The High Priest's Daughter

by Katie Cross

  “We don’t have the luxury of stopping right now.”

  Stella sighed. “Please be careful. I don’t want to tell Bianca that she’s also lost her father. She’s having a hard enough time since I made her promise to stay out of Letum Wood. I can feel her magic some days; it’s burning strongly. Running through the forest seems to be her only release for agitation and stress.”

  “The good gods know I worry about her,” he muttered, his voice husky. “Has she been doing all right otherwise?”

  “She’s worried, but she understands.”

  “I’ll owe her a big vacation once this is over.”

  Stella chuckled. “If you can peel her off of you, that is. What can we do from here to help you?”

  “Isadora has anticipated some of the West Guards’ most significant attacks but not the smaller ones,” he said, resuming his usual businesslike tone. “Marten is sending out an announcement to all villages and cities tomorrow with ways to prepare for and prevent attacks.”

  “I’ve met with most of the Coven Leaders and Council Members, so that advice went out through those channels as well. You’re my main concern. How are you holding up? You look as if you haven’t slept in days.”

  “I can’t justify sleeping when the West Guards are using Almorran magic to slaughter us in the night.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  The sound of defeat in Papa’s voice made my heart quiver. “I don’t know how to fight it, Stella. All we’re doing is trying to hold it off. I feel … totally useless. These Guardians—many just boys—are dying, waiting for me to end this war, and I don’t know how we’re going to do that.”

  I heard a rustle of movement. “Derek, this burden is not yours to bear alone.”

  “I’ve been trying to think of a plan to avoid going after Dane myself, but I can’t,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. I closed my eyes in disappointment.

  A dramatic pause followed his declaration. I held my breath.

  “Come in, B,” Papa called. “There’s no need to eavesdrop.”

  I pressed into the room, forgetting to be embarrassed that I’d been caught. “Papa,” I cried, grateful to see him with my own eyes. “You’re back!”

  He was leaning against the wall by the window, clad in dirty half-armor torn at the shoulders but still covering his broad chest. Only a remnant of his familiar smile appeared when he saw me. Fatigue and desperation buried the rest. He opened his arms. “Come here, girl.”

  I rushed into his waiting embrace. When his strong arms encircled me, I fought back the tears I’d been swallowing for days. He smelled like sweat and torch oil and blood. I pulled away only when his grip went slack a minute later.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked, glancing him over. “Because we have—”

  “I’m fine. Have Reeves draw me up a bath and lay out a fresh pair of clothes. And scrounge up some food, will you? I need to clean up before I come back to work.”

  He wasn’t fine, but I acted like I believed him because Papa was still in High Priest mode. I saw it in the half-glazed look in his eyes. Bruises and blood covered his arms and his face, as if someone had taken a whip and hacked away at him. He needed sleep but telling him that wouldn’t do any good. Whatever I said wouldn’t matter when he had that expression on his face.

  “Yes, Papa. Will I see you at all?”

  “Go now,” he said gently, softening the command with a squeeze of my shoulder. “I need to finish speaking with Stella, and I’ll be right up. You and I can talk while I eat.”

  Stella gave me a warm, encouraging nod, and I slowly stepped out. The doors closed behind me with a resolute clang.

  Within fifteen minutes Reeves readied a hot bath, laid out a new set of clothes, and fluttered around the apartment cleaning silver in his strange way of expressing excitement until I sent him to the kitchen to get Papa’s food. I was standing at the bay window, staring at Letum Wood, when Papa came back. He sent me a crooked smile, smelled his own shirt, and grimaced.

  “Let me bathe,” he said. “You don’t want to talk to me like this.”

  I would have talked to him if he smelled like a pile of dung. “You do smell pretty ripe.”

  He set a sneezing hex on me and disappeared into his room. Reeves materialized with a silver platter of bread, a few slices of cheese, and some dipping broth. Meager fare considering he’d once brought Papa an entire rotisserie chicken and a slice of birthday cake—even though Papa had forgotten it was his own birthday—for dinner when meetings had run until midnight last fall.

  “It’s not much,” Reeves said, his nose wrinkled as if he took personal offense at the portion size. “But it’ll fill his stomach.”

  “I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.”

  Reeves puttered toward Papa’s room. While his gait couldn’t be described as sprightly, because nothing about Reeves could ever be anything but sedate, he walked with a much more determined stride than usual. No doubt it felt good for him to feel useful again. I could empathize.

  I sank back into my thoughts at the window until Papa returned, his hair brushed back, wearing a fresh pair of clothes. A bruise that had previously been hidden by grime circled his right eye.

  “Thank you, Reeves,” Papa said as he sat at the table. “This smells like a feast.”

  Reeves faded into the background, leaving us in privacy. Papa’s chocolate eyes looked almost hazel in the bright morning light. I hardly recognized him for the weary fatigue in his movements. Keeping him closest to the warm fire, I sat in the chair next to him and picked half-heartedly at a piece of cheese.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you more, B,” he said, leaning back once he’d eaten everything on the platter, including the broth. “I know how worried you’ve been. Stella keeps me updated.”

  “It’s all right, Papa,” I said with a quiet smile. “I understand. Sounds like you have the Southern Network under control for now.”

  “A little bit.” His eyes narrowed in thought. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, then shook his head. “It’s the West Guards that have me worried.”

  “Think they’ll try to come after Chatham Castle?”

  “They’d be fools not to.”

  My heart pounded faster. Being at war was bad enough. It tilted the world upside down and disoriented any sense of what was real and what wasn’t. But at least the fighting remained far removed from Chatham.

  For now.

  “We’ve learned a lot,” Papa said, as if weighing the pros and cons. “That’ll help us plan in the future.”

  “Oh?” I inquired with a lifted eyebrow.

  He gave a weak, rueful smile and stacked his hands behind his head. “Nothing you’d be interested in, B.”

  His dismissal split a chasm in my heart. I wanted to beg him to tell me, to include me in his life and plans again, but refrained. Putting it into words made it seem too real. I’d lost Papa to his career and this war, and I missed him desperately. But asking him to remember me while he tried to save the Central Network felt selfish. I could only hope we’d have time to be a family again after it ended, that he wouldn’t be taken from me.

  “So now what?” I asked, brushing aside my thoughts. “We just keep fighting?”

  “Until we can find Angelina, or until I can kill Dane, we do the best we can to keep them from invading further into our land. The first flurry of attacks is over. It’s all stealth and maintenance at this point. On which, thanks to the Brotherhood, we have an advantage over the West Guards. They’re talented, with brute strength on their side—”

  “Not to mention Almorran magic.”

  “That too,” he said. “But they don’t possess an organized, dedicated force like the Protectors. And we started to prepare last summer, so our supplies will last for some time. At least until I get rid of Dane.”

  The ice in his voice sent a shiver through me. Until I get rid of Dane. I recalled Dane’s broad strength and fury, standing on top of the Southern Network wall before
the invasion. Papa straightened.

  “I need to go to my office for a few hours to settle some issues. Thanks for eating with me, B.”

  “Already? I’ve only seen you for fifteen minutes.”

  “It’ll only be for a few hours,” he said, grabbing my arm and tucking me into his side with a kiss on top of my head. “I’ll come back before you go to bed, I promise.”

  I squeezed him, but felt like a little girl losing her father all over again. Moments later, he stood, tugged affectionately on my hair, and disappeared in the whisper of a transportation spell as if he’d never been there. I stared at the wall with tears in my eyes.

  “I miss you, Papa,” I whispered, and the empty room returned my lonely echo.

  “I wish I could say something to make this all better,” Camille whispered, tears in her eyes. “Death is so awful.”

  Leda, Camille, Priscilla, and I stood in a semi-circle behind Michelle and Nicolas. None of us had said much since Michelle burst into the Witchery the day before, sobbing into her hands to announce the death of her older brother, Rian. The cold, branching network of Letum Wood stretched over our heads, hiding the blustery spring sky far above. A few tufts of snow still lived here, far from the reach of the warming spring sun.

  “You can’t make this better,” I said.

  “I know,” Camille whispered, tears in her eyes. “That’s the worst part of all.”

  Priscilla said nothing, but stared at the empty hole with a haunted expression. Michelle hovered close to her family, keeping her hand folded safely in Nicolas’s. Even though she held onto him, she constantly checked to make sure he still stood next to her. He would smile, squeeze her hand, give her a reassuring nod. She seemed to draw strength from him and would take a breath and steel herself for the next interminable minute.

  Rian lay in a fresh casket stacked on two piles of stones. A fresh hole in the soggy earth awaited him, dug by Michelle’s oldest brother Ted and youngest brother Mace, while her ill father watched with blank eyes. A mournful voice chanted a blessing of farewell that stretched over the hallowed cemetery, kept safe by a protective incantation that not even the West Guards would break. They were monsters, but honorable monsters. Unlike the South Guards, who left their dead where they lay, the West Guards returned to claim them all. Papa, a witch of honor himself, allowed it in exchange for our own.

  “So many,” Leda whispered, looking around. “I didn’t … I never realized how many.”

  “This is so few of them, too.”

  We were not the only witches burying a lost friend. Many families moved by like ghosts in the background. Mounds of dirt, new caskets, and fresh headstones littered the cemetery. The clear air meant that Papa had stopped the fires that had clogged the sky, holding the Southern Network back while the Southern Covens’ residents escaped to safety. I felt uneasy, as if war could travel on the wind.

  “It’s done, Father,” Ted said, sticking his spade into the mound of earth.

  Michelle’s family stared ahead, eyes blank, mouths pulled into frowns, as if they operated from one mind. They all wore torn clothes and had dirt under their fingernails from volunteering to help build shelters in which the Apothecaries could do surgery. Michelle was the only one who expressed any real sense of grief.

  “Let’s send him home,” Michelle’s father said, speaking so low I barely understood him. “Then he can be with Mother again.”

  The four living brothers stepped forward as one. Michelle lingered behind, swaying until Nicolas put an arm around her shoulders to steady her. Tears rose in her small eyes but didn’t fall. I doubted she’d release them in front of her family. They used three ropes to lower the casket into the ground. Once the casket settled on the bottom, they dropped in a handful of petals mixed with dirt. Her father struggled forward at the very last. He grabbed a handful of moist black earth, hesitated, and let it fall.

  “Go on to greater adventures, son.”

  He turned and walked away without another word. No one stopped him, and no one followed.

  Two of the groundskeepers lurked in the background, ready to fill in the hole. In an instant my mind leapt back to Mama’s funeral. The site of her grave. The flowers. The gnawing hollowness inside my body. It all happened so fast that for a moment I couldn’t tell if it was real or not. Had Mama just died? A familiar rush of power born from grief darted through my chest, nearly seizing control of my whole body. I froze. Papa’s face flashed through my mind with the lightest whisper from my nightmares.

  You shall lose many more, Bianca Monroe, unless you let my daughter go.

  Never, I replied with determination, feeling a surge of rage. We’ll never bow to your demands.

  We shall see.

  Her voice drifted away on a damp spring breeze. I remained behind, stuck in a pulse of rage and magic so strong it took my breath away. Leda glanced at me in confusion, no doubt detecting something without even realizing it.

  Never, I promised again.

  Your War

  The glistening white walls of Magnolia Castle glowed when Marten and I walked up its stairs the next day.

  “Figure out what he’s going to do,” Papa had instructed us just before transporting back to the Letum Wood Covens. “The Mansfeld Pact is over. He doesn’t have to fear an alliance anymore.”

  Papa had woken up at five that morning, after returning just after two, and the fatigue showed in his eyes. I had stopped trying to wait up for him, and instead listened to him shuffle around his room from the privacy of my own bed.

  The fighting in the Southern Covens had fallen into a lull in an early spring blizzard. Both sides retreated to gather their strength. Zane told Stella that Tiberius prowled around like a panther, yelling at the Southern Network, cursing their children’s children, and waving a fist. He refused to leave, even though Zane had tried everything short of force. The West Guards continued their brutal attacks, but our witches were more prepared, and their effectiveness decreased.

  “You may be tempted to share your own opinion in this meeting, but I don’t want you to say a word,” Marten said. Like Papa, new lines of stress had popped up on his face, and he seemed old and tired.

  “I won’t,” I said just before we transported. “I have no desire to speak with Diego.”

  Marten had responded with a strained smile. Getting a second audience with Diego after the attack hadn’t been easy. And not just because Marten and I were busy trying to hold off the anarchy of Factios attacks in Chatham City—Diego didn’t want anything to do with anyone. Whether he was nursing his wounded pride or just scared no one could decide.

  Ariana steered us to the Sword Room without a word. The air had warmed, and a salty breeze drifted through the room. If I hadn’t seen so many dead Guardians, the beauty of this Network could have almost convinced me that no war or tragedy raged outside it.

  Diego stood when we walked into the Sword Room. I glanced discreetly around, seeing no one except servants, and wondered where Niko was and what he thought of the war. I’d secretly hoped that Isobel would be with Diego and felt disappointed when her beautiful brown eyes weren’t waiting for us.

  “Marten, Bianca, good to see you again,” Diego said.

  His succinct greeting was a far cry from the warm welcome that he had received us with a month before. Marten responded with a nod of diplomatic indifference. Neither made a move to sit down.

  “I think neither of us have time to waste, least of all you,” Marten began, “so let’s get right to the point. What are you going to do now that war has begun?”

  And we were right, I wanted to add.

  Diego leaned onto his fists on the desk, met Marten straight in the eye, and said, “You aren’t going to like what I have to say, Marten.”

  I tensed, but Marten didn’t.

  “The Eastern Network is not as strong as the Central Network on land,” Diego said. “We are a sea people and sea fighters. Our population isn’t so vast as yours either. To assist you in your war
would run contrary to the best interests of my witches. We are fishermen and artists, not warriors. We will not fight.”

  “I see,” Marten said when Diego stopped. “And if the Central Network doesn’t win against the power of the Western Network and the Southern Network?”

  “You will.”

  I clenched my fists, wanting to ask Diego if he’d lost his mind. Stubborn, foolish witch! He hoped that the Central Network would deal with the war so he didn’t have to. He wanted our witches to die so they could live.

  “If the worst should happen, and the Southern Network attacks your land?” Marten asked.

  “They won’t get through my defenses,” Diego said. “I am not worried. The Southern Network cannot use magic because they broke the Pact. They would have to invade on foot, and the passable parts of the border between us are very small.”

  “Clavas don’t travel by foot and neither do West Guards,” Marten said in a cold tone. Diego stared at him as if deciding whether or not he should respond.

  “Have Clavas attacked you during this war?”

  “Not yet. But the West Guards have transported in and killed our innocent witches.”

  “Perhaps the West Guards could transport here,” Diego agreed in an offhand way. “But the West Guards will be busy dealing with Derek, will they not? He is the greatest threat in Antebellum. Not the Eastern Network. We sit here quietly, minding our own business. The West will not care about us.”

  “The Southern and Western Networks have ports,” Marten said. “They may not limit themselves to a land attack. Only a fool would underestimate them right now.”

  Diego scoffed. “Our ports are secure. Let them try to attack us. The Southern Network fairs no better than mortals now, and the West cannot defeat us on the sea.”

  “The West is strong. They’ve started to support the South now that the Pact is broken and a little time has passed. Dane could have sent ships out months ago. They may be ready to attack, and you don’t even know it.”

  Diego paused for a moment. I held my breath. “Then let Dane come.” He slammed a fist onto the table. “We will be ready.”