The High Priest's Daughter

by Katie Cross

  If it had caused this much damage to Papa after minor exposure, I wondered what it had done to the gypsies it hit directly.

  Two drops of remoulade fell from the edge of the vial and dripped down the offended skin. It sizzled and smoked bright green until the skin absorbed it. By the time I put the cap back on, the wound had already formed new growth. I replaced the remoulade and settled back in my chair. Papa leaned back, drinking the last of his mug.

  “You’re leaving for the East in the morning, right?” he asked.

  “Early, yes.”

  He cleared his throat, leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and said, “I need to talk to you about that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not twelve, Papa. I promise I will be on my best behavior and—”

  “No, no.” He waved his hand. “Not that. I trust you to act appropriately. I’m going to send Merrick over with Marten so you have a Protector there in case anything happens.”

  “All right.”

  He paused. “I want … I want you to act as if Merrick’s not there.”

  The intensity of Papa’s gaze didn’t make sense, and I struggled to grasp what he meant.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He dragged a hand through his dark brown hair. “I was going to send Anthony, but his wife went into labor. Merrick is the only Protector left that doesn’t have an assignment for that evening and the next day. I have to send him.”

  “What’s wrong with Merrick going?”

  “He’s Merrick,” Papa muttered. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  “Why is that—”

  “Merrick is a man, B. And you’re still a child. That’s why it’s a problem.”

  I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “Papa, don’t do this! It’s … weird. And I’m not a child.”

  He stood up and started pacing back and forth like an agitated panther.

  “I see a lot of myself in Merrick, B. I’ve been that age before, and you’re a very pretty girl, and Merrick is a talented young man and—”

  Mortified, I leapt to my feet. “Stop!” I cried. “Please stop. Jikes, Papa. This is … just stop. Merrick and I are friends. Just friends! That’s … that’s all we’ve ever been.”

  The way Merrick had stepped so close to me on our run that morning replayed through my mind with a little flutter, but I shoved it away. Were we just friends? I’d never felt such nervous butterflies in my stomach with friends before.

  Just friends.

  “I still don’t like it. You deserve better than Merrick can give you.”

  “Give me? Papa, I’m only seventeen. I’m not looking to get married. Grief. I just barely started to really live.”

  “Boyfriends happen fast, B. One minute you’re flirting, and the next you’re kissing, and then—”

  “Whoa! Papa!” I threw my hands over my ears and closed my eyes to shut the awkwardness out. “I know what happens! Mama taught me all about that stuff. You don’t have to explain it to me.”

  He continued on with dogged determination. “Your mother is gone now. Someone has to have this talk with you.”

  “Then make it Stella! If I have any questions, I’ll go to her. But don’t … no, this is too much.”

  “All your friends are starting to court Guardians, which means that you’ll probably start courting as well. Look, I’m fine with you courting, but … just … not Merrick, all right? Anyone but him.”

  He stopped pacing and stared at the fire, his hands clasped behind his back. The firelight glinted off his tight jaw, illuminating his eyes with a warm orange glow. Wrapped underneath all the protective layers that Papa kept himself cocooned in, I saw a glint of fear. I put my hand on his arm.

  “Papa? What’s this really about?”

  He turned to me with a burdened sigh. “I don’t want you to get even more mixed up in the world that Merrick and I live in, B. He’s talented and strong and will have a wonderful career as a Protector.”

  Something recoiled inside me at the thought, but I kept it locked away lest it stir up my magic and cue Papa in to how I really felt. “What’s wrong with courting a witch with a wonderful career?” I asked. His eyes moved back and forth between mine.

  “Because I want you to have a better life than your mother. She spent our entire marriage waiting for me to come home, worrying that I wouldn’t, and raising a wonderful, beautiful, feisty daughter without her father. I want better for you.”

  The pain in his voice made my heart ache.

  “She loved you, Papa,” I whispered. “She would never have wanted it any other way. She was happy.”

  He turned away, back to the fire. “Maybe,” he said, jaw flexing. “But I won’t let the same happen to you. Stay away from Merrick, all right?”

  “What about our morning runs?” I asked with a flash of panic. “Who will run with me in Letum Wood?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You still run with him every morning?”

  “Yes, of course. It keeps my powers under control. I have to run.”

  His expression darkened like a brewing storm. “Just leave Merrick alone, B. That’s an order. We’ll find someone else to run with you. Got it?”

  “But—”

  “This isn’t just about you and your future, you know. Merrick needs to focus on his career. Just because he made it into the Protectors last summer doesn’t mean Zane will allow him to stay if he doesn’t meet expectations. Don’t be the distraction that prevents him from achieving his full potential.”

  Something inside me withered away, like a candle snuffed out. Not run with Merrick? Who would train me? Who would laugh at my radical opinions on running barefoot? Would I really ruin Merrick’s chance? Serving as a Protector had always been his dream.

  But Merrick is my best friend, came the traitorous thought, accompanied by a bright flash of laughing green eyes. And maybe … maybe there’s more to it than that.

  “I’m the parent, remember?” Papa said, and I realized that I’d spaced out while he was speaking. “I know what’s best for you, B, and the life that a witch like Merrick could offer is not the best. Just keep learning from Marten. He’ll train you instead.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Papa continued speaking, preventing my reply.

  “Oh and be on the lookout while you’re in the Eastern Network, all right?” he said, his crisp words indicating he’d slipped back into High Priest mode. “There’s a radical group of anti-war witches in the Eastern Network that have been causing problems. Odd, isn’t it? They’re against war but still use violence to get their point across. Not that you and Marten pose any real threat, but they may not take kindly to outsiders in their Network.”

  Although painful thoughts of Merrick still clogged my mind, I forced them away, turning to safer topics that didn’t fill my throat with dread.

  “How did the interrogation of Miss Mabel go today?” I asked, pushing aside the bowl of stew, my appetite gone. Despite the loathing I felt for my old teacher, I couldn’t quell an active interest in her imprisonment. The lines in Papa’s face deepened.

  “Not good. We tried another round of Veritas, but she didn’t say a word. She’s likely been building up an immunity to it her whole life.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I muttered, shifting when a cold feeling zipped down my spine. “So she didn’t know anything about the maid who tried to spring her free last week?”

  Papa shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  Angelina had made several attempts to set Miss Mabel free, but all had failed so far. Papa and Tiberius had anticipated most of them, but the latest had frightened us. A Chatham Castle maid walked to the dungeons under an unknown compulsion spell with the intent to free Miss Mabel. Once caught, she killed herself before the Guardians could interrogate her.

  “Miss Mabel can’t … that is, she couldn’t get out of her cell in the dungeons, right?” I asked.

  Although the fear of Miss Mabel escaping was irrational considering she
’d been imprisoned over half a year already, Papa didn’t seem annoyed by the question. He shook his head in a punctuated slicing motion.

  “No. She’s in the dungeons for good, isolated in a cell that prevents her from doing magic. I’m the only witch in all of Antebellum that can release her, and that will never happen.”

  The little spray of my magic in my chest calmed. I had faced Miss Mabel in a magical fight twice now and didn’t care to repeat the experience. I wouldn’t be likely to live through a third battle.

  “Doesn’t it just seem odd?” I spoke up a few minutes later, interrupting a stretch of silence.

  “What?”

  “The way Miss Mabel attacked the Central Network and killed Mildred. I mean, she murdered the High Priestess and a few Council Members, sure. And a handful of contingents of West Guards started a battle in the Borderlands, but we suppressed them before they crossed into our Network. What was the point? If she really wanted to take over, why such a pathetic attempt?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Mabel did it to kill the High Priestess.”

  “But why?” I asked, finally voicing a question that I’d kept stuffed down for eight months. “Miss Mabel’s plan just doesn’t make sense. If she wanted to take over the Central Network, why did she only bring a few Clavas? Why not a massive, Network-wide attack?”

  Half a dozen letters interrupted my question, slipping underneath the door and zipping over to rest impatiently in front of Papa’s face.

  “Because Mabel is arrogant to a fault,” Papa said while sorting through the messages with concern. “She acted in a moment of false confidence.”

  “Well, she is cocky.” Borderline narcissistic, if you ask me. “But I still can’t shake the feeling that she was up to something else. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Papa’s attention had slipped away from our conversation with every word he read. He stood, kissed the top of my head, and called out a thanks to Reeves.

  “I’m sure we’ll figure Mabel out in time. She may have let her desire to get revenge on Mildred get the better of her sense. Don’t wait up. Be safe in the Eastern Network, and stay away from Merrick. Love you.”

  With that, he disappeared back into the castle, as he always did. I collapsed back on the chair.

  Stay away from Merrick.

  After I finished my dinner, I trudged up the stairs to the Witchery, a private turret that my friends and I had claimed as our own. Odds and ends we’d collected around the castle decorated the walls. A banner Camille had started but never finished embroidering hung above the fireplace. It should have said, The Witchery, but she’d gotten bored halfway through, so it only read, The Wits. An odd assortment of mismatched pillows sat on the couch, and a few cast-off divans and rugs we’d slowly accrued filled the floor space. One bed sat on either side of the turret. A sheet blocked off Leda’s side, which was tidy and perfectly organized, while Camille’s hung open, spewing clothes, ribbons, and hair brushes like a volcano.

  Messy, but it felt like home.

  The Witchery fought off a constant chill all winter, just like the rest of Chatham Castle. Despite our best efforts, the barren exposure of the turret jutting into the sky meant it never felt comfortably warm. I shivered and rubbed my arms, grateful I didn’t sleep here every night like Camille and Leda.

  “Merry meet!” I called, but no one heard me over the madness. Leda scurried back and forth from the rickety table to her side of the turret with books in her arms, Michelle rustled through cookbooks at the table, and Camille searched frantically through a large trunk on the floor.

  “Camille!” Leda called in an accusatory tone. “Where are my shoes? Did you borrow them again?”

  Leda’s white-blonde hair, which she normally wore in a braid, had grown in the last eight months, elongating onto her shoulders in long, straight lines. It shone in the light, falling in strands like the gossamer threads of a spider web. She wore a dress of rich blue velvet, one of the many things she’d bought since she started her job as an Assistant’s Assistant last year. New clothes represented a luxury she’d rarely been afforded before, as the oldest of nine children. Her dress offset her striking eyes, one pale, like yellow straw, and the other green. She looked quite lovely, I thought.

  It made me suspicious.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, wondering why Leda had come out of her space clutching a hair ribbon instead of a book.

  “Oh, hey Bianca. Sorry, I have to find my shoes.”

  “What for? Aren’t we going to play games tonight?”

  “Oh, uh … I … I’m busy tonight,” she stammered, studiously avoiding my eyes. Camille waved to me from the other side of the turret. She stood in front of a mirror and preened her bushy blonde hair.

  “Leda has a date with Rupert tonight. Again,” Camille drawled, like the slow drip of molasses. Leda scowled, but Camille just giggled.

  “It’s not a date!” Leda said testily. “We’re reviewing tax laws.”

  Michelle, who attended Miss Mabel’s School for Girls as a third-year when we were first-years and now worked in the kitchens at Chatham Castle, fought to hide her smile.

  “What?” I cried, dismayed. Why did Leda have to go and make a date? We always had a game night at the end of the week. “Why are you going out with Rupert?”

  Leda shot me a sharp look. “It’s not a date! It’s a conversation about tax law. Rupert’s teaching me more about it so I’m more prepared when I’m hired as a real Assistant later this year.”

  I didn’t care why Leda was abandoning us for a man, just that she was.

  “Fine,” I said carelessly, throwing myself on a pile of pillows near the window seat. “Camille, Michelle, and I will have more fun without you here to spoil it by winning every game anyway.”

  Camille smiled nervously, fidgeting with a pearl earring. Even she had grown into a more elegant, womanly figure, and she dressed up to the part every chance she had. Her bushy hair was longer now, which tamed some of its wild bounce.

  “Er … Bianca? I-I have a date tonight too.”

  I shot upright, my eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “I’m meeting Brecken’s family,” she said, lighting up. “We’re having dinner. He has five brothers, but I’ll only get to meet three of them. His mother always wanted a girl, but never got one. I have a wonderful feeling that she and I will be best friends! Maybe I’ll even have a mother again.”

  I sighed. Camille had been madly in love with the mysterious, dark-haired Guardian Brecken for almost a year now. Why couldn’t she just put it off one more weekend to play games like we always did?

  “Michelle?” I asked desperately. “Are you leaving too?”

  A guilty smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Nicolas and I are going to work with the dragons tonight. Sanna is finally letting him meet the red, and I don’t want to miss it. The red’s been brutally ornery since laying her eggs.”

  Nicolas, Michelle’s boyfriend, had worked with the persnickety Dragonmaster Sanna since last summer. Blind old Sanna lived alone in the woods as the only Dragonmaster in all of Antebellum. The race of pure-blood Dragonmasters had been nearly exterminated over a hundred years earlier, but Nicolas’s family line intersected with Sanna’s somewhere in the past, and he possessed enough Dragonmaster blood for the dragons to accept him. It certainly explained his obsession with the scaly creatures.

  “Oh,” I said, deflating. “So all of you have dates tonight.”

  “It’s not a date!” Leda cried.

  I preferred Leda’s scorn to the pity coming from Camille.

  “I suppose so,” Camille said, but trailed off when I shot her a glare. Michelle buried herself back in her cookbook and didn’t say another word, avoiding my bad mood, as she did any conflict.

  “When will you be back?” I asked, hoping to finagle at least one game of Networks or even a risky trip to the kitchen to filch a rare dessert from Fina, the Head Cook. Papa’s ration on food extended to sugar, so Fina didn’t make nearl
y as many treats as she used to, which only made the mission more risky.

  “I won’t be back until late,” Leda said. Camille smiled hesitantly.

  “Me too.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Michelle whispered, cringing.

  A call from the bottom of the turret prevented my reply. I immediately recognized Rupert’s high, nasally voice. I’d enchanted the doorway to our tower so no one, High Priest and Priestess aside, could come into the Witchery without my permission. Every time Rupert came by, I felt grateful for the restriction.

  “Ugh,” I moaned, throwing a hand across my eyes. “Not Rupert, Leda.”

  “Leda?” Rupert’s voice wound up the spiral stairs. “Are ya ready?”

  “She’s busy!” I called back. “Go away!”

  Leda threw an empty ink jar at me, which I caught before it gave me a black eye. “Coming!” she sang, pulling her cloak off an odd coat rack made of gnarled wood.

  “Wait!” I said, scrambling forward. “Leda, I need your help! I leave for the Eastern Network in the morning and need to know the history. Can’t you stay and teach it to me?”

  She paused in the doorway. “Go to the library.”

  “Can’t you just give me the highlights?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Here are the highlights. The East is the only Network that appoints their High Priests and Priestesses according to lineage, like the mortals used to do with kings. The ruling family of Aldana loves swords. They’ve been in power for over three centuries after brutally murdering the last royal family by burning them alive, children and all. Diego is known to be a pacifist obsessed with the Mansfeld Pact. Anything else?”

  “Ugh.” I recoiled, but Leda’s serious expression never faltered. “Really? They burned them alive?”

  “I never joke about history. Merry part, Bianca.”

  She flounced away with an unapologetic huff, leaving me in her wake. Although I knew she was right, I couldn’t help my annoyance. Why were they so okay with everything changing? Didn’t they want to stay in the security of our friendship in the Witchery, playing games and giggling all night?

  “Rupert is a nice guy, Bianca,” Camille said, pulling a fur-lined cloak of rich red over her shoulders. “And he wants to be with Leda, which is more than most witches will tolerate. I think you should cut him some slack.”