Blood Witch

by Thea Atkinson

  Her astonishment at her companion's guess might have propelled her to ask more, to find out what he knew of her youth, but she saw Yenic over his shoulder, coming out of Saxa's cottage, and for a moment she couldn't say anything.

  He was holding Aedus by the ear.

  Chapter 7

  "It was you," she shouted as she ran past Gael. Alaysha wasn't sure if she was angry or excited, and she didn't care which emotion got the blame. She just knew she wanted to pick the little urchin up and squeeze her so tightly she lost her breath.

  On contemplation, maybe it was anger.

  "It was not me," Aedus said, avoiding Alaysha's arms and sidestepping very neatly away from Yenic who had by then let go of her ear. Her hair had been freshly washed and combed out; still, she found a way to make it hang in globs about her head and neck. Alaysha wonder just what kind of people Aedus's tribe really was. She looked so feral, almost like a raw bit of flesh that hadn't evolved, and yet still, there was a fierce sort of power about her that Alaysha hadn't noticed before.

  Fierce was a perfect description if the girl's face was any indication. Best to approach this cornered beast with caution.

  "Yenic told you what we found?"

  Gael didn't wait for the answer; Alaysha got shoved rudely aside as the mountain of man swept the girl onto his shoulder and carried her off towards the center of the courtyard. He pushed through people, shoving them aside, striding purposefully.

  It dawned very slowly on Alaysha where he was headed, and it seemed Aedus realized it too. Her shouts were piercing ones that set Alaysha's bare feet to a run. She didn't care if Yenic followed or not, but she heard him behind her.

  "What's going on? Where you going? Alaysha. Stop. You've been hurt."

  She bumped into a woman carrying a round of fresh bread and a basket of apples. They fell with a thud and rolled in a dozen directions. The woman cursed angrily enough but when she saw the one who had damaged her bread was Yuri's water witch, her face filled with renewed fury.

  "Stupid witch," she shouted, and Alaysha felt the woman's grip around her elbow, trying to pull her back. "The deities have cursed us with you."

  The woman yanked hard, twisting Alaysha to face her full on, and she lost the one last glimpse she had of Gael's broad back as it moved through the crowds. One last look, but she saw Aedus hanging down, beating him in the kidneys.

  Alaysha faced the woman with a sigh.

  "Please forgive me," she tried patiently.

  Rather than spit more at her or accept the apology, the woman's gaze narrowed. "You healed quickly enough for someone so injured. Part of your curse, I suppose." Rather than keep her attention on Alaysha's side, where she expected it to be, the woman stared at her tattau before she bent to retrieve an apple. She threw it with such force that it struck Alaysha in the neck and her hand went to the spot instinctively.

  "Filthy tattaus. Mark of brown magics gone black." The woman scrambled for another fruit and threw that too, muttering all the while about curses and ill-gotten healing until Yenic drew close enough to pull Alaysha behind him.

  "Woman, control yourself," he told the assailant.

  She peered at him, pointing. "You're one of her people." She could have been spewing her own curses the way she emphasized each one of her words.

  "I am," he said. "And she has been recently hurt saving your people."

  The woman sent a glob of spit in their direction. "We wouldn't need saving if the witch was dead as she should be."

  Alaysha tried to fidget out of Yenic's protective hold; when she discovered she couldn't, she had to content herself with peering beneath his arm.

  "I want no trouble," she said, the old shame coming back heavy on her shoulders. The shame of having to veil her face in public, of hiding in her nohma's hovel outside the city gates until her father sent for her. She'd forgotten what it was like to be inside the walls again in such close proximity to Sarum's people. It was like living with a dog that enjoyed biting you when you least expected it. Saxa's cottage had felt so safe; she had been enjoying the time within as though she were like everyone else.

  "Please, matron, let us gather your apples for you."

  Yenic pressed her back. "We will do nothing of the sort," he told her, inching away discreetly. "Let her gather her own if she can."

  With a glare, the woman reached for the apple closest to her. Just when her fingers went around it, there was a sizzling sound and she yanked her hand back, popping two fingers into her mouth. She sent a suspicious look Yenic's way. Alaysha eased out from behind him and he took her hand.

  "Where is Gael taking Aedus?" he asked, and Alaysha almost couldn't say the words.

  "The pillory in the courtyard," she said, watching almost mesmerized as the woman reached for her round of bread. The sudden smell of burned yeast met Alaysha's senses, and the round went black. She looked at Yenic who merely shrugged and pulled her along with him, leaving the woman to the sounds of sizzling fruit and the stink of char.

  Alaysha thought she would have to kiss him later.

  They found Gael just as he was closing the yoke down over Aedus's neck. The tiny hands were flailing about, trying to pull back out through the holes.

  "You can't do that," Alaysha told him and rushed to heave the wooden thing back up. She felt Gael's heavy and callused palm on her fingers.

  "Do not interfere," he told her.

  Aedus started bucking where she stood, ramming the bulk of her wrists into the wood and yelling that she was innocent. It was painful to watch and Alaysha took the girl's cheeks in her palms.

  "Calm, little one. You will not be here long."

  "The deities she won't," Gael said, looking to Yenic. "You said this one had the quills?"

  Yenic nodded, sullen.

  "You say this is the one who shot me."

  Again, Yenic nodded, and Aedus wrenched her face from Alaysha's fingers and started complaining her innocence.

  In answer, Yenic went to Aedus and pulled at her tunic, reaching up under the bottom. It looked as though he was fishing around her calf and when he pulled his hand out, it gripped a pouch. Aedus's voice rose in pitch.

  "It wasn't me, Yenic. It wasn't. I swear."

  He opened the pouches and spilled out its contents. There were several porcupine quills, all filled with a purplish substance. In the midst of it all lay one long tube-like thing made of a hollow branch.

  "Our Aedus has been playing again. This time with beetles instead of worms."

  "Playing, yes," Aedus admitted. "But not today. Count them."

  Yenic's finger went over the ground, his brow furrowed and smoothed. "Fifteen."

  "Fifteen," Aedus repeated. "I had sixteen."

  Yenic nodded knowingly and Alaysha couldn't stand watching the exchange any longer, not understanding what was going on. "So? Sixteen. What's the importance of the number?"

  Yenic came off his haunches and faced Gael. "May I check your neck again?"

  Gael twisted his head obligingly and Yenic grunted in thought. "It's purple." He studied Aedus and she squirmed where she stood.

  "It may be purple, but it wasn't me."

  "Yenic?" Alaysha said. "What's going on?"

  "The girl made a sleeping potion while we were in the forest and tested it on me with her little quill blower." He nodded at the pouch contents that were still spilled on the ground. "She collected quills from a dead porcupine."

  It was beginning to make sense now. "She used one on you," Alaysha guessed. Poor Yenic. Aedus so loved to test her warrior skills on the unsuspecting – especially when the unsuspecting was Yenic. She thought of the episode with the dreamer's worm during the night they had run from Sarum and Yuri, thinking they would begin a new life together.

  "Let her out Gael, it wasn't her."

  Gael didn't move. "She says she had sixteen quills, but she could be lying."

  "I believe her."

  It took a few minutes and a few dark looks, but Gael lifted the yoke. Aedus responded
by kicking him soundly in the shin. Alaysha thought Gael would retaliate but he surprised her with a wide smile.

  "You have courage, little one," he told the girl. "Rather like a cornered ferret."

  There was no way he could have known the nickname her captor, and Yuri's favorite lead scout, had given her, and both Alaysha and Aedus shared a secret look with one another before Aedus kicked him soundly in the other shin.

  He didn't so much as flinch, but neither did he smile. "Three insults would be the voice of war," he told the girl and scooped her up again, letting her hang over his broad back. His face was so calm, so good-humored, Alaysha realized that the large mountain of a man truly liked children. She couldn't believe he could be so indulgent and yet so hard. He strode off, Aedus bouncing unceremoniously against his back.

  Alaysha turned to Yenic and noticed several citizens holding fruit as though ready to let fly.

  "Looks like she was saved in the nick of time," she said.

  "Looks like."

  "Would you like to explain a little more?"

  He heaved a tired sigh. "There isn't much more to tell. She's pretty devious with her little traps for me, and she does so like to set them. She had me dangling by my foot one night on the trek to my mother's."

  There were two pieces of information she wanted more of in that statement, but wasn't sure which one she wanted first. Yenic decided for her before she could speak.

  "Then there was the sleeping potion, then there was the bird that kept calling out to me pretending it was your voice. She taught it to say my name." He shivered. "I was glad to be rid of her, in truth, by the time we returned here."

  It struck like a flash flood. "She has a crush on you."

  He quirked his head to the side. "Besotted by me? Whatever for?" He pulled a charming smile and reached for her hand, captured it before Alaysha could pull it back.

  "I do suppose I am a handsome rogue. Full of mystery. Charm…"

  "Hog dung."

  He quirked his brow and pulled her close. She could feel the heat of his chest, burning against her own. If only she could stop the questions nibbling at her spirit, she could enjoy the feel of him. Drink in the honey of his eyes.

  She pressed her palms against his chest and felt the thudding of his heart. She told herself to push him away.

  "Yenic."

  He leaned in, thinking obviously that her plea was meant to encourage him. His lips were on hers even as she was trying to twist away, and instead of being gentle, they turned aggressive, hungry. He pulled on her lower lip and captured it between his teeth.

  "I'm burning, Alaysha. I can't stop thinking of you."

  She thought she heard herself sigh into his mouth.

  Someone whistled shrilly and it was enough to bring her back to reality. She managed to pull away, and though the heat in her face was creeping down her throat, she worked to stammer out a few words. Accusations all, but words that had crept into her mind and refused to leave just the same.

  "You brought your mother."

  He looked like he wanted to shake his head clear. "Yes. Three days ago."

  Her mind worked as she turned away. "I've yet to see her."

  "You'd been hurt. I brought her to Yuri. He told her you were injured and mending."

  It was true. She had been injured and mending. But something didn't seem right. "Yuri has kept her away from everyone."

  "Or away from you."

  Which point was right, she wondered, but she nodded at his guess anyway, and had to dodge a sprinting hound with a scorched and shrivelled apple in its mouth. While she wasn't ready to trust Yenic again, neither could she trust her father. It was entirely possible Yuri had plans for the witch that didn't include his younger, more volatile and unpredictable water witch learning to harness her power.

  "How went the hunt for Edulph?"

  He kicked the apple that lay in his path. "No trace of him. Even Aedus couldn't find his tracks."

  Alaysha looked sidelong at him, and noticed that he wouldn't look her way. "She's a tracker?"

  He shrugged. "She's pretty capable in the woods. It's almost as though they speak to her or something. Like she owns them."

  "I suppose her people were used to living wild." She didn't know it for sure, but she imagined Aedus's people were more savage than civilian. "And she lived alone when she escaped Drahl. Scavenged for her own food." It struck Alaysha that as little as she knew about Aedus, she knew equally little about her own people. She'd thought Yenic had those answers. No she doubted that.

  They were nearly back at Saxa's cottage, where she presumed Gael had brought Aedus.

  "So we have no lead on Edulph and we don't know who shot Gael."

  "And you are no closer to controlling your power than when I left you."

  She sighed. "And I must make a decision about Corrin."

  "That mound of dog shit? I should've killed him myself. What's to decide?"

  Alaysha ran her hand along the bushes in front of Saxa's door and let the smell of lavender creep to the air. "I will have to take his life with my hands. Purposefully. Without a fight. Just step up and kill him."

  Yenic shrugged as though it was a foregone conclusion and therefore inconsequential.

  Alaysha reflected on the circumstances that had brought them here. Each time her father wanted her to learn her lessons that involved emotions, after her nohma had died, he took her to the cavern. Under Corrin's tutelage she learned to feel nothing. Sometimes for days, she was strung up in the bathhouse where she couldn't drink the water dry enough to drain even the lesser water from the walls, let alone the fluid from a man.

  She wondered if a fire witch could set anything to light in such a cavern, with so much ready water the dampness in the very air coated the lungs with fluid.

  "You would have had to kill him by hand," she said.

  He shrugged. "How else?"

  "I thought…"

  He looked for a moment as though he was putting together pieces of the mosaic, and then suddenly discovered a missing piece. "You think I can bring the fire?"

  She nodded. "The apples. The bread." She paused for heartbeat. "Those times when we were away from Sarum, from all this, Yuri, Edulph. You made the ashes leap to flame, you made the young fire blaze like old flames." She looked at her bare toes. "You kept me warm."

  A slow smile spread across his face.

  "You remember."

  She couldn't look at him. "It was a only fortnights ago; I can' t forget."

  He reached for her hand and dragged her to the side garden where the sage was tall and the daisies leaned away from them, pointing to a spot that was clear of herbs. A spot that was clear enough for them to sit, but camouflaged enough they couldn't be seen.

  He gave her careful consideration as they sat together, his warm palm on her thigh. Something in his eyes wanted more but she couldn't tell from his face what it was. "What else do you remember?"

  "Is there more?"

  He touched her chin where the tattaus were. "We slept beneath the stars as you nursed me."

  "You were hot then, too. Fevered. I thought you would die."

  "You saved me."

  "And you kept me from doing foolish things."

  They sat quiet for a few moments before he spoke again. "Alaysha do you remember anything else?"

  She got the quick taste of goat's milk, felt the strange sensation of a heart beating against her chest, of the feel of a quick kiss on her head. "A witch's memory is too long," she said. "Best some things remain unremembered."

  He looked disappointed.

  She shifted uneasily. "What will we do if we can't find Edulph? What if I can't control myself?"

  "Don't say that. You will learn."

  She noted he said nothing about finding Edulph.

  "And what of the babe, the wind witch you called her? What if he's found her already?"

  "If he'd have found her, we'd know by now."

  "Is she truly powerful?"

  He
stared at her mouth. "As powerful as you, perhaps."

  She reached out to him, and for the second time in one day lay her palm on his tattaus. They felt hot, hotter even than the rest of him. He shuddered and she caught his eye. "Your tattaus are of fire."

  "Yes," he said carefully, but managed to sound almost despondent.

  "You are her Arm." She needed to say it, to have him admit it. She braced herself for his answer.

  His sigh came as though it had travelled a great distance. "Yes."

  She ignored the churning of her stomach at his confession; there was something more important she wanted to know.

  "How is it done? Does it need to be family?"

  He didn't answer. Instead, he took her chin in his fingers and pulled his thumb across her tattaus. He cupped the back of her head and slipped his mouth onto hers. The kiss was so soft, she thought she would ache if he didn't show his hunger for her again. Then his lips moved to her tattau just on the cleft of her chin, tracing, she thought, each symbol there.

  "Each symbol has its own magic," he said. "And each comes from the witch's own power. Until you can control it, you cannot offer it. Most witches come to their power after their matron is gone, and so they have been trained for many seasons already."

  She could barely hear him, so soft was his whisper, so intimate and mesmerizing. So engrossed was she, so lost in his touch, all she could register were his words from before, that he was on fire. All she could think of was burning with him.

  She closed her eyes and let him take her lips again, and she believed the tingling in her stomach truly was a fire igniting that would leap to flame if he kept kissing her, not the worry that he could be simply manipulating her.

  His hands travelled from her face to her neck and cupped the back of her nape, pulling her even closer to him. Her stomach leapt as though flames had caught within and had begun to devour any doubts that wanted lodged there.

  A nasty, guttural cough was the equal of a bucket of water to the blaze.

  "If I thought I'd left you two young pups in heat, I'd have slung you over my back, Witch." Gael strode forward through the weeds and flowers, oblivious or uncaring of her unease or embarrassment. He nodded at Yenic sourly, but spoke to her. "You trust this boy?"