave her clouded look. "He sleeps in the nursery."

  "Yuri didn't want him near me," Alaysha guessed. She scanned the cottage and noticed the cradle was gone. The place it had rested when she was first brought in was painfully devoid of infant like items. There was even a layer of dust as though Saxa refused to walk into the space. "How long has he been away from you?"

  Saxa looked up sharply. "I see him everyday. I feed him. Nurse him. Theron sees to him when I'm not there. He just isn't allowed –"

  "Near me," Alaysha finished. "But you are."

  The young woman's face softened. "You're wrong to think that. I volunteered, Alaysha. Yuri isn't asking me to do something because he believes I'm expendable. He allows me to be here only because I agree to keep Saxon away."

  It was odd for a boy in Yuri's tribe to be named for its mother. Alaysha was surprised he allowed it. "Saxon? Son of Saxa? Why not Yuron, son of Yuri?"

  "My mother's people," was all the woman said for a time, and Alaysha had to prod her.

  Saxa pursed her lips as though she didn't want to answer, then said, "Few of them survived the conquest, few enough that most of them are all gone now, but we still keep the traditions, what of them we can, alive."

  Alaysha couldn't imagine the great Yuri allowing his son to be named for a woman, and a frail, willowy thing like Saxa at that. "What did you do that made Yuri bow to such an unusual request?"

  "Tears have magic," she said.

  Of course. Alaysha would have expected no less from a woman. Resorting to tears was sometimes too often a handy tool. She'd not been allowed often to the Keep or the Court, but she'd watched people in the courtyard plenty enough when she wasn't killing for her father and managed to sneak through the walls, a veil over the lower part of her face, or a hood pulled tight so the good people of Sarum wouldn't see the tattau. Many a man had been bested by a quiet tear. Still, the small bit of esteem she felt for the woman began to wane and she couldn't keep the scorn from her tone.

  "So you wept?"

  Alaysha was surprised when Saxa chuckled instead of reacting with hurt at the insult.

  "The magic works both ways, dear witch." She patted Alaysha's cheek. "It was not I who shed the tears, but Yuri."

  Alaysha looked Saxa over as she toddled about the cottage, setting fresh bowls on the table and pulling a pottle from a trap door in the far corner. From it she poured viscous brown ale into a tankard that she set on the table next to the bowl.

  "Why aren't you in the Keep?" Alaysha asked and Saxa paused thoughtfully. She stared down at the table she'd set and finally offered Alaysha a shrug with her answer as though it was an obvious response.

  "I'm here because I want to be here. I asked Yuri for my own floor. He gave it to me."

  "Makes it difficult to be his Emiri."

  "I have no intention of helping him rule the city."

  "But the heir –"

  "Saxon will learn, but he will be formed with the understanding of harmony first. Not fear. Not hard duty. He will know the way of the people his father conquered and be all the better for it."

  It sounded as though Saxa had been watching Yuri for long enough to understand his cold way of rule. "And Yuri agrees to this?"

  Again, that shrewd smile, both coy and knowing at the same time. Alaysha began to understand how Yuri might be managed by woman such as Saxa. She looked delicate, but beneath was a strength that reminded Alaysha of a slender branch in the wind.

  A noise caught her attention and she knew then that several men were outside. Gael entered first, ducking his head and scanning the room quickly. He nodded to the doorframe behind him and Yuri strode in. He wore the Circlet of Conquest atop his white hair, and he took it off and gripped it, the thick fingers tapping the points. He wasted no time on Alaysha, but moved to pull Saxa against him and bury his nose in her hair.

  "You smell of stew and garlic."

  Saxa pulled away. "I've made your favorite."

  He strode to the hearth and peered in the pot. "Lamb," he said.

  "Lamb stew to be exact. Black rice. No potatoes."

  Bodiccia puts too many of the damned things in."

  Saxa grinned with pleasure, making her eyes crinkle. "I have fresh bread too. Come this morning from the ovens." She spread her arm toward the table and nodded at Gael who pulled the chair for Yuri.

  Alaysha had the feeling she was no more than a spirit in the room; no one so much as looked her way. While it was nothing new, she had expected Yuri to come see her, not just to eat a humble stew that Bodiccia could have made far more substantial with all the rights she had to Yuri's kitchen. Alaysha thought of the gargantuan woman, who was the only one Yuri trusted to cook for him, the woman who had killed as many men as any other of his warriors, and she smiled. Aedus had bested the warrior woman with feet as fleet as a ferret's. She could smell honeyed hare even now, feel the stickiness of it on her fingers as Aedus had passed it to her, their stolen fare from Bodiccia's fire. It seemed so long ago now.

  For a time the only sound was of the three scraping bowls and smacking on bread. Alaysha's stomach gurgled and she realized the bit of broth she'd eaten had given her enough strength to realize she had an appetite. Once her stomach growled so loudly she thought she saw her father pause in dipping his bread into his bowl, but then Gael passed him the pottle of ale and they went on eating. No one looked her way.

  She had time to watch them, even though Yuri's broad back was turned her. It was a torturous thing to be present in a room, and not to be included. She watched as her father touched Saxa's hand time and again, as he flicked her plait from her shoulders when it fell forward. Alaysha thought it tiring.

  "Has the bucket gone dry again?" Yuri asked as though it was a logical train of conversation when nothing had been mentioned at all for long moments.

  Gael nodded toward Alaysha and her heart fluttered with the hope of being noticed. "There it sits," he said.

  Saxa put her hand on Yuri's arm. "Full."

  Yuri nodded in appreciation even as Gael sent a scathing look toward the bed. "She had me fetching a dozen times a day, not to mention Saxa."

  Alaysha thought she heard Yuri chuckle. "You can be grateful you were able to keep fetching then."

  He pushed away from the table, finally; the brother and sister both eased up as well. "Good, then. It's time enough." He leaned to kiss Saxa on the forehead. "You can have Saxon after three more moon rises," he said and nodded imperially at Gael. "Take the witch to the yard today."

  Gael scowled but said nothing.

  Alaysha's heart dropped. It seemed Yuri had come all this way just to ignore her. She should have known. Still, she couldn't help trying.

  "Father?"

  Yuri turned to her as though he hadn't known she was even there. His eyes from across the distance could have been grey, not the lake water blue she knew they were. Sh
e knew he didn't like the use of the title, but he didn't correct her like he usually did.

  "I would like to meet the other witch."

  He shook his head. "You are too weak yet; you've lain here too long." His attention went again to Gael. "Get her ready," he said, then he strode to the door without so much as a glance back over his shoulder.

  "That went well," Saxa said, beaming after he'd left as though she'd won some game, but Gael kept his scowl and prowled about the room with such conviction Alaysha wondered why he'd bothered lugging the water for her in the first place. Saxa finally growled at him to keep still; he plopped himself on the stool by the now-dying fire and waved irritably toward the bed.

  "How am I to get her up and about?" His tone revealed his annoyance. "She's useless. Can't even sit up properly."

  Alaysha shifted subtly against the pillow. "I can hear you." She complained, hoping the two of them would include her but was rewarded with no more than a shrug from the wide shoulders.

  "I have better things to do than play nursemaid."

  Saxa's voice was nearly a whisper, but Alaysha heard it just the same. "You aren't a nursemaid, brother; that's my role. You are rehabilitator – a far grander – and far more dangerous duty."

  He made his lips rattle together in disgust. "Dangerous," he said. "You overestimate the girl's power."

  "It's not her power I speak of," Saxa said, and Alaysha understood even if Gael didn't that if she failed to regain her strength and recover suitably enough for her father, Gael's life would be forfeit.

  Chapter 2

  It took a bit of doing, a lot of cursing, and a full bowl of soup for Alaysha to finally stand. When she did, it was shortly after vomiting an entire bowl of broth onto Gael's feet and she looked up at him carefully, knowing the sweat was beading on her forehead.

  "I haven't vomited since I was a babe," she said by way of explanation.