by Barb Hendee
“You’re one of Prince Anton’s men?” he asked immediately.
“Yes, my lord.”
“And what message does he send to me? My son is ill and my lady is distraught, so my time is limited.”
“The message is to be conveyed in private.”
Malcolm looked distracted and harried—and who wouldn’t be with his crops failing?—but his eyes narrowed in interest and he pointed to an alcove in the bottom of the nearest tower. “In there.”
Jaromir followed him into the alcove, and as soon as they were alone, he reached down the front of his shirt. He had to make a quick decision regarding which letter to produce. One was a false note explaining that Anton would be visiting the area soon to meet with some merchants here, and that he hoped to stay here at the castle. He also requested the pending visit be kept a secret out of security concerns. This first letter made no mention of Malcolm’s current situation or of Céline and Amelie’s presence.
The second letter was an admission that Anton knew of Malcolm’s plight, along with an announcement that he’d sent help. Jaromir was to pass over the first letter if he deemed Malcolm to be dangerous.
In this moment, he had little to go on. This prince had brought about a man’s death during an interrogation, but many princes had done that. Now Malcolm seemed more concerned about his wife and son than anything else.
Grasping the second letter, Jaromir held it out.
Malcolm broke the seal, read the contents, and looked up in shock. “You brought two seers?”
“One sees the future and one sees the past. They have helped my lord three times now to solve seemingly unsolvable issues. When he heard of your plight, he sent them to you.”
“How did he find out?” Malcolm asked in alarm. “I haven’t sent word to anyone yet. I would rather resolve this without it becoming common knowledge.”
That was understandable, but in truth, Jaromir still had no idea how Helga had learned of the situation here.
“No one in power knows except for my lord,” he assured him, “and as I mentioned, he has two seers in his service. He only wishes to offer you assistance.”
Somewhat relieved by this news, Malcolm sighed. “It was one of those Móndyalítko down in the meadow. I’ve been providing them with water and firewood, but once their food runs out, someone will talk. While I appreciate Anton’s offer, I can resolve this.”
“What if it wasn’t one of the Móndyalítko?” Jaromir asked.
“Who else could it be?”
“Anyone. Anyone with a grudge against you and the ability to either cast or hire someone to cast a curse. Do you have no enemies at all?”
Malcolm stared at Jaromir as if this had never even occurred to him. Perhaps he was none too intelligent.
“Today, the seers are reading anyone in the meadow who will volunteer,” Jaromir added, “and there is no telling what they might learn. May I bring them up this evening to give you a report?”
Malcolm appeared intrigued by this idea, but he said, “I don’t know how much time I’ll have. As I said, my son is ill.”
“One of the seers is Prince Anton’s personal healer. She’s an apothecary, and she would be honored to look at your son.”
“Prince Anton’s healer?” Malcolm breathed out through his mouth. “All right. Yes, bring them both before dark.”
“You’ll need to send a few guards down for us. They are both pretending to be part of the group down there to win trust and cooperation. So am I.” He motioned to his tabard. “I have other clothing.”
If Malcolm found this odd, he didn’t show it. “I’ll send two men at dusk.”
With a nod, Jaromir turned away.
He had set things in motion. If there was someone up here on castle grounds responsible for placing the curse, Céline and Amelie would find out.
* * *
Amelie spent the morning sitting at the small stationary table in the blue wagon as one person after another came in to be read. Helga was outside, helping to manage things, and she decided who would come in to see Amelie and who would go and see Céline.
This experience was different from readings Amelie had done in the past. For one, she didn’t have to convince anyone that she wasn’t a charlatan. She had nothing to prove. No one expected her to put on any kind of “show” or play the mystic seer.
The Móndyalítko people simply came in, bowed to her politely, and then grasped her hand. She’d close her eyes and latch onto their spirits and see images from their past.
By late morning, she’d seen nothing to give her any indication that anyone was responsible for placing the curse, but she hadn’t expected to find something of that nature. These people wanted their names cleared, and they believed in her ability to place them beyond suspicion.
Still, the scenes she did see only served to make her feel more lost in this world. Most of the images were of laughter and travel and lively performances. She was coming to envy such a life of movement and freedom and lack of responsibility beyond survival, companionship, and enjoyment.
However, there were some difficult moments.
She saw one memory of a young woman sitting with a dying father while her brother ran to a nearby town for a healer, and when the brother returned, he wept as he related that no one could come to help a group of vagabonds.
The Móndyalítko faced hardships, too.
Freedom had a price.
She’d never done so many readings in a row and was beginning to grow tired when Helga appeared in the door.
“I’ll need a rest soon,” Amelie said.
“I thought as much,” Helga answered. “Can you do one more? Then you should quit for the day.”
“Yes.”
The thought of quitting for the day was a relief.
“Now, you get in there and do as your father says!” Helga ordered someone as she moved to stand aside.
A girl of perhaps eighteen came slowly through the open door.
Amelie remembered seeing her upon their arrival, and of Alondra mentioning her later, and then seeing her dance last night. She was the daughter of Rupert, who had welcomed them, and she was the wife of the man who’d been killed under interrogation.
She seemed to both sway and glide at the same time. She was small and slender with black silky hair hanging down her back. Her skin was pale, and her large eyes were black. Her mouth was heart-shaped and tinted red. She wore a deep burgundy skirt with a white blouse so low-cut it exposed a good deal of the tops of her perfectly rounded breasts. Her ears were adorned with several silver rings.
“You’re Lilah?” Amelie asked. “Your husband is the one who was killed. I am sorry.”
Not far through the door, Lilah stopped. Her expression was petulant, and she ignored the condolence.
Instead, she looked Amelie up and down, and whatever she saw didn’t please her. “I suppose you think you’re making yourself stand out, cutting your hair like that,” she said. “But most men won’t like it. They like long hair.”
Amelie couldn’t help being startled by the young woman’s manner.
“I never gave it much thought at all,” Amelie answered. “Why don’t you sit down so we can finish this?”
Lilah’s petulance only grew. “I don’t need to be read. My father is the leader of the line of Renéive, and we are above such things as this petty curse. I won’t forgive him for forcing me to submit to this like some common Klempá.”
Amelie hadn’t noticed any bigotry among these people themselves, but Lilah appeared to view herself as far above some of the other families.
“Do you want to leave?” Amelie asked. At this point, she’d rather the girl did walk out.
With a roll of her eyes and a huffing sound, Lilah sat in the chair across the table and assessed Amelie again. “You do think you’re awfully pretty, don’t you? Well, I wouldn’t try
stealing any of the men here or you’ll find your high-blown status won’t save you. There are other women as pretty as you, and they fight for what’s theirs.”
Oh, for goodness’ sake. Lilah might be a startling beauty, but she was proving to be one of the most unpleasant people Amelie had met in some time.
“Give me your hand,” Amelie said, reaching out.
Grasping Lilah’s fingers, Amelie closed her eyes and focused on the spark of Lilah’s spirit and then upon the source of the curse. She’d become more adept at focusing her powers of late. If Lilah had anything to do with the devastation of the crops, the mists would show those images.
The first jolt hit her almost instantly, and Amelie braced herself.
When the second jolt hit, she experienced a familiar sensation, as if her body was being swept along a tunnel of mist. For a moment she forgot everything but speeding backward through the mists all around her as they swirled in tones of grays and whites.
Her ability worked slightly differently from Céline’s in several ways. While Céline could only see someone else’s future as an observer, if Amelie wished, she could bond with her target and see the past through his or her eyes. In these cases, the people Amelie read could be just as conscious as she was of the scenes being replayed, and afterward they were aware of exactly what she’d seen. The people Céline read never had any idea what she was seeing. The two sisters had discussed these differences, and Céline guessed they might be because the past was set in stone, and the future could still be changed—that she was just seeing one possible line unless something was done to alter it.
This time, Amelie did not bond with Lilah. She wished to be only an observer. When the reading was over, Lilah would have no idea what images from the past Amelie might have seen.
The mists vanished.
Amelie found herself standing in a lush orchard of trees laden with apple blossoms. The sun shone overhead. But she had no time to notice much of her surroundings because of the shocking sight directly in front of her . . . along with the sounds.
A tall, naked man was pumping away on a slender, dark-haired girl beneath himself: Lilah. The man’s pale backside moved up and down rapidly as he breathed loudly in wild abandon.
Lilah alternately moaned and gasped and cried, “Oh, my lord, faster!”
Amelie looked away, beyond embarrassed even though she wasn’t truly here and neither of them would be aware of her presence.
Their mutual sounds grew even louder, and then the man gave a great cry. After a moment, Amelie dared to glance back to see him lying beside Lilah while stroking her face. He was a large man with broad shoulders and silver hair.
“My love,” he whispered.
“My prince,” she murmured. “Malcolm.”
Inside the vision, Amelie froze. Lilah was cavorting with Prince Malcolm?
“I would make you my own,” he said into her ear. Then he reached for his pants and partially dressed himself.
She ignored her clothes but stood up, letting him see her body in the sunlight.
As lovely as she was in her skirt and low-cut blouse, her naked body was unbelievably beautiful, with flawless skin, small curving hips, and plump, high-set breasts. She stretched her arms over her head as he drank in the sight of her.
“Is that not our plan?” she said sweetly. “For you to make me your own?”
Reaching out, he ran his hand up her leg to her hip. “Yes, my love. But even if I free myself of my wife, you still have a husband.”
“That can be solved.” She knelt before him, leaning over to brush her lips against his chest. “And you will marry me?”
“Of course I would. With all my heart.”
At that point, Amelie looked all around herself. As far as she could see, the land was lush, showing a wealth of colors in greens and white blossoms and ripening strawberries. Though Amelie knew herself to be somewhat naive in the ways of men and women, she was knowledgeable enough to know that whatever Prince Malcolm said in the moment, it was all pillow talk. Men of his station did not put aside their noble ladies to marry a Móndyalítko mistress.
Lilah began moving her mouth lower, passing it over his stomach . . .
To Amelie’s great relief, the image vanished, and she felt herself swept forward on the mists, but only for a moment.
When the mists cleared, she found herself standing near a fir tree at the edge of the meadow.
The landscape had changed, and the orchards and berry fields were dead. The first image she’d seen had taken place before the curse. This one had taken place after.
Lilah pressed her back against the tree and ran her hands down her sides. She was fully dressed now, but her blouse was pulled down even lower than normal, and half her breasts were exposed. She faced a guard in an orange tabard who had joined her just inside the tree line, so they were out of sight of anyone in the encampment.
The guard’s head was shaved, and he bore a prominent scar from the center of his forehead to his right temple.
“Why do you put me off?” he asked. “No one will know, and I can tell you want me.”
“Ayden,” she said softly. “I do want you, but I’ll know. I’m married. No matter how badly he treats me, I am his wife.”
“He mistreats you?”
“Yes, but that isn’t the worst.” She drew a ragged breath. “The day before the curse . . . I saw him in the apple orchard, chanting, with his arms in the air.”
“What?” Ayden’s eyes shifted back and forth as he stepped closer. “You saw this yourself.”
She nodded. “I swear.”
“Then I can have him arrested and questioned.”
Reaching out, she touched his chest. “Will you take part in the questioning?”
His body went still. “I can,” he whispered.
“All sorts of bad things could happen during a questioning, couldn’t they?”
This time, he nodded.
With a promising smile, she turned and slipped away from him, running back into the encampment.
The image vanished and the mists closed in.
Amelie was reeling from what she’d just seen, but she was pulled forward for only a moment again when the mists cleared and she found herself in a well-furnished room with stone walls.
To her chagrin, she was once again forced to endure the sight of Prince Malcolm on top of Lilah, as they both gasped and grunted away.
This time, they were on a bed.
Thankfully, Amelie had arrived at the very end of the amorous portion of the encounter, and after a loud cry from Malcolm, he fell to one side, holding her with his right arm.
“My love,” he whispered as he’d done in the previous image.
“I must say,” she giggled. “It’s quite a pleasure to be arrested by you. I do hope you arrest me again soon.”
Amelie felt slightly sick to her stomach as she remembered Alondra relating that Lilah had been taken up to the castle twice for questioning and returned unharmed both times.
“You are a most pleasing prisoner,” he returned, smiling. Then his face grew more serious. “I am sorry about your husband. I only wanted to know the truth. I would never have killed him. My man, Ayden, was overzealous. He should not have put on that gauntlet. Now I don’t even know if we’ve caught the true culprit.”
“I doubt it was Gallius who cast the curse,” Lilah said. “Even if he was involved somehow, he wasn’t Móndyalítko.”
“He wasn’t?”
“No, he was a merchant’s son who fell in love with me. Where would he learn such a powerful spell? But you’ll catch whoever is responsible. I know you will, and the land will be profitable once more. You’ll not lose your fortune.”
He kissed her mouth. “So you are not too distraught about Gallius’s death?”
“He was cruel, and my father insisted on the m
arriage. You did me a service, and now I am free to love you.”
His guilt appeared to be assuaged. “A service? I saved you?”
“Yes,” she murmured. “You saved me. Touch me again. I love to feel your hands on my skin.”
The scene vanished.
Amelie hoped the images would end after this one. Her mind was racing. But when the mists cleared, she found herself standing near the front end of a Renéive wagon in the encampment.
Lilah came around one side, and Ayden suddenly appeared from the trees.
They were alone, and he caught her arm.
“What do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded. “You haven’t come to see me once.”
“And why would I come to see you?” she returned.
Astonished, he let go of her. “You asked me to kill your husband, and I did so we could be together. What is the matter with you?”
“I never did any such thing, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll never speak of it again.” She tilted her head. “I’m with Prince Malcolm now, and he’s in love with me, so you should watch your step.”
Ayden’s face went nearly as pale as his scar. “You’re with Prince . . .” He stepped away, and his eyes narrowed. “And what if I tell him it was you who first brought Gallius to my attention?”
She looked him up and down scornfully. “What did you tell him in the first place? That it was you who spotted Gallius in the orchard with his arms in the air? Is that why the prince let you conduct the interrogation? How do you think he’ll react when you change your story? If you breathe a word of my name, I’ll say you’re lying. I’ll tell him you’ve been bothering me, putting your hands on me. I might even let on that you killed Gallius on purpose because you’ve lost your head over me. Who do you think he’ll believe?”
Ayden’s breaths quickened as he listened.
“You won’t say a word,” she whispered slowly. “Because if you do, you’ll be the one who suffers and not me. Now get out of my way.”
The mists closed in.
Amelie felt herself being rushed forward, and as the mists cleared again, she was sitting at the table in the blue wagon with Lilah watching her carefully.
