Blood Witch

by Thea Atkinson

  "Edulph?" Alaysha had a hard time moving from images of the young heir to the brother who had cut off his own sister's finger.

  "The girl nodded. "Yes. I know where he is." She lowered her voice and leaned in so that Alaysha could feel her breath move against her ear. "Or at least Yenic does."

  Chapter 15

  Alaysha thought she felt a bit of lamb she'd eaten turn rancid.

  "What are you saying?"

  Aedus closed the door to the stables and turned back to Alaysha. The look on her face was significant. It looked like she was telling the truth.

  "Explain," she said.

  "We found Edulph," she said. "Yenic and I. I knew his habits; I knew he'd return to our family home with his band. I took Yenic there."

  "And?"

  "And we captured him. I mean, Yenic did. Hand-to-hand. We snuck around the flanks. I used my darts to sleep poison as many as I could until I ran out."

  Alaysha put her fingers to her temple. She didn't want to hear more, but Aedus kept on as both knew she needed to.

  "By then, Edulph knew he was under attack. He called a fistful of men to him. And one woman."

  "Greetha," Alaysha guessed. The woman who had flirted with Yenic on their flight from Sarum. She remembered her and the swarthy lover Yenic had been forced by Edulph to fight, as well as the head he'd stuffed Aedus's severed finger in for delivery to Alaysha.

  She looked at Aedus's hand now, still scabbed and healing. Theron had done wonders to stitch it and avoid the green poison that so often crept in and stole a man's spirit. She thought of how hard Yenic had fought to get Aedus back and to keep Edulph from overrunning Sarum.

  "Why wouldn't Yenic tell me?" It was a more important question in the moment than were Edulph actually was.

  Aedus lifted her shoulders. That's what I've been trying to find out."

  Alaysha sensed more to the story. She sent Aedus a sharp look. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  The words came in a rush. "I tried. I wanted to. Yenic and I brought him to his mother by the second day. We thought his men would follow us, but they didn't."

  Alaysha's mind was racing. "No. They came to Sarum instead."

  Aedus nodded. "They must have known Yenic's mother was coming here. They must've known." She said the second with emphasis and Alaysha gave it considerable study. Indeed, and they thought to rescue him when Yenic returned, but Gael had made short work of them. Of most of them anyway. Gael. A stark of realization struck.

  "You did poison Gael didn't you?"

  Aedus hung her head. "If Yenic knew, he would assume I was trying to tell you his secret."

  "You were trying to tell me his secret."

  "Only because I thought you should know it; you shouldn't be kept unaware when the very person we are fighting against has been found."

  "All the little tricks you played on him –"

  Aedus nodded. "I wanted to be sure the sleeping potion worked, and I needed him asleep while I dug around in his pack."

  "You dug in his pack?"

  "I needed to hide a few quills." Aedus shrugged innocently and Alaysha realized how duped they'd all been at her protested innocence at the pillory.

  She couldn't' t keep the irritation from her voice at remembering she was the one who made Gael release her. "The hanging by his feet?"

  She shrugged. "That one was meant for Edulph, I admit. It was before we found him."

  "What was the mud pie?"

  "Laced with brimstone. To bind his magic."

  "I thought you didn't believe in magic."

  "My people don't believe. Edulph doesn't believe. At least he didn't." She looked deep in thought as she said this last.

  "But now you do?"

  "After what I've seen…"

  Not so much, really. At least not from her. Alaysha had been careful to keep her power dormant when Aedus was around. But Yenic. Well, he might have pulled a few egotistical tricks himself.

  "So why wouldn't you trust him, Aedus? What has Yenic done to make you doubt him so?"

  "Just that he keeps the secret from you."

  "That's all, and you treat him so suspiciously?"

  Aedus's eyes seemed to shift color in the lamplight, like a shadow moving across earth. "Isn't that enough?"

  Alaysha thought it through. It should be enough. It would have been before; a few moons ago, it would have been more than enough. Had she grown in those turns or had she merely become just another simpering woman ready to abandon logic because she loved a man.

  "It was you in the dark tonight, wasn't it? You followed me."

  Again, Aedus hung her head. "I wanted to talk to you alone, but you seemed so upset."

  She had been. It wasn't easy realizing your father ordered such brutal training as had been done her by Corrin. Or that he'd killed your mother. "This doesn't help."

  Aedus eased herself onto the straw and crossed her legs, pulling the heels in. "Imagine how I feel. This is all too much. I don't know who to trust anymore."

  She sounded genuinely miserable, and Alaysha found she couldn't be angry at the girl. She was so young, so abused and used in her few short seasons, it was understandable that she'd think Yenic too good to be true.

  Alaysha leaned to sit next to her, wrapping her arm about the girl's shoulders. She had grown, it seemed, in the few weeks since they first met. What had first been an undernourished, furtive and feral girl had plumped out in the moon's phase to become a better nourished, but more distrustful young woman. Or had the mistrust always been there? It reminded Alaysha again of how little she knew about Aedus and her people. Still. This girl becoming a woman meant something to her now. She'd been willing to kill the entire city to save Aedus from her brother. She squeezed and was rewarded by Aedus's head leaning against her chest.

  "You can trust me, Aedus."

  The murmur was almost sullen. "I know."

  "You don't sound happy about it."

  "I'm not. Something is going on that neither one of us understands."

  "And you think I'm being foolish over Yenic."

  Aedus sighed. "Why won't he tell you about Edulph? Why hasn't he told you that boy he shot was Edulph's man?"

  Indeed. Why hadn't he? A niggle moved through Alaysha's spine, but so too did the memory of Yuri planting the same mistrust as well. Two very opposing sides of interest from Alaysha's standpoint, but both managing to do the same thing. She'd swore she'd rely on her own intuition, not the mistrust of others; back there on Saxa's bed, just after Drahl's attack when Yuri swept the Yenic-trusting legs right from underneath her, she'd told herself she'd not make hasty decisions based on someone else's words.

  "I don't know why he hasn't told me, but he nearly died to save you, have you forgotten that?"

  "No. I wish I could."

  Alaysha guessed that having to question the motives of someone she loved was eating the girl up inside.

  "I'll tell you what. We'll watch him. Just to be on the safe side."

  The girl gave a feeble nod and Alaysha got up, pulling the girl along with her. "If something is going on that we don't understand, we'll just have to open our eyes so we can see better."

  "And look in the right spots."

  "And look in the right spots," Alaysha repeated.

  "What about that big oaf?"

  "Gael?" Alaysha felt a touch of regret when she thought about the large man. She put her fingers to her lips, remembering his kiss. Thorough, passionate; yes. And so very different from Yenic's. While Yenic's kiss took possession, Gael's was that of a master leading his student, giving back as much as he took.

  She felt a tug on her arm and remembered the girl's question. "Gael can be trusted without doubt," she said and knew it was true even as she spoke the words.

  "But what would Yenic and his mother want with your brother, Aedus? That one is a mystery to me."

  The girl shrugged. "I don't know. I just know they don't want your father aware that we found him. Maybe they killed him and they don't want Y
uri to know."

  "That makes no sense."

  "If Yuri knows Edulph has been captured, then there's no reason to let you train with the fire witch." Aedus's face brightened at the prospect that she had solved the problem that was bothering her and could go back to liking Yenic again.

  Alaysha thought about it. She'd learned in the caverns that Aislin owned more control, but far far less power than Alaysha, and so it was possible that Aislin also owned some fear of the existence of a witch who couldn't control herself. It was possible that to teach her control would also take away the very real danger of Yuri using his witch's power to annihilate anyone, including the fire witch and her family, completely. That might be the witch's motivation. And Yuri's? That might also be why her father had set a decoy in her place, thinking Aislin would be teaching a girl she thought was the right one, and thus keep his witch still under his own control.

  Whether or not it was the answer, it was enough to see Aedus content.

  "You could be right, little one." She grabbed Aedus's hand and made for the stable door, intent on Saxa's cottage and a good night's sleep.

  It was as good a rationale as any, and she would believe it if there wasn't one thing left to the equation that all three, on thing that made her decide against the assassination of Yuri until she learned more. A thing Yuri, Edulph, and Aislin wanted. No. Not a thing. Not a territory, army, or city.

  A person. An infant.

  The witch of the wind.

  Chapter 16

  Both Saxa and Yenic were pacing the cottage when Alaysha and Aedus entered, and while Yenic halted midstep and grinned broadly to see both of them unharmed and together, Saxa was the one to rush forward, grabbing a length of homespun flax from a peg and throwing it over Aedus's shoulders.

  "You must be tired and hungry, child," she cooed. "Let's get you some stew."

  Aedus peered up at her, all wide-eyed innocence and Alaysha had to swallow down a nasty comment.

  "I am hungry," Aedus said.

  "Then come, let's get you fed." Saxa turned to Alaysha. "Gael?"

  "Gone to search for Saxon."

  Saxa made a humming sound that could have been approval or worry. Alaysha wasn't sure which. "He won't be back until he finds him, I'm afraid," Saxa looked pensive but managed to bustle about, setting a trencher of bread on the table and spooning a ladle of steaming lamb into it for Aedus, who began gobbling before she even sat down.

  "And you?" Saxa asked.

  Alaysha looked at Yenic as she spoke, unable to meet Saxa's gaze, knowing what lay deep within her spirit that she didn't want the woman to see.

  "I'm going with Barruch tomorrow to the mud village. It has nothing to do with Saxon. I'm sorry."

  Saxa turned to Yenic, and Alaysha knew she suspected something had passed between them as she spoke, but was too polite to ask about it.

  "I'll fix you some fare for the travel, then," she said. "For the two of you?"

  Alaysha shook her head. "Just me." She caught his protesting posture out of the corner of her eye and held up her hand. She hoped he could understand what she was doing and agree to stay behind. She had unfinished business at the village, and although Saxon was still missing, Yuri would assume she was off to help with the search. Ever his tool, she was. He would have no reason to believe she had changed.

  She thought of the campaign of her first seed collection and remembered he never had given her the promised honeycomb from his own hand. It had all been a ruse to get her to do his bidding.

  She had forgotten it, sure; along with all the other memories she couldn't bear to think about and had buried so deep she thought them unexhumable. But she had recalled it after all, the same as she recalled his hands in her mother's hair as he held her head aloft, and dangled it in front of her nohma, cut away from her body, bloody, the tattaus trembling with the speech her mother could no longer form. And that memory had grieved her enough she couldn't protect Nohma when the power came.

  Oh yes. She recalled it. A witch has a long memory, all the better to bring to mind the pathways of the life fluid, how to ease in, ease out again, coax the fluid along, back out of the channels and into the very air, the pathways to her own pores, quenching a thirst so primal she could never understand where it came from. She remembered it, and she needed more than anything now, to find a way to control her gift, manage the power that he manipulated her with, all so she could end him and walk away her own woman.

  The next morning she left Aedus with instructions to watch Yenic, so the girl would assume all was going according to what they had discussed. It would be a long ride to the village; it had taken at least seven turns of the sun to get there the first time and Alaysha knew she could use the solitude to mull things over. At least, alone with Barruch, she could find the quietness of thought she so badly needed. There was too much noise in her spirit to find the fulcrum of logic in it all.

  The one thing she did know was that the village had started it and she had the feeling if there were answers to be found, that village and its collapsed mud hut would be the best place to start looking.

  It ended up taking her six turns to reach it. She gave Barruch a few hours rest in between rides to refresh himself, eat, sleep, and regain his strength for another run. During the respites, she dozed and watered herself from the skin she'd brought, and ate from the packed basket Saxa had insisted on filling. It sent a wave of guilt over Alaysha as she munched on the herbed bread, knowing she planned to kill the man she loved, and she ate hurriedly before she could think too much. Then she lured Barruch forward with promise of sweet peaches from the oasis.

  She knew she was close when the terrain lost its lushness and began to show signs of drought. In one spot, the trees were fragrant and green, begging to be stripped of overripe fruit and nuts; the next, the fruit lay on parched soil, dried to shrivelled remains.

  "We're here, Old Man," she told him and he veered instinctively toward the west, where he would remember the oasis and the peach and honey scented air.

  "Not yet. Not until you take me to the village. "She jerked on the reins to point him toward the mound of mud she saw in the distance. He whinnied in protest, and she thought how much she was dreading the return even if it was deliberate.

  It would be the first time she'd ever returned to a scene of battle. Something lodged in her throat that she would've named trepidation if it had a name at all.

  "I know, old man," she whispered. "I don't like it either."

  She let him slow to a walk, savoring the feel of a newly risen sun on her face. It might well be the last moment of pure ignorance that she could enjoy and she would enjoy it. There was no telling what she would find waiting for her, but she knew the magics there had been strong enough to keep Yenic safe. She'd seen the movement in the swirling spiral of smoke. What she wanted to know was if the magics were still there, coiled and waiting for her.

  All three of the witches that remained: fire, earth, air, all elders of the tribe, all doing what they could to hold the balance against the fourth witch. Against her.

  She hadn't known it then, that that's what was happening, but she knew it now. She knew it in the moment she remembered her father taking her mother's life. That memory ignited this understanding. That when he took the head of the water witch to be, he gave that power to her daughter – his daughter. She was only one of four women destined with a gift all set to maintain balance. When she took their lives, others had to replace them. Daughters, or daughters of daughters.

  She realized the fire witch had lost a granddaughter that day and would have lost the line if it weren't for Aislin's absence. So the question was, where had Aislin been?

  The witch of air delivered her power at death to an infant somewhere unknown. But what of the witch of the earth? Yenic had said only two of the three remained. He left out the third. Alaysha wondered if within the remains she had taken the life of a daughter without knowing. Perhaps somewhere outside the village. The crones had seen fit to protect the l
ines by making sure one of them was elsewhere, letting the brunt of Alaysha's power take the eldest, the ones with waning powers, while the coiled and waiting energies sat ready to be claimed by a girl, a woman, an infant, somewhere else.

  "Yuri must not know all this," she told Barruch. "He must know some of the tale but not all."

  She took some comfort in the realization that her father, with all his seeming understanding, had missed a few pieces. And she felt rejuvenated in knowing she had picked them up.

  She pulled in a deep breath as the hut grew larger, the closer she got. The thatch of the top had dried and been picked at by roaming beasts and birds. She noticed some animals had returned: a hare sat chewing a tall sprig of weed, always the first grass return to a desiccated area, able to find a crevice and take root under the deluge of flash rains that came after the power let go.

  The hut itself looked dry and dusty and she felt just as parched. She'd not stopped in the last legs of the journey to water herself properly, she was so anxious. The leathered legs of the crone she'd left had been chewed and given up by a roving animal.

  To her relief, there was no smell of decay only that of hot earth and dried fruit. She dropped down from Barruch's back and let him find a place where he wasn't bothered by flies. She expected him to finnick himself to a place away from the dead and it was then that she realized there were far fewer dead then she left nearly a moon ago.

  Barefoot, she stepped around the mound of earth and turned, hoping to find something more akin to what she left, and thinking it was very likely that the deluge of a flash flood had washed the bodies away.

  There wasn't a single cadaver remaining on the battleground, and she might have believed animals or rain had carted them off, except there in over a dozen piles, waited cairns of stones, all in a circle, as though someone had done it purposely.

  Someone had been here after her. Someone who had enough connection to the place that he cared about the bodies that used to be people.